[X4U] "Backwards Compatibility"

[Eugene]

On Sat, Jun 21, 2008 at 12:47:54PM CDT, Zane H. Healy <healyzh at aracnet.com> wrote:
>
> 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.

Display PostScript doesn't do transparency so well, take advantage of
GPU hardware, have good color management, use internal compression,
deal with font independence so well.  But DPS does have that annoying
licensing thing with Adobe.

> 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. :^)

68k: end-of-line hardware.

SPARC: mainframes.

PA-RISC: more obscure mainframes.

x86: gone because Apple was supporting PowerPC, but secretly being
supported with every version of Mac OS X "just in case".

> 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.

BeOS was just an OS, nothing more (well, there was the BeBox, but that's
goen the way of the dodo).  NeXT was an OS, a programming environment, a
hardware platform, and a mature (but small) customer base.


-- 
Eugene
http://www.coxar.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/