Mac OS 8.2 Beta

Yep, I remember when Mac OS 8 came out -- all the hoopla over themes and what-not. Code-names like "Rhapsoy" and "Copland" and all that buzz...

I remember going down to CompUSA and picking up a brand-new copy of OS 8 for $99 and not being able to wait until I got back to work to install it. The new metal-style look was awesome, and was leaps and bounds ahead of System 7.6.X.

RacerX is a member here as well -- if you want in-depth information about unreleased/alpha/beta/prototype Mac operating systems, give him a shout. He's probably the definitive authority on cool Mac OSs, and even runs a few old Open/NextStep OSs currently -- and is productive with them!
 
I remember the OS 9 Launch.. I was at the Apple dealer across from Apple HQ in Cupertino waiting around midnight with a big spotlight outside flashing through the sky. You'd think it would have been a bigger deal their, but wasn't much different than anywhere else I have been during a launch event.

But, I do remember it, which is more than I can say for the other OS launch events. :) Of course, I don't attend them all either, so that doesn't help.
 
I'd like to know what the launch event for OS X.0 was like. Anyone remember that?

NVM bout the comment about OS X naming 10.0 was puma, then cheetah, jaguar, panther, tiger, leopard. there we go.
 
Yeah, I remember that. I was very glad (as a developer) when they axed the whole themes idea. But I was also disappointed (as a user). The feature actually made it into the official release (OS 8.5), but they just didn't include any themes. But you could download them from the shadier corners of the 'net, and they worked just fine (Apple even left the oh-so-conspicuous Themes popup menu in the Appearance control panel, despite the fact that there was only one choice). They were really pretty cool.

IIRC, Apple's theme system was a bit faster than Kaleidoscope, a third-party "scheme" tool that was all the rage back then (probably where Apple got the idea). You could do some amazing stuff with that, but it slowed everything down a LOT.

I'd like to see this feature come to OS X. The time wasn't right for it back then, but now it is. With OS X, it wouldn't make my life as a developer harder at all, whereas if definitely did in OS 8/9.
 
Mikuro said:
IIRC, Apple's theme system was a bit faster than Kaleidoscope, a third-party "scheme" tool that was all the rage back then (probably where Apple got the idea). You could do some amazing stuff with that, but it slowed everything down a LOT.
Click to expand...
Oddly enough, the theme idea was actually Apple's to begin with.

Kaleidoscope was based on an earlier (single theme) system extension called Aaron. It was called Aaron because it was able to give System 7 the Platinum theme that had been shown off in many of Apple's screenshots of what Copland* was going to look like.

I still use Aaron today on my A/UX 3.0.1 system (which uses System 7.0.1 for the Mac environment). Even on that system (a 68040 at 25 MHz) Aaron doesn't hurt the performance... specially not as bad as Kaleidoscope would (it was quite the resource hog :eek: ).





* For those who don't follow classical music, Copland was named after Aaron Copland, an American composer from the twentieth century.
 
I miss the old free versoins of the Mac OS. There was something cool about going down to your local Apple dealer with a handful of floppies, getting a copy right there and going home to install it. I was amazed when they introduced the multifinder. Before that, DAs were the only way to do several things at once. Ah the good old days.
 
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