WTB - Rhapsody DP1 and NextStep 3
- Thread starter SAbsar
- Start date
RacerX
Old Rhapsody User
Well, both Rhapsody Developer Release (Rhapsody 5.0) and Rhapsody Developer Release 2 (Rhapsody 5.1) are very rare, but pop up on ebay from time to time. If you are just wanting to "see" what it was like, I guess either would work. If you want to actually "use" Rhapsody as a primary OS, Rhapsody 5.1 was pretty close to the finish product (I use this as a daily OS on my ThinkPad). On the other hand, if you have a spare Mac, it is way easier to find Rhapsody 5.3-5.6 (Mac OS X Server 1.0-1.2v3) for around $35 on ebay. Plus there was way more software for the PowerPC version. I currently have Rhapsody 5.6 running on a PowerMac 7500 with a PowerPC 604e/225 upgrade.
If you find Rhapsody, a good place for getting started using it is my Rhapsody Resource Page. And I may be able to help point you in the right direction on things if you want to PM me.
As for NEXTSTEP, You can find 3.x on ebay quite often, but if you can't wait I would recommend Black Hole. If you are (again) just looking to "see" it running, either 3.2 or 3.3 would do. If you are wanting to be productive, I would suggest at least 3.3 with Apple's Patch 3 (includes the Y2K patch) and would highly recommend OPENSTEP 4.2 (with Patch 4) as it has more up to date software available for it.
If you find Rhapsody, a good place for getting started using it is my Rhapsody Resource Page. And I may be able to help point you in the right direction on things if you want to PM me.
As for NEXTSTEP, You can find 3.x on ebay quite often, but if you can't wait I would recommend Black Hole. If you are (again) just looking to "see" it running, either 3.2 or 3.3 would do. If you are wanting to be productive, I would suggest at least 3.3 with Apple's Patch 3 (includes the Y2K patch) and would highly recommend OPENSTEP 4.2 (with Patch 4) as it has more up to date software available for it.
RacerX
Old Rhapsody User
Yes, it is Intel compatible (I have the NEXTSTEP and OPENSTEP compatibility lists here), no you done need to add anything like a kernel... it is not designed to be altered by the end user, there is no source code available for the underlying operating systems for either NEXTSTEP or OPENSTEP. These were proprietary operating systems with licensing restrictions set forth by other companies.SAbsar said:
One of the major changes from Rhapsody to Mac OS X was the removal of any thing that would restrict making the code available to the public. While the foundations of Darwin are very similar to those of Rhapsody (and in turn OPENSTEP/NEXTSTEP), it is not the same or interchangeable.
RacerX
Old Rhapsody User
That is one of the issues of Rhapsody for Intel based systems, it was designed to run on PCs of that day... that day being 1998. Unlike Macs of 1998, PCs (and PC components) from back then are a little hard to find.
Also, Rhapsody 5.1 has a RAM limit. It won't run on a system with more than around 192 MB of RAM without making some modifications to the OS. And even after the modification, it won't use more than 192 MB of RAM (though it'll at least run). Apple put this limitation in Rhapsody 5.1 to keep people from using it rather than the final release version (which for PCs was never released).
This is another reason why I tend to recommend Rhapsody 5.3 or later on PowerPC systems. On Macs, Rhapsody 5.3-5.5 can access up to 1 GB of RAM and Rhapsody 5.6 can access 1.5 GB.
While there is definitely the coolness factor of running a Mac OS like OS on PCs, from a strictly productive stand point Rhapsody is better on Mac hardware.
The system requirements can be found here (and the driver list for Rhapsody 5.1 for Intel can be found here). I bought my IBM ThinkPad 760 ED because I knew it would run Rhapsody. I've never owned any PC that I couldn't run either NEXTSTEP, OPENSTEP or Rhapsody on. A PC that couldn't run those operating systems would have no value to me.
Here is what Rhapsody looks like on my ThinkPad. Displayed is the System Profiler and the Workspace Manager's about window.
Also, Rhapsody 5.1 has a RAM limit. It won't run on a system with more than around 192 MB of RAM without making some modifications to the OS. And even after the modification, it won't use more than 192 MB of RAM (though it'll at least run). Apple put this limitation in Rhapsody 5.1 to keep people from using it rather than the final release version (which for PCs was never released).
This is another reason why I tend to recommend Rhapsody 5.3 or later on PowerPC systems. On Macs, Rhapsody 5.3-5.5 can access up to 1 GB of RAM and Rhapsody 5.6 can access 1.5 GB.
While there is definitely the coolness factor of running a Mac OS like OS on PCs, from a strictly productive stand point Rhapsody is better on Mac hardware.
The system requirements can be found here (and the driver list for Rhapsody 5.1 for Intel can be found here). I bought my IBM ThinkPad 760 ED because I knew it would run Rhapsody. I've never owned any PC that I couldn't run either NEXTSTEP, OPENSTEP or Rhapsody on. A PC that couldn't run those operating systems would have no value to me.
Here is what Rhapsody looks like on my ThinkPad. Displayed is the System Profiler and the Workspace Manager's about window.
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RacerX
Old Rhapsody User
Faster is a relative concept. The minimum processor for running Rhapsody for PowerPC is a PPC 604 at 120 MHz. A G3 at 233 MHz is way faster than that.
When I was running Rhapsody on my Wallstreet it was fast enough to do everything I wanted with a G3 at 266 MHz, but so is my ThinkPad with a Pentium at 133 MHz. My fastest Rhapsody system I have right now is a PowerMac 7500 with a PPC 604e at 225 MHz, which is great (I even play Quake II on that system).
As with Mac OS X, memory plays the biggest role in overall speed. While my 7500 was very responsive for simple tasks with the original 80 MB of RAM I had in it, when I wanted to to a page layout project in Create that used tons of graphics and was about 15 pages long, the system slowed down dramatically and even the smallest changes had me watching a beach ball. When I jumped it up to 208 MB I no longer had any problems (it is now at 512 MB, but there wasn't as noticeable a change as I haven't taxed it to the point of needing that much memory).
Now if you plan on using Blue Box a lot, more memory is better. While 64 MB is fine for just running Rhapsody and some of it's apps, I would suggest no less than 128 MB if you plan on using Blue Box a lot (I don't even have Blue Box installed on any of my systems anymore).
For a Wallstreet you need a minimum of Rhapsody 5.3 (Mac OS X Server 1.0), Rhapsody 5.0 & 5.1 won't run on that system (as they predate it and the technology in it).
As for what you can expect... well, Rhapsody is 100% PowerPC native while Mac OS 8.1 isn't. So it should run faster. I would guess that even Blue Box (which is Mac OS 8.5 or 8.6) would run most all tasks faster than Mac OS 8.1 as more of that code is PowerPC native.
When I was running Rhapsody 5.6 on my Wallstreet, the original 192 MB of RAM was fine for all my Rhapsody tasks, but not so great when you added Blue Box into the mix. I later upgraded the system to 512 MB.
Another thing to keep in mind is that when you are thinking of how fast a system is going to be relative to another system, that is assuming that you are going to be doing comparable tasks with the systems you are comparing.
What are you doing now in Mac OS 8.1 on that system? Is there software for completing those tasks in Rhapsody? Is that software different enough that it is going to take time to learn how to use it effectively?
See, for me, my core base of applications is pretty much the same from OPENSTEP to Rhapsody to Mac OS X. OmniWeb, Create, PStill, OmniDictionary, PhotoToWeb, ToyViewer, PixelNhance, TextEdit, RBrowser and Preview are examples of apps that exist on all three and are a major part of my regular work flow.
An example of a conflict I run into is image editing. I use Photoshop on Mac OS X a lot, but there isn't a version for OPENSTEP or Rhapsody. This means I have to use something else... TIFFany. And TIFFany is very different from Photoshop, so it is faster for me to work in Photoshop (even on a slower system) than it would be to do the same task in TIFFany.
And an example of finding reasonable alternatives is diagramming software. In Mac OS X I use OmniGraffle, in Rhapsody there is GlyphiX, and in OPENSTEP there is Diagram. They all work pretty much the same (and OmniGraffle can even open Diagram documents).
As you can see, there is a lot to all this. My primary application in Rhapsody is Create (which is about $150). I can do illustrations, page layout and web design (my Rhapsody site is made in Create on Rhapsody) with it. That is a lot of bases covered with one app, so it is very helpful.
This is also why I try to cover a lot of these types of things in my web site. If you just load Rhapsody and nothing else, then all you have is an OS... you can't do much with just an OS. You need applications to be productive, and being productive is the best measure of speed I can think of.
And as you can guess, I'm very productive in Rhapsody.
When I was running Rhapsody on my Wallstreet it was fast enough to do everything I wanted with a G3 at 266 MHz, but so is my ThinkPad with a Pentium at 133 MHz. My fastest Rhapsody system I have right now is a PowerMac 7500 with a PPC 604e at 225 MHz, which is great (I even play Quake II on that system).
As with Mac OS X, memory plays the biggest role in overall speed. While my 7500 was very responsive for simple tasks with the original 80 MB of RAM I had in it, when I wanted to to a page layout project in Create that used tons of graphics and was about 15 pages long, the system slowed down dramatically and even the smallest changes had me watching a beach ball. When I jumped it up to 208 MB I no longer had any problems (it is now at 512 MB, but there wasn't as noticeable a change as I haven't taxed it to the point of needing that much memory).
Now if you plan on using Blue Box a lot, more memory is better. While 64 MB is fine for just running Rhapsody and some of it's apps, I would suggest no less than 128 MB if you plan on using Blue Box a lot (I don't even have Blue Box installed on any of my systems anymore).
For a Wallstreet you need a minimum of Rhapsody 5.3 (Mac OS X Server 1.0), Rhapsody 5.0 & 5.1 won't run on that system (as they predate it and the technology in it).
As for what you can expect... well, Rhapsody is 100% PowerPC native while Mac OS 8.1 isn't. So it should run faster. I would guess that even Blue Box (which is Mac OS 8.5 or 8.6) would run most all tasks faster than Mac OS 8.1 as more of that code is PowerPC native.
When I was running Rhapsody 5.6 on my Wallstreet, the original 192 MB of RAM was fine for all my Rhapsody tasks, but not so great when you added Blue Box into the mix. I later upgraded the system to 512 MB.
Another thing to keep in mind is that when you are thinking of how fast a system is going to be relative to another system, that is assuming that you are going to be doing comparable tasks with the systems you are comparing.
What are you doing now in Mac OS 8.1 on that system? Is there software for completing those tasks in Rhapsody? Is that software different enough that it is going to take time to learn how to use it effectively?
See, for me, my core base of applications is pretty much the same from OPENSTEP to Rhapsody to Mac OS X. OmniWeb, Create, PStill, OmniDictionary, PhotoToWeb, ToyViewer, PixelNhance, TextEdit, RBrowser and Preview are examples of apps that exist on all three and are a major part of my regular work flow.
An example of a conflict I run into is image editing. I use Photoshop on Mac OS X a lot, but there isn't a version for OPENSTEP or Rhapsody. This means I have to use something else... TIFFany. And TIFFany is very different from Photoshop, so it is faster for me to work in Photoshop (even on a slower system) than it would be to do the same task in TIFFany.
And an example of finding reasonable alternatives is diagramming software. In Mac OS X I use OmniGraffle, in Rhapsody there is GlyphiX, and in OPENSTEP there is Diagram. They all work pretty much the same (and OmniGraffle can even open Diagram documents).
As you can see, there is a lot to all this. My primary application in Rhapsody is Create (which is about $150). I can do illustrations, page layout and web design (my Rhapsody site is made in Create on Rhapsody) with it. That is a lot of bases covered with one app, so it is very helpful.
This is also why I try to cover a lot of these types of things in my web site. If you just load Rhapsody and nothing else, then all you have is an OS... you can't do much with just an OS. You need applications to be productive, and being productive is the best measure of speed I can think of.
And as you can guess, I'm very productive in Rhapsody.
StarBuck
Registered
Hi RacerX,
Loved the site by the way, I have a quick question for you on this webpage
http://www.shawcomputing.net/resources/apple/os_pictures/images/milnor-today.jpg
The icons in the box on the left what application gives you this feature?
Thanks
Loved the site by the way, I have a quick question for you on this webpage
http://www.shawcomputing.net/resources/apple/os_pictures/images/milnor-today.jpg
The icons in the box on the left what application gives you this feature?
Thanks
RacerX
Old Rhapsody User
Actually I made that using Photoshop and Create.
As it turns out, I don't change my desktop image that often... and when I do I have a collection of 6 images which are my favorite. So I made the small icon area (in Create, but AppleWorks or Illustrator should work too) and then added it to each of those images in the exact same place (in Photoshop).
Otherwise, it is just a generic Jaguar desktop setup for the most part. It just makes for a cool effect.
Here are what my 6 altered images look like.
As it turns out, I don't change my desktop image that often... and when I do I have a collection of 6 images which are my favorite. So I made the small icon area (in Create, but AppleWorks or Illustrator should work too) and then added it to each of those images in the exact same place (in Photoshop).
Otherwise, it is just a generic Jaguar desktop setup for the most part. It just makes for a cool effect.
Here are what my 6 altered images look like.
