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Mac OS has powered nearly all Macintosh computers since the Mac's debut in 1984.
  technofile
Al Fasoldt's reviews and commentaries, continuously available online since 1983

Mac OS, first modern operating system, is officially 'retired'


June 2, 2002


By Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2002, Al Fasoldt
Copyright © 2002, The Post-Standard

   Mac OS, rest in peace.
   Apple has officially retired the operating system that brought modern computing to the world in 1984. The company announced on May 6 that it's dropping all new program development for Mac OS, the computer system software for older Macintoshes, and won't add any new features to it. Apple is switching all its development efforts to the company's replacement operating system, the Unix-based OS X.
   The estimated 25 million users of Mac OS won't be neglected -- they'll still get support from Apple and from companies that make software, such as Microsoft Office, that runs under Mac OS -- but they'll find it harder in the next few years to find some types of Mac OS programs. Shareware and freeware software won't suffer, but commercial software for Apple computers will gradually shift from the old operating system to OS X.
   Mac OS has powered nearly all Macintosh computers since the Mac's debut in 1984. Apple improved Mac OS many times, but time ran out on the old system. It can't compete with more modern operating systems in memory handling and in the ability to run many major programs at the same time, a feat called multitasking.
   OS X, the official successor, excels in both areas while still maintaining the ease of use that made the old operating system so attractive.
   Mac OS was not the first computer operating system to provide a mouse-and-windows interface -- the operating system in the expensive and seldom-remembered Xerox Star took that honor in 1981 -- but it was the first "WIMP" (Windows, Icons, Mouse, Pointer) system ordinary consumers could buy.
   The original Mac changed the way consumers thought about computers. Until the Macintosh with its cutesy Mac OS came along, nearly all computers were ugly beige boxes with hard-to-read screens and even harder-to-use commands that had to be entered by typing something on the keyboard.
   It's a tribute to Apple's original design that its 1984 operating system has lasted so long and fared so well. The graphics industry still relies on Mac OS computers almost exclusively, and thousands of schools around the country still give children their first formal introduction to computing on Apple computers running Mac OS. Trendy notebook computers (the iBook and Titanium Power Book, both from Apple) run Mac OS in airports, on planes, on commuter trains and in offices and schools worldwide. They are widely respected for their four main virtues -- reliability, ease of use, computing power and attractive design.
   But the virtues that could have made Apple's Macintosh the dominant computer system in the late '80s and early '90s never materialized. In some ways, the fault is Apple's. In the period before Microsoft's Windows took over from the command-line world of MS-DOS, Apple company made no effort to convince businesses that the Mac would be ideal for such office tasks as word processing and data crunching. This left a vacuum that Microsoft soon filled with its inferior windowing system.
   Apple made another major mistake by failing to share its design with other computer makers, limiting the market severely. One of the reasons the IBM PC was successful was its open design; any company could make an IBM PC clone, and the resulting competition among PC clone makers forced down the price of all PCs while raising performance. But only Apple could make a Mac, and not even a short-lived experiment with licensed Mac clones could make Apple competitive enough.
   But this sort of interpretation misses an important point. Apple has indeed been fantastically successful. Mac OS and the Macintosh computer itself represent two of the finest achievements in American technology. Apple continues to lead the computer industry in style and design, both in hardware -- as anyone can see from the company's current table-lamp-look-alike iMac computer -- and in software, as is obvious in the stunningly modern OS X system software.
   Apple is successful in another way, too. Although Apple isn't the biggest or wealthiest manufacturer of computers and software, it's without question the most respected.
   When Apple introduces new products, people line up at stores to see them -- something unheard of in introductions from PC manufacturers. When Apple takes a stand on an important subject, as it did recently when it criticized copy protection of audio CDs, consumers and corporate CEOs alike pay close attention.
   And when Apple falters, everyone expects it to stand up and keep on going. Life without Apple is unthinkable in corporate and consumer America. The same could be said about only a few other companies in the computer field -- Microsoft, surely, and probably Sun Microsystems. Other computer and software makers could disappear overnight without more than a notice on the evening news and a stir on the New York Stock Exchange.
   Something else matters, too. The passing of Apple's old operating system gives Apple and its users a new kind of identity. By adopting Unix, the powerful software that built the Internet, Apple is no longer going its own way. Improvements in other versions of Unix will be reflected in Apple's OS X, and the opposite is sure to happen, also; Unix is not a single system but a family of operating systems, all related in close or distant ways, and many of those versions share common programs and methods.
   Apple's users won't have to go their own way, either. They'll be able to get help from books and classes on Unix (or on Linux, its cousin) and they'll start appreciating the vast stability of similar operating systems. They'll have a lot of company on the good ship Unix.
   On a lesser note, Apple users might even learn to pronounce the word "GIF" properly. Mac users traditionally pronounce the word "GIF," a common image format, as if it were the first three letters of the word "gift," while the rest of the world says "jif." But the pronunciation of "GIF" is silly putty compared to the damage Mac users universally cause to the history of personal computing. Despite the fact that most PCs are not made by IBM any more, Mac enthusiasts insist on calling any non-Mac an "IBM," as in "She tried to send me some e-mail on her IBM."
   Such silliness is sure to wane when Apple's faithful are running an operating system that might someday run on PCs, too. Apple's OS X, designed originally for Apple's own non-PC computers, should have no trouble running on PCs once Apple approves the idea and allows its software engineers to get to work on a "port" to PC hardware.
   But this is not something Apple is likely to do unless it chooses to challenge Microsoft directly. Microsoft's monopolization of PC operating systems has discouraged most rivals from developing competing systems, but Apple is big enough to take on Microsoft any time it wants to. And Apple has an advantage no other company could have, should it choose to produce a direct competitor for Windows: It would start out as the underdog that everyone would choose if they felt they had a real choice. Apple's only task in such a titanic battle would be to convince such potential customers that they did, indeed, have a choice.
   In fact, that's precisely what Apple is facing already. Now that the old operating system is retired, Apple is able to advertise OS X as a modern alternative to Microsoft's trouble-prone Windows operating system. Apple can't yet position OS X as a PC operating system (as software that Windows users can install in place of Windows), but it can offer OS X and the programs that run under it as modern, safe, virus-free equivalents of the worrisome programs that run under Windows.