[G4] Gifted with a G4/500

[Eric Smith]

bill ritchey wrote:
...

> install 10 , best to leave out the classic 9 since its
> just an emulator and wont run many 9 apps.

That is not correct. The Classic environment runs PowerPC code
natively. The only emulation involved is running M68K code,
which is the same emulation you have under OS9 on PPC machines.

Classic runs most classic apps just fine. Some even run faster
than under OS9 due to better OS code performance. The problems
occur when a classic app is not well-behaved: either it wants
to take over the system hardware, or it expects not to give up
the CPU under classic OS cooperative multitasking.

I have used Classic mode for years under different versions of
OS X (until Leopard of course) with lots of classic apps and
have rarely experienced any problems at all. Recently I tried
an experiment: I tried running the 1986 versions of MacWrite
and MacPaint that came with my first Mac, a Mac Plus. MacPaint
actually worked under classic on Tiger; MacWrite didn't (I would
have guessed it would have been the reverse). It's a testament
to Apple's commitment to backward compatibility that a 22 year
old app can still run under the latest OS, and I'm really sorry
to see them drop this capability with Leopard.

Eric