Sometimes Apple and Microsoft aren’t that far apart…
…when it comes to behavior, that is. Specifically, I’m referring to the behaviors that both companies exhibit to force customers to upgrade.
Whenever Microsoft comes out with a new operating system (hereafter called the OS), it forces retailers to stop selling its older products. That means that when your old operating system craters—and it’s Windows so it will—you have no choice but to buy the newer OS. In many cases, that also means you wind up buying hardware to upgrade your machine. Forced obsolescence is the name of the game.
Apple doesn’t follow that lead when it comes to software but does do the same thing when it comes to firmware. Firmware controls the booting and operating of your Mac, and Apple routinely changes the firmware in the Macs being built at any moment to match them up with the current Apple OS. That’s fine, but this is the reason why Macs often will not boot up on Apple operating systems older than they are.
Booting into an older OS is generally not a problem in the PC world. If I want to run DOS 6.2 on my Athlon XP 2800+, I can do it. I do run Windows 98SE in a dual boot configuration with Windows XP on my PC.
With a Mac, I can run OS 9.2 and OS X on the same machine (and I really like the way that works), but I cannot run an earlier version of OS 10 than the Mac was born with because the machine’s firmware will not permit it. I could see this if the feature sets of any particular Mac were so different that an older OS needed to be prevented from running, but this does not appear to be the case. For instance, the technologies in my 1 GHz G4 PowerBook are not radically different than those in my wife’s G3 700 iBook; yet, my PowerBook will not boot up on a Jaguar (OS 10.2) retail CD while my wife’s iBook will.
In a case like the iMac G5 where software is controlling the fan or some other feature of the model, I can understand changing the firmware to restrict booting to OS 10.3 or later. Of course, the Rev A PowerMac G5’s, which also use software to control the fans, boot into OS 10.2.7. That makes me wonder if an iMac G5 could run Jaguar as well.
Why would I want to? Because I have some software that wasn’t updated for Panther and because I simply like Jaguar’s look and feel more. The former is important from a functionality standpoint, the latter from a creative standpoint. Creativity is very important to me; and I’m going to do everything I can to nurture it. Panther and Tiger, for all their feature sets, have a darker tone I don’t find as inspiring. Even after I upgrade most of my machines to Tiger, I will have a copy of Jaguar sitting around, just to do creative writing on.
I finally ordered a 2 GHz dual processor G5 PowerMac, but I ordered a refurbished Revision A model, not only to save money but to ensure I got one that could boot into Jaguar. I also will be keeping my dual 1.25 GHz G4 PowerMac and loading up a hard disk with Jaguar and another either with Panther or Tiger, more than likely the latter. I’ll be doing my creative writing on my PowerMac using Jaguar while using my iMac G5 running Tiger to do my other writing and chores, including the work associated with maintaining this website.
It’s ridiculous I have to go to this much trouble just to be able to run 10.2.
Whenever Microsoft comes out with a new operating system (hereafter called the OS), it forces retailers to stop selling its older products. That means that when your old operating system craters—and it’s Windows so it will—you have no choice but to buy the newer OS. In many cases, that also means you wind up buying hardware to upgrade your machine. Forced obsolescence is the name of the game.
Apple doesn’t follow that lead when it comes to software but does do the same thing when it comes to firmware. Firmware controls the booting and operating of your Mac, and Apple routinely changes the firmware in the Macs being built at any moment to match them up with the current Apple OS. That’s fine, but this is the reason why Macs often will not boot up on Apple operating systems older than they are.
Booting into an older OS is generally not a problem in the PC world. If I want to run DOS 6.2 on my Athlon XP 2800+, I can do it. I do run Windows 98SE in a dual boot configuration with Windows XP on my PC.
With a Mac, I can run OS 9.2 and OS X on the same machine (and I really like the way that works), but I cannot run an earlier version of OS 10 than the Mac was born with because the machine’s firmware will not permit it. I could see this if the feature sets of any particular Mac were so different that an older OS needed to be prevented from running, but this does not appear to be the case. For instance, the technologies in my 1 GHz G4 PowerBook are not radically different than those in my wife’s G3 700 iBook; yet, my PowerBook will not boot up on a Jaguar (OS 10.2) retail CD while my wife’s iBook will.
In a case like the iMac G5 where software is controlling the fan or some other feature of the model, I can understand changing the firmware to restrict booting to OS 10.3 or later. Of course, the Rev A PowerMac G5’s, which also use software to control the fans, boot into OS 10.2.7. That makes me wonder if an iMac G5 could run Jaguar as well.
Why would I want to? Because I have some software that wasn’t updated for Panther and because I simply like Jaguar’s look and feel more. The former is important from a functionality standpoint, the latter from a creative standpoint. Creativity is very important to me; and I’m going to do everything I can to nurture it. Panther and Tiger, for all their feature sets, have a darker tone I don’t find as inspiring. Even after I upgrade most of my machines to Tiger, I will have a copy of Jaguar sitting around, just to do creative writing on.
I finally ordered a 2 GHz dual processor G5 PowerMac, but I ordered a refurbished Revision A model, not only to save money but to ensure I got one that could boot into Jaguar. I also will be keeping my dual 1.25 GHz G4 PowerMac and loading up a hard disk with Jaguar and another either with Panther or Tiger, more than likely the latter. I’ll be doing my creative writing on my PowerMac using Jaguar while using my iMac G5 running Tiger to do my other writing and chores, including the work associated with maintaining this website.
It’s ridiculous I have to go to this much trouble just to be able to run 10.2.
posted by Andy Foster at
3:14 PM
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