[X4U] "Backwards Compatibility"

[Zane H. Healy]

At 12:33 PM -0400 6/21/08, Neil wrote:
>On Jun 21, 2008, at 7:33 AM, Doug McNutt wrote:
>
>>At 22:24 -0500 6/20/08, Linda wrote:
>>>
>>>Doesn't "Universal Binary" mean that it's written for both PowerPC and iNtel
>>>platforms?
>>>
>>
>>There was a time when that meant usable on both 68k and power-PC.
>
>Aren't you talking about fat binaries?  I think Universal means both 
>PPC and Intel.

Ah, yes, the heady days of yore, before Mac OS X was called Mac OS X, 
when quad-fat binaries supported 68k, x86, Sparc, and PA-RISC, and 
the OS had a more elegant, and less CPU intensive GUI.

Oh, you mean back in the System 7.5.3 through Mac OS 9.2 days, don't you. :^)

Interesting how Apple has taken an OS that started out on the 68030, 
had x86, Sparc, and PA-RISC support added for V3.1, then supported 
all three through V4.2, at which point they removed 68k, Sparc and 
PA-RISC support to add in PPC support.  Now it's headed back towards 
where it was when it was initially released 20 years ago, and only 
supporting one family, this time Intel instead of 68k.  Let's not 
forget we're all running NeXTStep, not Mac OS. :^)

Is there a point to all of this, probably not, but you have to wonder 
what Mac OS X would look like had it been based on BeOS, rather than 
Mac OS X.

Zane



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| Zane H. Healy                    | UNIX Systems Administrator |
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