Steve, I've been using Windows since Win98 along with my PowerPC with OS 9.1, and I'm always astounded by how simple and elegant the classic Mac OS was designed. Windows 98 was basically a 32-bit graphical environment "bolted" onto DOS, which was an improvement over Windows 3.1, a fancy window manager for DOS. All of this was supposed to be fixed with NT, 2000 and XP, which are written on the NT kernel, but all of those share the same inefficient code, extra files and the registry, a beast in itself. As I understand it, there is millions of lines of code written into Windows. You know over that much coding that something is going to conflict and cause problems. XP is by far my favorite Windows version despite these problems due to its improved stability and removal of DOS.
The classic Mac OS (System 7 to OS 9.2.2) on the other hand, is entirely written in the C programming language as a graphical computer operating system. The original Mac OS, up to System 6, believe it or not was written entirely in Assembler, or machine language. They were able to get the whole System Disk onto a floppy, and talk about FAST! Because lots of extra files aren't necessary, you can do things with it like upgrade to a new harddrive by simply connecting the 2nd harddrive, boot up, drag the currently mounted hard drive on your desktop to the new freshly formatted drive. It will copy everything. Then you go into the Control Panel to "bless" which system folder you want to boot up from, and reboot. Viola, your old hard drive is now on the new one, exactly as it was before, except now you have more room. Pull up Disk Utilities and reformat the old one (which is still mounted) and you have a nice storage disk ready to use. Software installation often involves nothing more than dragging a system icon or extension from the CD or floppy straight to the hard drive icon and maybe, possibly rebooting. Try doing that with Windows.....Not Gonna Happen. I'm a huge fan of the Classic Mac OS. I currently use 9.1. Mac OS X is a different animal, and in a good way. It is similar in thought process to what Windows 3.1 was....a GUI "shell" that tells the actual operating system what to do. The Mac OS desktop is a GUI environment or desktop manager that rides on top of the Darwin kernel, a UNIX clone. It could be compared to Linux or BSD running the GNOME desktop or KDE desktop, but it is much more intensively designed and streamlined with the hardware so that every thing is done in the GUI and you never have to go into the dreaded Terminal or Shell Console (this is a Mac after all) for any reason. In short: User Friendly. You can go into the terminal and type, but the Mac desktop is designed to be easy to use and take care of without resorting to that, unlike Linux or BSD where some things are just easier to do if you open a terminal in the GUI and pound out a few commands. The Apple website has a great section on OS X that explains everything, and Low End Mac covers everything Mac, OS's and all. By the way, don't refer to a Mac as a MAC. When you type MAC, people think you are referring to your Cable Modem's *MAC Address*. Nitpicky I know, but that's how it is. .....................................Mike T. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Fluxstringer" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "PCI PowerMacs" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, July 01, 2004 11:18 AM Subject: Re: [PCI] Move to OS 9 > > > >Can you back up your application programs on a zip or second SCSI? > > > >I'm a windows guy, and in Windows you have small files littered all > >over the system and windows folder, not to mention the registry. > >How does that work on the MAC? > > > >Steve > > > _____________________________ > > That's what mystifies Mac users when they look at Windozepain. How > do you ever find anything ? > And Mac OS for the most part uses readily identifiable names and suffixes. > > Yes Mac OS distributes some files but in usually predictable > destinations. A disk manager utility like FileDeamon is more helpful > than Sherlock > for searches. Installers may make logs telling you where things > where put. But usually the extensions folder and preferences are the > first places to look for the most important bits. > > And they disk formats work the same on both platforms. given > appropriate drivers. > -- > Adrian -- PCI-PowerMacs is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Refurbished Drives | -- Sonnet & PowerLogix Upgrades - start at $169 | & CDRWs on Sale! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> PCI-PowerMacs list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/pci-powermacs.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive:<http://www.mail-archive.com/pci-powermacs%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
