Is there Classic support in Tiger?

Ripcord

Ripcord

Senior Lurker
I notice from the screenshots of System Prefs that there doesn't seem to be a section for configuring Classic. Has Classic support finally been removed from OS X in 10.4?? I'd have thought I would have read that in a review somewhere if true, but who knows...
 
No reason for change... Maybe the screenshots you've seen were faked or something... At least on 8A425, Classic support's the same as in Panther and before. I don't think they'll ever take that out. It's just that more and more people won't use it. But then they also don't really have to develop it any further - just make sure it still runs.
 
I was just at the Comp USA store and the Apple guy there said Tiger does not support Classic.

Has any one tried launching Classic on Tiger? Does it work? I need Classic for my scanner - even VueScan does not support my scanner. :(
 
The guy at ChumpUSA, as usual, doesn't know what he's talking about. Classic does work in Tiger.
 
The 'Apple guy at the CompUSA store' would be inaccurate.
If your system does not have an OS 9 System Folder, that means no OS 9 (or Classic as OS X calls it), then the Classic pref pane will not appear in your System Preferences. This will be true until you reload the OS 9 into your system following the standard process depending on having an OS 9 bootable system, and just do a reinstall from OS 9 installer CD; or a non-OS 9 bootable system, which requires a restore from your original restore CDs, usually following this article which is straight out of Tiger help files.
When this is complete, then you will see the Classic pref pane.
Most scanners that I have experience with, have not ever worked with Classic, and require an OS 9 boot to work, but I have only tried 2 or 3 different brands, so - Good Luck!
 
I have my Classic preference pane despite the fact that I don't have an OS 9 System Folder installed. It's right there under the "System" section of System Preferences.

There has at one point been an OS 9 System Folder attached to this computer, though, on an external FireWire disk. So maybe that triggered the prefpane's appearance. That seems like an awfully strange way to go about it, though.
 
i have no longer got any OS9 system folders, or OS9 apps (also ie5 has gone, not a biggy after all), which made me think it had been removed, but the classic pane in sys prefs is still there, and i can still start it.

classic, it seems, is still there, if you do still have an obscure reason to run it (your scanner, for example) but there are no apps that ship with macOSx now that are in classic. macOS now is fully X compatible. i think the only big one left was Graphing calculator, now Grapher, an X app
 
I just tried it and it worked fine. Classic said it had to update some system files and asked my permission. It did so and started up as usual.
 
Thanks to all who responded. I had this funny feeling when he said that. I realize now that all his machines probably had OS 9 trashed so they could sell more products.

DeltaMac said:
Most scanners that I have experience with, have not ever worked with Classic, and require an OS 9 boot to work, but I have only tried 2 or 3 different brands, so - Good Luck!
Click to expand...

My scanner does indeed work in Classic. I have a Umax - USB version and Vista Scan works well. The trick is to make sure all those extensions load. I have my classic start up with just what is needed so start up is quick.

I am in the process of backing up my drive- then I install Tiger. :)
 
...maybe the Classic preference pane showing up or not has something to do with whether or not OS 9 drivers are installed on the drive... maybe? I don't have Classic, I don't have OS 9 drivers installed on my disks, and the Classic preference pane does not show up.
 
Lt Major Burns said:
... but there are no apps that ship with macOSx now that are in classic. macOS now is fully X compatible.
Click to expand...
What in God's name does that mean? FWIW, MacOS and MacOS X are two different operating systems. As Apple moves away from Carbon, the two become less compatible, not more.
Lt Major Burns said:
i think the only big one left was Graphing calculator, now Grapher, an X app
Click to expand...
Graphing Calculator is alive, well, and MacOS X-native in the paid version. The free version of Graphing Calculator is MacOS X-native in beta. Grapher is based on a completely different application, Curvus Pro.
 
I was told that Apple does no longer include Classic into Tiger. It works, yes, but it's no longer supported by Apple.
 
MisterMe said:
What in God's name does that mean? FWIW, MacOS and MacOS X are two different operating systems. As Apple moves away from Carbon, the two become less compatible, not more.
Click to expand...


what i meant was, a few years ago, mac dual booted into 10.1/2 and 9.2, because there were still lots of programs, including apple programs that weren't MacOSX compatible, hense letting people dual boot. one of the major things about panther, if you remember, was it was the first realistic version of X apple said you could be confident having on your system on single boot. with panther you no longer need 9.2, there was enough support for X now. classic was still there a for a few little programs they hadn't converted yet. now they have. all the apple programs they want on X, are now native X apps. hense why there is no OS9 folder now
 
Also, Apple's not "moving away from Carbon". They simply can't, since I don't see, say, Adobe/MS/Macromedia move on to Cocoa. Sure, it might happen _some_ day, but this hasn't got anything to do with how Classic support evolves, either.

I guess Apple's plan with Classic is this:

1.) Remove Classic from retail versions of Mac OS X.
This has now been done with Tiger. You either already _have_ Classic, because it came with your computer, or you just forget about it when clean-installing Tiger. Most users (probably more than 90%), do not need Classic anymore.

2.) Remove Classic support altogether.
This probably _will_ happen sometime in the future. Whether it'll be in 10.5, 10.6 or finally in 11.0, who knows. But really: Who _cares_? There still will be a few solutions at that point in time (which might be as much as 10 years away!):

- Keep using the last known version of OS X to support Classic.
- Keep a separate machine for Classic applications running on the last known version of OS X to support Classic.
- Replace those freaking old tools, apps and games by alternatives. Most of us have already done this in the days of Jaguar. Many of us have done this in Puma, when MS and Adobe finally got around to release new versions. And some of us even tried to get rid of Classic _before_ that. Me, personally, I have started hand-coding my webpages back in Mac OS X 10.0.x, because GoLive was so slow via Classic that I was actually faster doing it by hand.
 
My newspaper just ordered a new G5 for our composing department, and I can tell you for certain that there's no Classic support built in to Tiger on new Macs as they ship. However, you can install it from the Tiger CDs that shipped with your new computer.

Those who upgrade over an older version of OS X (or over OS 9, for those still crawling along with it) have Classic mode support from their old preinstalled software.
 
I did the "upgrade" to Tiger and Classic works like a champ on my:

iMac 1GHz PowerPC G4
Flat panel
OS Tiger 10.4
512 MB DDR SDRAM
GeForce4 MX
VRAM 32 MB

The ONLY problem I have had so far is the STINKING Norton's Anti-Virus, just got notification that we gotta PAY $69!! Sure, you'll get a $30 rebate but come on Norton, is this a time to gouge us? I'm thinking of another anti-virus program before I shell out the dough for a Tiger "upgrade."
 
I had a minor problem with Classic on my G5 after installing Tiger. It couldn't open a Classic program (BarCode), and then displayed a message saying the Classic folder was missing (which it wasn't). So I dumped the folder and copied a different one from an eMac, and it then worked fine.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top