Question about the classic environment

U

umati

Registered
Hi.

I'm unfamiliar with the classic environment in OS X. I understand that it's possible to use it together with OS X applications side by side and that the menu bar changes to the old style when an OS 9 application has focus.

What I wish to know is if it's possible to make the classic environment fill the entire screen and have the computer act like if it was running only OS 9 with the full OS 9 GUI, no dock or anything OS X related before this mode is exited. Looking for that old OS 9 feel, ya know.

Also, how severe is the performance penalty of running classic instead of OS 9 natively on a machine a few years old?
 
Well... No, you can't run it full screen, really. About performance... It sure depends on what you're trying to run in Classic. I remember trying to use GoLive in Classic. Ended up using BBEdit instead and code more by hand. So: Some apps would be incredibly slow. Others simply won't run, because they need to access the hardware directly. Yet other stuff simply runs great.
 
Isn't there a way to boot directly into the Classic environment? Can you change to Classic as a startup volume? I'm really just curious about this, but, if you can, it might answer umati's question (or at least give him/her another alternative).
 
What machine do you have? If it is an old-enough G4 desktop,
say 2002 or earlier, you can start up in OS9. Look to the "startup
disk" prefpane.

I haven't noticed any performance hit running Classic vs starting
in OS9, but then I'm not very observant. You will find that Classic
doesn't do a lot of external devices.
 
Recent Macs (past few years) cannot boot directly into OS 9. The only way to get the OS 9 experience would be to use some kind of emulator, like SheepShaver or Mac-on-Mac (neither of which I've ever gotten to work).

My best advice: just don't get married to the idea of using OS 9. Classic is probably the best you'll get.

Some things tend to actually be faster in Classic than in native OS 9. I've heard that disk-intensive processes run much better in Classic, because it piggybacks on the more efficient file system of OS X rather than using's OS 9's unoptimized file system. My personal experience is that things are slower, but quite usable.
 
the best thing to do is get use to os x, the new macs no longer even have classic enviroment, its os x or nothing. that and i find classic to be very unstable. i havn't had much luck running apps in it.
 
Thanks for the input folks, some good info there.

I should perhaps have mentioned that I did read the Wikipedia article on Classic before I posted. Click here to read. You can edit it if you see some mistakes or want to add information!

The article says there are three ways to launch Classic, and it mentions a "window" option of something resembling the OS 9 gui while in OS X. But it doesn't say if this window can run full screen with full focus for the keyboard and the mouse (no dock!) until you quit it. But from your comments it seems like this is not an option.

albloom, I'm aware which Macs that can boot OS 9 natively (found the info on Apple's website). But I'm not sure if I understand what you are suggesting about starting up in OS 9. Do you simply suggest installing a copy of OS 9 (from an OS 9 install/restore cd) in addition to OS X on an old enough G4?
Or can you confirm that dmetzcher's suggestion is an option even when an original OS 9 install/restore cd is not used? That is, configuring the copy of OS 9.2.2 which came from the install of the Classic environment to be used as a "startup disk"?

I just find it a little strange that the Wikipedia article would not mention such a possibility (for the older G4 machines). But if anyone can confirm that installing Classic from the OS X cd on say a ~700MHz G4 PowerMac would let me boot natively into OS 9 I'd be happy to hear from you. No original OS 9 cd present, that's the problem.
 
open your system preferences, and goto startup disk. if there is a folder listed as os 9 and you can select it, then the mac thinks it can boot from it. select it and hit restart. the mac will try to boot from it, if it can it will, if it can't it should reboot into os x. if it boots back into os x , open the startup disk again and select your os x install (this will save you from much grief in the future when you turn your mac on again.).
 
umati said:
The article says there are three ways to launch Classic, and it mentions a "window" option of something resembling the OS 9 gui while in OS X. But it doesn't say if this window can run full screen with full focus for the keyboard and the mouse (no dock!) until you quit it. But from your comments it seems like this is not an option.
Click to expand...
The window option only applies to startup. You can expand the progress window to display a 640x480 window of the OS 9 boot process, complete with the good ol' extension parade. But that's it. After that, Classic is strictly integrated.

I would think that you would be able to boot from an OS 9 installation that came from an OS X CD, but I've never tried it myself. Check the Startup Disk pref pane like Sincliar said. If your Classic system isn't listed there, then I guess that would mean it's not bootable.
 
Thanks folks, you've been most helpful.

It seems like my best option is to find OS 9 on cd and then combine with a separate install of OS X. I don't have Classic on my machine at all right now. I also consider upgrading to Tiger. I know that new machines sold today don't come with the Classic environment installed by default, you have to enable it yourself. But then I think I read somewhere that on the retail versions of OS X (at least Tiger) there is no option to install Classic whatsoever. Is this true? Because then I definitely will have to search out some OS 9 discs.
 
umati said:
Thanks folks, you've been most helpful.

It seems like my best option is to find OS 9 on cd and then combine with a separate install of OS X. I don't have Classic on my machine at all right now. I also consider upgrading to Tiger. I know that new machines sold today don't come with the Classic environment installed by default, you have to enable it yourself. But then I think I read somewhere that on the retail versions of OS X (at least Tiger) there is no option to install Classic whatsoever. Is this true? Because then I definitely will have to search out some OS 9 discs.
Click to expand...

You can use any version of 9.x.x for this, even from older OS-X versions. The map OS-X uses for CLASSIC mode can essentially be the map OS-9 is started from, if your computer is capable of booting into OS-9.


Good luck, Kees
 
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