# What mac os?



## CharlieJ (Mar 16, 2006)

click the option what you prefer


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## RacerX (Mar 16, 2006)

My _preferred_ Mac OS didn't make the list. 

*Mac OS X Server 1.2* (Rhapsody 5.6)​


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## adambyte (Mar 16, 2006)

lol... I PREFER to work on Mac OS X 10.4.... but I really DO have a soft spot for   System 7.x  .... very clean, while still having a good amount of features. I suppose it's only real downfall when compared with other "classic" Mac OS systems is that when you copy files, you can't multitask.


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## Mikuro (Mar 16, 2006)

8.6 was the pinnacle of the Mac OS as far as I'm concerned. I don't actually work in it anymore, since time has marched on and pulled me along, but I was very happy with it back in the day. I still don't really like OS X, but I use it because I have to use _something_.

In OS X's defense, Exposé is freakin' awesome, and it's nice that I can (and do) go _months_ without rebooting. 

9.1 was pretty solid, too, but I still think OS 9 should've been called 8.7 and was only called "9" so they could get to 10 and use their stupid roman numeral...


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## nixgeek (Mar 16, 2006)

While I did select 10.4, in regards to Classic I would pick System 7.5.x (because it runs nice and fast on something like my Quadra 650 and is free from Apple ), System 7.6.1 (because it brings a lot of what OS 8 had brought without the extra bloat...besides, the system hard disk on a 68K Mac won't use HFS+), and Mac OS 8.6 (because it implemented a lot of what OS 9 had, again without the excess bloat).


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## Lt Major Burns (Mar 16, 2006)

10.3 was just clean effortless, simple, powerful, cool, and had little or no fault, that i can think of.  10.4 seemed like incomplete features for gimmicks sake.


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## CharlieJ (Mar 16, 2006)

Interesting


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## nixgeek (Mar 16, 2006)

Lt Major Burns said:
			
		

> 10.3 was just clean effortless, simple, powerful, cool, and had little or no fault, that i can think of.  10.4 seemed like incomplete features for gimmicks sake.



Well, I have to admit I do like Spotlight now.  And I couldn't do without the Weather widget in Dashboard.  That's how I find out if my sons need to bundle up or not (of course at this time of the year in Miami, it's pretty much just light clothing and the occasional umbrella ).


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## Trip (Mar 16, 2006)

I'm actually stuck with 10.3 right now (until I buy a Macbook) and it is my favorite. But the more I hear and see of 10.4 the more I think i'll be leaning towards it in the near future.


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## RacerX (Mar 16, 2006)

So no one else uses a unique (not listed) version of the Mac OS? Wow.

Well, my list of Apple OS systems gives a pretty good idea of what I like... two systems running Mac OS X v10.3.9 (Beige G3 and Pismo), two running Mac OS X v10.2.8 (iMac and Wallstreet), three running Mac OS 8.6 (8100, 2300c, 3400c), one running Mac OS 8.1 (Quadra 950), two running Rhapsody 5.6 (8600, 7500), one running Rhapsody 5.1 (ThinkPad) and one A/UX 3.0.1 (Quadra 700).

Of course you could say that I also run an additional version of Mac OS 8.6 in Blue Box on the 8600... and then we could add a copy of Mac OS 9.2.1 on the iMac for _Classic_.

Yep, I seem to like Rhapsody and Mac OS 8.6 quite a bit considering how old they are.  I only use A/UX when I need to run something in System 7.


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## ra3ndy (Mar 16, 2006)

I gotta say, and it makes me all the more trendy and unhip, but I adore Tiger.  Dahboard & Expose, while "gimmicky", have been GREAT assets to my productivity.  I've probably saved 10 days total of my life just using Spotlight to find a file, rather than navigating my awful, convoluted file structures.  

I suppose one could argue that Spotlight is enabling my bad habits, but hey, kudos to Apple for outthinking my sloth.

Not to mention the benefits of Bonjour over Rendezvous.


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## powermac (Mar 17, 2006)

adambyte said:
			
		

> lol... I PREFER to work on Mac OS X 10.4.... but I really DO have a soft spot for   System 7.x  .... very clean, while still having a good amount of features. I suppose it's only real downfall when compared with other "classic" Mac OS systems is that when you copy files, you can't multitask.



Until OSX, my favorite was System 7. It was a very clean OS, as you stated.


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## Giaguara (Mar 18, 2006)

hmmm ... running 10.4 and 10.3 both daily, os 9 sometimes, solaris for the fun of it, windows xp professional when needed, but i'm really looking to get something to have os 7 and os 8 in them ...


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## eric2006 (Mar 18, 2006)

I am running Tiger now, but I gotta say, I probably like Panther more. I can't really think of a useful application that came in Tiger - for me anyways. I know exactly where everything is, and I don't know what it's called, so spotlight is limited for me. I don't even have dashboard on my dock anymore..


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## nixgeek (Mar 18, 2006)

Giaguara said:
			
		

> hmmm ... running 10.4 and 10.3 both daily, os 9 sometimes, solaris for the fun of it, windows xp professional when needed, but i'm really looking to get something to have os 7 and os 8 in them ...



I have an old Motorola StarMax 4000 that I've been wanting to give to someone who would value such a machine.  This version is the minitower version and has a 160 MHz PPC 604e processor.  I've upped the RAM to 128 MB.  This system should do superbly with Mac OS 7.6.1 and 8.1.  It will also run System 7.5.5.

Send me a PM if you're interested....maybe we can figure something out.  This also includes a keyboard and a mouse.


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## Giaguara (Mar 19, 2006)

Wow nixgeek  I think I'll first make my other 1/2 first go thru all his old Macs, he might have somehwere e.g. a really old PowerBook  or first ever iBook or something else that I could entertain myself with .. then if he finds nothing interesting, then I probably send a note ..


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## nixgeek (Mar 19, 2006)

Giaguara said:
			
		

> Wow nixgeek  I think I'll first make my other 1/2 first go thru all his old Macs, he might have somehwere e.g. a really old PowerBook  or first ever iBook or something else that I could entertain myself with .. then if he finds nothing interesting, then I probably send a note ..




Coolness.


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## CaptainQuark (Mar 20, 2006)

A combination of not wanting to be a guinea pig, testing a new system for Apple, so waiting for at least rev 1, and having a boss who is tight as a duck's @$$ means that I have only just upgraded to Tiger _today_.

First impressions? Not bad, not bad, but a couple of things annoy me greatly:

1. Can't hide QuarkXPress using [Cmd]+[H]

2. When trying to zoom in Macromedia Freehand using [Cmd]+[Alt]+[Spacebar], Spotlight gets in the way!

Doubtless I'll find ways around these shortcomings or get used to a different way of working, but it means having to think about these things, slowing me down, when these things should just be a reflex action.


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## adambyte (Mar 20, 2006)

CaptainQuark... open System Preferences, click "Keyboard and Mouse", then click the "Keyboard shortcuts" tab... change the shortcut for Spotlight to something that doesn't conflict... this might also be the solution to your XPress problem, since it's also keyboard related, but I don't know what in XPress would be conflicting...


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## Rhisiart (Mar 20, 2006)

CaptainQuark said:
			
		

> First impressions? Not bad, not bad, but a couple of things annoy me greatly:
> 
> 1. Can't hide QuarkXPress using [Cmd]+[H]


Why not switch to Adobe InDesign (he says half jokingly and half seriously)?


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## CaptainQuark (Mar 20, 2006)

adambyte said:
			
		

> CaptainQuark... open System Preferences, click "Keyboard and Mouse", then click the "Keyboard shortcuts" tab... change the shortcut for Spotlight to something that doesn't conflict... this might also be the solution to your XPress problem, since it's also keyboard related, but I don't know what in XPress would be conflicting...


 Thanks for that, adambyte.

As I mentioned, I've just installed Tiger today and then had to get straight back into producing yet another book, so I've not had time to tinker and find out how everything works.

I've tried what you suggested and it has helped with Spotlight getting in the way of zooming in Freehand, but the problem with QuarkXPress cannot, it appears be solved. This is a known problem that is much discussed on the Quark forum, which has many suggestions for working around this bug.


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## CaptainQuark (Mar 20, 2006)

rhisiart said:
			
		

> Why not switch to Adobe InDesign (he says half jokingly and half seriously)?








You might just as well suggest that I stop breathing!


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## fryke (Mar 20, 2006)

It's the little things. I'd maybe prefer 10.3.x to Tiger, if only I could select 2 items in the Finder, hit copy and paste the files into a Mail.app message window. I can do that in 10.4.x, but in Panther, it works only for _one_ file at a time, which is utterly stupid. Apple, I think, has done _many_ such stupid little things in OS X since the Public Beta, and I hate them for it almost as much as I love them for everything else. If I could live entirely off of writing short stories, I'd probably use an older white iBook with Mac OS 9.2.2. I mean: What more does a writer need than TextEdit and Mail.app. Oh, you mean those _weren't_ in classic Mac OS?


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## bbloke (Mar 20, 2006)

I'm using 10.4 and think that is my preferred OS.  I've used Macs since the original 128 K Mac, and I quite liked the feel "classic" OS, from the original System through to OS 8.6, but not having played much with OS 9.  The classic OS felt a little quicker (I know there is an obvious reason for this) and somehow a little more friendly.  On the other hand, OS X feels more heavyweight, more like a "serious" operating system and is more flexible.  Overall, I prefer what OS X enables the user to do and feel it is still friendly enough.

I've tended to prefer each update to OS X over the previous one.  The jump from 10.1 from 10.2 felt like the most significant to me, perhaps because 10.2 started to feel like OS X was maturing.  10.3 added some nice features, but I found I never used Exposé, as I couldn't be bothered to reach for the function keys.  With 10.4, I thought that the additional features were a bit gimmicky and rather thin on the ground... but then I programmed my mouse buttons for Exposé and Dashboard, and started to use these features (OK, I could have set my mouse buttons for Exposé under 10.3 too, but hey...).  I must be one of the few who really likes Dashboard and downloads new Widgets!   

I never thought I'd use Spotlight, but have been proven wrong.  There seem to be differences between using Command-F and the Spotlight icon in the top right of the screen, but I've come to find it handy in some circumstances.





			
				CaptainQuark said:
			
		

> First impressions? Not bad, not bad, but a couple of things annoy me greatly:
> 
> 1. Can't hide QuarkXPress using [Cmd]+[H]


Mmm, I find the same with some Adobe apps too, or at least ones that are not the very latest version.



			
				CaptainQuark said:
			
		

> 2. When trying to zoom in Macromedia Freehand using [Cmd]+[Alt]+[Spacebar], Spotlight gets in the way!


I found that too with some Adobe apps.  I discovered that the order of the key combination can be important.  [Command]-[Spacebar] would bring up Spotlight, while [Spacebar]-[Command] would bring up a magnifying glass in Illustrator etc.


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## fryke (Mar 20, 2006)

About the Cmd-Spacebar thing... I've reported on this a couple of times. It seems Apple just doesn't want to "give" Adobe et al. this command. First they've tried to cover it with some keyboard-menu thingie in 10.2 and now they've occupied it with Spotlight, as if they don't know that graphics designers all over the world have been using Cmd-Space for the zoom feature for more than a decade... :/ (I _know_ there are ways around using Cmd-Space in Adobe and other applications, but if you want to suggest that, you haven't tried to get what I'm saying... I'm writing this because everytime I bring that up, someone seems to want to tell me to use something else...)


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## CaptainQuark (Mar 20, 2006)

&#8230;but we Mac users are usually a fairly flexible bunch, so I'm being flexible and have solved the problem thus:

It's not as if I have been using Tiger for ages and have got used to [Cmd]+[Space] to access Spotlight, so rather than having to 're-learn' my old ways of using things, I have simply disabled the keyboard shortcut for Spotlight. I can't miss a feature that I'm not used to, can I? The icon is still there in the top right-hand corner of the menu bar, so I can click on it if I _really_ need it. If I find that it is _a worthwhile feature that fits in well with the way I work_, I'll assign another keyboard shortcut to it. The most important thing for me at the moment is to be able to continue churning out the work in the way that I am used to.


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## Lt Major Burns (Mar 20, 2006)

cmd-space still works as zoom.  if you hold space bar like normal (instead of a tap for spotlight), the spotlight window pops up, but the cursor also changes to the magnifying glass, so carry on zooming (and the spotlight bar dissappears after you click).

it's still works.


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