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The Mac Webb

Stuck Between 9 and X

- 2001.11.01

I must make a horrible confession to the audience. I know this will shock some, make some angry, and have Apple hunting me down via my ISP, but I cannot make the switch. I am struggling through the migration to Mac OS X and find myself very weak. I need help from the Apple faithful to force the final commitment. I need a support group of some type to help me stay on the straight and narrow.

"Hi, I am Kevin, and I have used OS X for four weeks without booting into 9.x"

"Hi, Kevin, great job."

I was one of the early adopters, with my copy of OS X arriving the first Monday after release. I had a wonderful experience with the installation of the OS, and even wrote a My Turn article covering the ease of the process. My desktop G4 ran the OS respectably, and even my two G3 laptops (Pismo and iceBook), ran pretty well with the OS. The OS is beautiful and looks great on the screen. After 10.1 arrived, the speed improved dramatically. Couple this with the stability of the OS, and you have a real winner. Unfortunately, I cannot migrate entirely to the new OS.

I know many of you are waiting for applications to arrive. Microsoft and Adobe are keeping many from a total migration, as they make two of the most important Mac applications. I know that many are waiting for updates drivers for peripherals and are forced to stay in 9.x. I am not one of them. I simply like the old system and cannot bring myself to abandon the good old OS I have come to love.

Let me frame this by saying that I am not averse to change, and I love learning different operating systems. I currently run 8 different OSes and have found enjoyment in each of them. I run OS X iBookexclusively on my G4 tower at home, which has been nothing but smooth. But on my main computer (the iceBook), I find myself spending most of my time in OS 9. If I try to rationalize my lack of commitment, I say that the OS X power management implementation is mediocre, or that I need Office and hate to use Classic. I may say that OS X is thrashing my hard drives or that I need Palm Desktop.

I may say all of those things, but in my heart I realize that those are not the real reason. I need that big goofy Texas based therapist that is on Oprah every day to say to me, "You need to get real and tell me what you want"

I want my good ole OS back. I want my Chooser and my spring folders. I want my function keys and my happy face. I want Kaleidoscope and Eudora. I want all of the things that made me happy when I played with my Mac. I know that OS X is going to be wonderful for all Mac fans. We have increased developer support, stability, and applications. But I also know that my Macs will never be the same again.

Scattershots

You will love this story I posted on Macdebate. Although many will be very jealous.

0830am today: I went to drop off some junk at Goodwill and was standing outside waiting to have my stuff processed. I look behind me, and a gentleman is unloading a few computer monitors. I offered to help him lift them onto the loading bay. As we are talking, he hands me another box with a bunch of old laptops... a few vintage machines from the mid 90s. He hands me a second box, and I look down and see a wetsuit looking PowerBook. I grab it from the pile and ask him about the machine. He is dropping donations off a batch of stuff left from a community garage sale. This machine was dead and no one bought it, and he is carrying all the extras to dump (this was a community sale type thing). I ask him if he would take $20 for the machine, and he agrees, as it was for sale for $10!

I handed him a twenty and drove off looking at the machine. The plate says this is WallStreet 266 with a 14.1 inch screen and 64 MB RAM.

0900: I drop the machine off at a buddy's (unemployed MCSE with Mac love) to let him check out the machine.

1200: At lunch, I return to his place and see him running the PowerBook through its paces!

Machine had a dead main battery and a bad hard drive. He had taken his AC adapter from his PowerBook and a hard drive he had laying about after his own PowerBook upgrade. He grabbed a copy of [Mac OS] 8.x and started going like crazy.

For the grand total of $75, I have a excellent condition WallStreet sitting on my desk. Now I will need to buy more RAM and maybe a bigger hard drive, but man that was lucky.

These machines are very heavy and seem great on my desk.

I know this machine has reached the end of its life, but it still seems very quick and useable. I know why our favorite Road Warrior still sings the praises of this model. I think I will have a bit of fun with this machine. And after all, this is a site for low-end Macs. LEM

Kevin Webb spent the last seven years selling technology consulting services. Of that time, at least two years have been devoted to trying to convince the world that the Macintosh is the pinnacle of the computing experience. He is the proud owner of eight Macs, ranging from a new iBook to a Classic. You can read about his newest computer in Kevin Webb's PowerBook G4.

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