Classic? Cocoa? Carbon? Term help please!

[BlingBling 3k12]

I'm not a Mac user (yet) and I am having problems understanding the different terms you use for the interfaces.

I hear Classic, which, as a guess, goes for all OS's below OS X.

I hear Cocoa, which I have no idea about.

I hear Carbon, I think it's a UI change for Aqua!

Please somebody help me better understand these terms!!

[JohnnyV]

Classic are programs for OS 9 and down. Carbon can be used with OS X and OS 9. Coccoa is ONLY for OS X-it is 'native' for OS 10 I'm pretty sure about this and I hope it helps-If I am wrong please correct me.

[simX]

JohnnyV is essentially correct.

To expand on what he said a little, "Classic" is the term deemed to anything developed for OS 9.2.2 and lower, all the way down to System 1. Any application that runs ONLY on these systems is termed a "Classic" application, and any of these OSes is termed a "Classic" OS. "Classic" is actually the name of the compatibility environment run in OS X that allows you to run these "Classic" applications without having to wait for new versions to come out for the new operating system. However, this Classic environment is an emulated environment, making there much more room for problems arising in this environment. Furthermore, when running a Classic application, you will see the "Classic" menubar (i.e.: the one you see when you run OS 9 natively) and you won't be able to use all of the OS X enhancements like protected memory or pre-emptive multitasking.

Carbon is the term given to applications that can run on both on a Classic OS system and on OS X, natively. Carbon applications compile one application that can run both on OS X and OS 9, without having to modify the source code. Many new programming applications support the Carbon language. The term "carbonized" means that an application can run natively OS X, without having to launch the Classic compatibilty layer.

Cocoa is the new programming language for OS X. It is derived from the programming language for Next, the company that Steve Jobs founded when he left Apple, and was later bought out by Apple when Steve Jobs returned to Apple in 1997. It is a visual programming OS, similar in concept to RealBasic. As this is for OS X, programs built in the Cocoa programming language can ONLY run in OS X. However, they can take advantage of one additional feature in OS X that many Carbon applications cannot, although recently support has been added for Carbon applications to use this feature. The feature is called "Services", where applications can interact with each other. One example of a service is the built-in spell checker that runs through all of OS X, and any Cocoa application will automatically use this service, putting little red dotted lines under mispelled () words, similar to the way Microsoft Office does it. The reason you do not see these in IE is because IE is not a Cocoa application. An example of a Cocoa application would be the Mail.app application included with OS X, or OmniWeb, the third party browser made by the OmniGroup.

[edX]

well sim, i don't think there's much to disagree with here. I personally just don't ever think of all the apps back to 1 as being classic. take my word for it. most of those programs stopped functioning years ago. I can't remember if it was the jump from 5 to 6 or from 6 to 7, but lots of apps stopped working at one of those points. I would be amazed if they ran in 9, much less the classic environment. I have plenty of these programs on old floppies but i'm not brave enough to see if any would run today. i screw enough things up that are supposed to work!!

want me to bring a few to printer's inc? you might as well get something more than my grumpy old company out of your $5. (he he)

hey, sorry about stanford's loss to gt - i was rooting for the cardinal!!

[simX]

The term Classic is used, at least in my opinion, to represent all of System 1 through OS 9.2.2 because OS 9.2.2 was basically a system that evolved from System 1, with many, many, many, many, many, many, many improvements that make it what it is today. Mac OS X is the first total rewrite of the system, which is why it isn't Classic.

By the way, I know a couple applications that still work in OS X under the Classic environment that ran in System 6. The first is Crystal Quest -- it's kind of unreliable, but it does work. It was the first game that ran in 256 colors (although it did run in black and white as well). Another puzzle game called "3 in Three" still runs in Classic, although I don't think it was developed for System 6 (I dunno, it is copyrighted 1990, so maybe).

So, yes, applications that run under very old systems still have the possibility to run under OS X today. It's very nice to know that Crystal Quest was so well-made and so simple that it still runs. Now if only someone will port it so that when Classic gets phased out, it will still run....

Oh, and Ed, I'd sure love to get some free software. I think you meant, "Do you want any free software in ADDITION to the $5 I'll spend on your pastry and beverage?", right? And about Stanford's loss -- oh, well. It's not the end of the world.

[rdhazrd]

I don't know if you guys remember a game called Heli something, or chopper something. you controlled a chopper and dropped a person in to a bale of hay. Anyway I used to play it on my Mac Plus when it was state of the art. I have read it runs great under classic. Wow, can you image the new DP G4 being what the Mac Plus is now? Hard to imagine..

[Obormot]

Originally posted by Ed Spruiell
I personally just don't ever think of all the apps back to 1 as being classic. take my word for it. most of those programs stopped functioning years ago. I can't remember if it was the jump from 5 to 6 or from 6 to 7, but lots of apps stopped working at one of those points. I would be amazed if they ran in 9, much less the classic environment.

I have here the first macintosh network game ever, Bus'd Out, which was released in 1983. Lo and behold, it works beautifully in Classic. How's that for backwards compatibility?