DOS
Lisa
CPM
Windows 3.1
Classic
7.6.1
Windows 95
Windows 2000
OS/2
System 8
System 8, 8.5 has some problems
third party hard drives
clone computers
8.5 will not quit
wait...end of January
System X
Rhapsody
Carbon
|
DOS |
|
|
Lisa |
CPM |
Windows 3.1 |
|
|
Classic |
7.6.1 |
Windows 95 |
Windows 2000 |
OS/2 |
System 8 |
|
System 8, 8.5 has some problems |
|
third party hard drives |
|
clone computers |
|
8.5 will not quit |
|
wait...end of January |
System X |
|
Rhapsody |
|
Carbon |
FTLComm - Tisdale - December 2, 1998
For those of you who are readers of Ensign and users of Macintosh computers
this article is intended to help you with the ever changing world of operating systems.
If you are a PC user you might find this article informative because unlike
Microsoft which updates its operating system only every three years the Mac
system changes at least every six months and has done since 1986. This ever changing
and progressive movement taxes the user, but it also guarantees continued development
and one of the direct results is that Mac users tend to keep their software
more up-to-date then do PC users, if they upgrade their system they often
have no choice.
The basic system that allows you to use a computer is the operating system.
For the early computer user there was only one interface and that was DOS
(Disk Operating System) which meant that they user had to use the directory of the
floppy or later, the hard drive in order to find the application he or she was about
to use and the document on which they were going to work. Apple changed all
of that in 1980 when it began serious work on a graphics system of interfacing with
the computer. They borrowed the concept from Xerox who had been working on
an advanced system for some years but had no plans to market their method of using
their own equipment in the Palo Alto PARC experimental operation. What came
out of that was the Lisa operating system.
Lisa was a complex $10,000 computer system that used a 32 bit processor made
by Motorola and it was from it that Apple developed the Macintosh.
However, even before the Mac Apple introduced the "mouse"
and a simple graphics interface for the Apple //e machines then based the
Apple //gs on this same concept. When the Macintosh came along the operating
system was well established and had been tested and used for over three years. Since
then Macintosh users only used "windows" there was no other
means of communicating with their computer because it started up with the graphics
interface and that simply was that.
Early business computers were based on Christianson's simple DOS command
structure in its earliest form we consumers knew as CPM. Microsoft purchased
this operating system, its owner Bill Gates who had indeed worked on similar
less efficient systems claimed to be its creator and then every business computer
came with it and a bit of money from every machine went into Bill Gate's pocket.
DOS was nasty and required high input from the user to know how to get the
computer to work. Gates tried to get Apple to license the Apple
operating system but they would not make a deal so Microsoft set to work creating
its copy which went through several evolutions before it finally was fit to market
as Windows 3.1 which was a workable system though extremely primitive Windows
95 was hammered together based on 3.1 and gained a good deal of acceptance
though few computer users adopted it, instead it only gained a market share because
it came on new machines so when people upgraded they got what came with the machine.
In the Apple Macintosh world, the situation was vastly different. The history
and legacy of only working in a graphics environment meant that they operating system
was remarkably solid and increasing in its capabilities. To compare the two would
be to see Windows 95 as something similar in capability to the 1986 Macintosh
operating system with the one exception of it being in colour as the early mass marketed
Macs were black and white screened machines.
In the Macintosh world the most successful early operating system was 6.0.7
and its popularity was largely because it came on one of the most popular and widely
sold machines the little chunky black and white Classic which sold for $1,000.
But the big jump in capability came in 1991 with the widespread distribution of
System 7. System 7 was an operating system that allowed every computer
on a network to be a server thus facilitating network capability beyond most people's
imagination. It was however a major departure from early versions of the operating
system and before long the bugs began to emerge and 7.1 an upgrade to the
basic system solved most of the problems and is still widely used as it was the system
that came installed on the very popular LC 475 which was at its time the perfect
office workstation.
In the years that followed System 7 would be modified time after time with
7.5.5 being probably the most stable and durable and 7.6.1 being the
last of its series and the system high end for all 68000, 68020, 68030 and 68040
based Macintoshes. These were mature operating systems and will continue to
be used for the life of the computers of the early 90s. Each successive operating
system upgrade cleaned up the bugs that were found in earlier systems and advanced
new concepts were introduced each time an upgrade was produced.
Microsoft took a much different approach the 50,000 or so bugs in Windows
95 are all there and the user just needs to know that this or that operation
will result in an unpleasant crash. Windows 98 was introduced on time, three
years later with modifications and bug fixes for Windows 95 but because it
advanced the operating system it carries with it inherent problems. Microsoft
has stopped work on follow on software to this line of operating systems and devotes
all of its energy to fixing Windows NT. Windows NT (NT indicates network)
was designed to meet military standards and is essentially the Mac equivalent of
the Macintosh System 7 which appeared in 1991. However, NT has some
outstanding capabilities and it is appropriate that Microsoft drop development
on the consumer operating system and concentrate on NT to make it the only
operating system it will market. To show this switch in direction Windows NT has
been renamed Windows 2000 to indicate that it will replace 98 and NT.
The introduction of the IBM/Motorola designed RISC PowerPC processor
based Macintosh and IBM computers in the 94 meant that there needed
to be a change in operating systems. IBM had a handy dandy operating system
called OS/2 which could utilise the processor but Apple's operating
system struggled to get the speed that the PowerPC chip could produce. It
was not until the release of System 8 that a reasonable amount of the basic
command structure would run in the simpler and faster mode but this system was not
as stable as many would have liked and Apple's best operating system ever
was released making OS 8.1 the killer operating system. It was faster then
all earlier systems on the same hardware and had a load of excellent new features
that increased its ease of use. IBM's OS/2 though a very good system was choked
by Microsoft and the reluctance for developers to create applications that
would use both the simpler RISC processor and IBM's graphical user
interface.
This brings us to the present. If you have read this article closely you have noticed
that each time Apple introduces a new departure in its operating system as
in System 7 and System 8 they have almost immediately had to come out
with an update to fix the new bugs that are part of that system. Microsoft with
its extreme wealth can avoid and ignore this process, its software has the same accumulation
of errors but the upgrade process is set at three years and that simply is that.
OS 8.5 is at least 13% faster then System 8.1 which was more then 13%
faster then 8 but like System 8, 8.5 has some problems.
The problems are not so great a deterrent that an experienced Mac user would
not be able to handle but for schools and businesses with many people who only know
their applications and can not afford to spend time tinkering with the System
8.5 would be best avoided. Some of the know problems with 8.5 were built
into it from the very beginning by Apple so that we should not be surprised
that they are causing problems. 8.5 was designed to allow the user to reformat
the hard drive into a more efficient manner creating smaller minimum file sizes and
greater access speeds but by doing this third party hard drives and all of those
licensed clone computers we sold will have some problems. Interestingly enough this
same problem also applies to Apple's own PowerBook line which are themselves
different enough for the hard drive problem to appear. Were this the only problem
we would be laughing but with only a month since people began installing 8.5
some other little unpleasantness is surfacing. Many anomalies are related to design
approaches by Apple while others are simply those bugs that exist in programming
structures that result in unusual situations. For example 8.5 will not quit,
when you go to restart the computer it does nothing, or worse yet crashes in the
process. Users who moved to 8.5 to get the speed it presents are disappointed
because the stability they had in 8.1 is now a thing of the past. Some users
maintain that if you install 8.5 in what is called a "clean"
install and watch carefully the extensions you install it will be even more stable
then 8.1. However, for most people that will not be the case as they have
extensions and applications that they use or have used that linger on and the process
of tinkering it terribly time consuming.
| The bottom line for Mac users is wait, we expect a great clean up and fix up upgrade at the end of January and then would be a good time to install 8.5 with the new upgrade on top of it to fix the oddities. |