Macintosh Revolution - Macintosh Garden

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2012, December 3 - 4:02am

nil0bject

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Joined: 2012 Nov 14

Macintosh Revolution

Apple Computer no longer exists, and yet here we all are.
I don't agree with how Apple inc. is run and I've been more impressed with Cyberdog than I have been with any Mac OS X technology in the past few years. I remember Steve Jobs telling us the road to Mac OS XI would be a bumpy one and I acknowledge this, but I'm wondering if there were too many bumps and now they are on a different path.

This reminds me of Bungie and Halo. Originally there were grandiose plans for Halo to be a dynamic open world where there were no levels, no loading screens, npc's had 'lives' and 'traits' and could migrate through the world in herds. Most user interactions affected the world and it was reflected back to the user. This was possible due to the fact that they were coding this for the PowerPC and they would bypass loading the Mac OS. Basically it would be it's own OS. Just like booting from a floppy.
Then Microsoft and the XBox came along and we have what halo is today. Pretty, but a bit same-old. It's also why the XBox 360 uses powerpc architecture.

I have a few ideas to reinvigorate mac evangelism. Is anyone interested in discussing?

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2012, December 3 - 5:37pm

Temporary Joe

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A while back, there were discussions on creating a Classic Mac OS-compatible, modern, open-source OS called Nueve (later renamed MEAD as the focus changing to compatibility instead of an OS). Unfortunately, MEAD (to my knowledge) ended up little more than a few proposals, but it intrigued all of us for a time.

2012, December 4 - 3:57am

nil0bject

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Thanks tmp Joe,
I have a few ideas like that. I just don't believe anything in this realm will succeed without a dedicated community, who can contribute(code, assets, etc).
For instance:
1. Mac OS X classic compatibility layer
- This will do exactly what the Apple classic environment did.
- Run pre-OSX mac software on OSX
- Have multiple Systems installed on the host machine
- Set what system needs to boot to run a specific app
- ie. i have mac os 9.2.2 and system 6.0.7 installed on my host OSX machine(disk images, packages, whatever). some sort of configuration app would specify which classic apps ran in which environment. So i could choose to run Stunt Copter in either 6 or 9. I'm thinking some apps won't launch in 9 and vice versa.
- i'm thinking along the lines of how rvm handles different versions of ruby.
- yes, this would be a hell of a lot of work.

2. eWorld
- design an app and networking protocol for an eWorld clone.
- this has nothing to do with eWorld, except for the concept.
- a centralised hub for communications and data/information exchange
- hopefully it would support popular legacy protocols like hotline, carracho
- create versions of the app that will run on a mac classic or an iphone, lion, windows, linux, etc
- i thought this might make my old macs useful again. all they need is a new app that is useful and online for today and the future.

3. Remakes
- remake everything!

2012, December 4 - 5:53pm

Temporary Joe

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TBH, it sounds like you grew up after eWorld was dead and gone, as the enthusiasm and naiveté reminds me of when I was younger.

1. Classic Environment in modern X? No can do. It's complicated why it is, but reading this explains why it's a no-go. (also, Classic Environment really wasn't that great)

2. eWorld was like (original) AOL, in that there was an interface, but also servers to back it up. That's why there was a monthly fee. In 1996, the servers were shut down.

3. There are applications for modern OS X that let you connect to things like Hotline.

Unfortunately, for right now, all you can do is install SheepShaver, Basilisk II, and Mini vMac. While each have their strengths and weaknesses, they are all free (except for the ROMs...legally we can't touch them), none of them are good as a real Mac.

2012, December 5 - 3:38am

(Reply to #4) #5

nil0bject

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1. It's possible, but as you mentioned legal ROMs are required which steers me away from this idea.
2. I don't want to remake eworld. Just design an app that works in a similar fashion for the end user. I just mean a centralised hub. For instance, eworld was an interface to newsgroups and your email. It makes sense to separate all these utilities into separate apps, when you have 2gb of ram. My imac only has 64mb. I don't want to have to open and quit apps and memory manage just to use the internet. This would not require 'centralised' servers, in respect to the original eworld. It would use your existing mail and news servers. Add irc and it's almost everything I need.
3. I'll have to expand on the idea of remaking everything. I was thinking of a visual development environment which made documents that describe an apps functionality. These documents could then be interpreted by a 'classic' app engine. The engine would contain reusable code, like drawing a dialog box, etc. Think along the lines of SCUMMVM.

2012, December 5 - 3:29pm

Temporary Joe

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1. ROMs are for emulators, and while technically Apple doesn't want us using them, nothing a little Googling won't do (wink, wink)
2. Perhaps modding AOL? Is that possible? A bit of ResEditing might give it new skins.
3. SCUMMVM is completely different than what you're proposing. SCUMMVM is an application that recreates the game engine in a cross-compatible form (specifically, SCUMM and its derivatives), which is not how most Mac programs are built.