https://lowendmac.com/2014/the-g5-and-mac-os- … han-youd-think/

All classic Mac OS would be entirely 32-bit, G5 was the first 64-bit mac CPU and it came *waaaay* after apple was done with OS9.

I'm a bit surprised they didn't try harder considering some of the Powermac G5s could be equipped with up to 16GB RAM but I guess they would have known not to bother since the x86 switch was coming.

Expack3 wrote on 2023-06-26, 14:14:

Anyways, I recently came across a claim I hadn't heard before: namely, games and applications which run on PPC Mac OS (aka Mac OS Classic) are 32-bit only. As I'm more familiar with how Windows has historically handled EXEs of differing bits, I'd be very interested to hear how Mac OS handles it, if at all.

Sounds about right. A more interesting topic in this area would be how they handled the fact that binaries could contain 68000 code, PowerPC code, or both. There was also early Mac hardware where the top 8 address bits were ignored and then abused as flags (including by the firmware) and this had to be worked around aka "32-bit addressing."

Error 0x7CF wrote on 2023-06-26, 20:45:

I'm a bit surprised they didn't try harder considering some of the Powermac G5s could be equipped with up to 16GB RAM but I guess they would have known not to bother since the x86 switch was coming.

Maybe, I think for a while there, in general, there was a belief in sticking with 32-bit userspace: http://web.archive.org/web/20190108141947/htt … -and-elsewhere/

The thing is that the modern web is so bloated (not just the sites but the shift to users keeping 5000 tabs open), and desktop applications bloated as a result of the move to Electron, that programmers can't write anything bigger than "hello world" in a 32-bit address space any longer 😁

If you mean in comparison to earlier word sizes, early Macs were limited to a 24-bit address space (This was due to a limitation of the Motorola 68000). Once Macs began running into issues with machines that had more than 8 MiB of RAM, the 32-bit addressing mode was added. Up until System 7, you could switch between 32-bit and 24-bit addressing, because some old software did not work in 32-bit addressing. I think your ROM had to be 32-bit "Clean" to take full advantage of 32-bit.

The transition to 32-bit addressing was done in the 68k days; by the time the PowerPC was introduced, 32-bit-only addressing was the norm.

Error 0x7CF wrote on 2023-06-26, 20:45:

https://lowendmac.com/2014/the-g5-and-mac-os- … han-youd-think/

All classic Mac OS would be entirely 32-bit, G5 was the first 64-bit mac CPU and it came *waaaay* after apple was done with OS9.

I'm a bit surprised they didn't try harder considering some of the Powermac G5s could be equipped with up to 16GB RAM but I guess they would have known not to bother since the x86 switch was coming.

The G5 was comparable to the Pentium IV. Powerful, but very hot and power hungry.
Altivec support on G5 was tacked-on, merely, not improvimg things much further.

And while Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard with 64-Bit support was available, it hadn't been loved.

Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger was quicker, more responsive and had Classic Environment.
Patched versions of OS 9.2.2 could run on G5 via Classic Environment.

And Classic had been needed desperately, still.
Because many users in the, say, picture editing field had a need to run classic Mac OS 8/9 applications in conjunction with recent OS X or Carbon applications (say Photoshop):
Say older DTP software, because new applications hadn't been written for Mac platform anymore.

Except for popular software, I mean. After early 2000s, the amount of new commercial Macintosh applications and games had decreased steadily.
A far cry to the 90s, in which a lot of niche applications had been sold.

Mac OS X Snow Leopard 10.6 (intel) was going to be the next star after Tiger.
It couldn't run Clasic Environment, but at least run both Intel and PPC binaries.
It also supported Carbon application, Intel and PPC.
So some Mac OS 8/9 applications could run on Snowy if they had been compiled for Carbon API rather than native Mac OS API.

Madd the Sane wrote on 2024-11-23, 04:36:

Up until System 7, you could switch between 32-bit and 24-bit addressing, because some old software did not work in 32-bit addressing. I think your ROM had to be 32-bit "Clean" to take full advantage of 32-bit.

Yes, but funnily the application wasn't from Apple but bought from Connectix.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MODE32

The 24-bit addressing limit was a software problem, not a hardware one. The address pointer was always 32-bits wide. Early Macintosh system software and applications used the, then unused, upper 8 address bits as a flag byte to conserve memory.

As for the G5, 64-bit addressing wasn't a waste per se. You could use 4+GB of RAM in the machine (the rare few that had it at the time), but 32-bit applications were limited in what they could use on a per-process basis like 32-bit WoW applications are limited on Windows. When Apple switched to 64-bit, they also eliminated the use of many of the C-based Carbon APIs. You could basically only program 64-bit applications in Cocoa. Most software houses weren't going to rewrite their stuff for PPC since the Intel transition had already happened at that point.

Jo22 wrote on 2024-11-23, 07:39:

Madd the Sane wrote on 2024-11-23, 04:36:

Up until System 7, you could switch between 32-bit and 24-bit addressing, because some old software did not work in 32-bit addressing. I think your ROM had to be 32-bit "Clean" to take full advantage of 32-bit.

Yes, but funnily the application wasn't from Apple but bought from Connectix.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MODE32

Connectix delivered a software patch for a number of machines (II/IIx/IIcx/SE/30) that did not have 32-bit-clean ROMs yet had 68020/68030s and all of the hardware to address more than 8 megs of RAM. Apple included 32-bit-clean ROMs starting with the IIci.

Frankly, I suspect Apple would have preferred that there be no software patch - realistically, more than 8 megs of RAM was still fairly unaffordable in 1991 when the first 32-bit-clean System 7 came out, and I think they would have been perfectly happy to just sell graphic designers a shiny new Quadra rather than a cheap 32-bit-clean option to increase the RAM in their 3-4 year old IIxes.

Also worth noting - I am pretty sure all of these machines had ROMs on sticks (maybe not the II). Apple could have easily sold a hardware ROM replacement if they wanted to. And indeed, I am pretty sure the 1.4 meg floppy upgrade kit for the II came with a ROM upgrade. And people do it today - just put the ROM from a IIci or IIsi.

I think it's hard to escape a conclusion that Apple's complete lack of a way to get those machines to 32-bit-cleanliness in late spring 1991 was absolutely intentional.

But... Connectix saw a way to sell (yes, sell, MODE32 cost money originally) a software solution for those 4 'abandoned' machines, Apple eventually ended up buying MODE32 from them, the end.

VivienM wrote on 2024-12-08, 17:53:

Connectix delivered a software patch for a number of machines (II/IIx/IIcx/SE/30) that did not have 32-bit-clean ROMs yet had 68 […]
Show full quote

Jo22 wrote on 2024-11-23, 07:39:

Madd the Sane wrote on 2024-11-23, 04:36:

Up until System 7, you could switch between 32-bit and 24-bit addressing, because some old software did not work in 32-bit addressing. I think your ROM had to be 32-bit "Clean" to take full advantage of 32-bit.

Yes, but funnily the application wasn't from Apple but bought from Connectix.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MODE32

Connectix delivered a software patch for a number of machines (II/IIx/IIcx/SE/30) that did not have 32-bit-clean ROMs yet had 68020/68030s and all of the hardware to address more than 8 megs of RAM. Apple included 32-bit-clean ROMs starting with the IIci.

Frankly, I suspect Apple would have preferred that there be no software patch - realistically, more than 8 megs of RAM was still fairly unaffordable in 1991 when the first 32-bit-clean System 7 came out, and I think they would have been perfectly happy to just sell graphic designers a shiny new Quadra rather than a cheap 32-bit-clean option to increase the RAM in their 3-4 year old IIxes.

Also worth noting - I am pretty sure all of these machines had ROMs on sticks (maybe not the II). Apple could have easily sold a hardware ROM replacement if they wanted to. And indeed, I am pretty sure the 1.4 meg floppy upgrade kit for the II came with a ROM upgrade. And people do it today - just put the ROM from a IIci or IIsi.

I think it's hard to escape a conclusion that Apple's complete lack of a way to get those machines to 32-bit-cleanliness in late spring 1991 was absolutely intentional.

But... Connectix saw a way to sell (yes, sell, MODE32 cost money originally) a software solution for those 4 'abandoned' machines, Apple eventually ended up buying MODE32 from them, the end.

Hi, I think same.

8 MB was okay, 4 MB sort of a requirement for a full System 7.0 and 7.1 (2 MB needed for booting the OS without applications).

On a second thought, though I've learnt to assume the unexpected after all this years. Users can be weird. 🙁

There might have been people in desktop publishing who already had those Macs, who knows.
And designers, architects and structural engineers can be quite excentric, I think.

But especially DTP is memory consuming.
1980s programs such as Aldus PageMaker or Ventura Publisher had consumed megabytes of RAM.

Anyway, I have no idea what kind of users the Macintosh had at the time.
The classic application, Photoshop, was still just a little tool in late 80s/early 90s.

Maybe these entry class Macs had been sold as discount to schools or universities at the time?
I read that Apple was popular in US schools in the 80s.

Edit: There's something else that comes to mind. It's related to tax law.
It might be possible that "upgrades" for existing equipment can be more easily justified on paper than replacing existing equipment.
That's why CPU accelerators for PC/XT machines had been popular, I heard.
In a business environment, it was easier - from a financial-bureaucratic point of view - to create a dozen hot-rod XTs than to switch to ATs.

Jo22 wrote on 2024-12-12, 15:29:

There might have been people in desktop publishing who already had those Macs, who knows. And designers, architects and structur […]
Show full quote

There might have been people in desktop publishing who already had those Macs, who knows.
And designers, architects and structural engineers can be quite excentric, I think.

But especially DTP is memory consuming.
1980s programs such as Aldus PageMaker or Ventura Publisher had consumed megabytes of RAM.

Anyway, I have no idea what kind of users the Macintosh had at the time.
The classic application, Photoshop, was still just a little tool in late 80s/early 90s.

Maybe these entry class Macs had been sold as discount to schools or universities at the time?
I read that Apple was popular in US schools in the 80s.

Edit: There's something else that comes to mind. It's related to tax law.
It might be possible that "upgrades" for existing equipment can be more easily justified on paper than replacing existing equipment.
That's why CPU accelerators for PC/XT machines had been popular, I heard.
In a business environment, it was easier - from a financial-bureaucratic point of view - to create a dozen hot-rod XTs than to switch to ATs.

First, you have to realize something - the 4 machines with the non-32-bit-clean ROMs were not "entry class Macs". It's the other way around - they were the highest-performing, highest-priced Macs for a roughly 2 year period before Apple had finished rewriting the ROM to make it 32-bit clean (which it did in late 1989's IIci). There were no "entry class Macs" at the time except maybe the Plus - this was the time of peak Gasseeism where they would just launch a new machine that was US$2000 more expensive than the previous machine. (That changed in the great panic of 1990 that led to the launch of the Classic/LC/IIsi but the LC/IIsi had 32-bit-clean ROMs)

The people buying expensive Macs in the early 1990s were graphic designers. Illustrator, Photoshop, QuarkXPress, PageMaker (although PageMaker was already in decline). Photoshop may have been only like two or three years old, but it was already very, very widely adopted.

I was living in France from 1991-1993 and our North American ImageWriter II was 120V/60Hz only and we never found a transformer (the transformers could only do 120V/50Hz which the IWII didn't like), so... my dad made an arrangement with a graphic design shop up the street that they'd print documents for him. They had all the Mac stuff - 21 inch CRTs, a Quadra 700, a IIci and a IIcx, Syquest drives, probably a flatbed scanner in a corner, and, of course, the all-important laser printer. Another place my dad had stuff printed at had a IIsi with 32-bit addressing; I remember that place because his old PageMaker 2.0 (which he brought with him on floppy along with the document...) wasn't 32-bit clean so they had to reboot the IIsi into 24-bit addressing mode or it would crash. But the place up the street, I think for as long as they didn't use the Quadra, they didn't have those issues.

The thing you have to realize is that various tasks back then took several hours. You read in the magazines that people would run one Photoshop filter overnight. If your staff is waiting hours for machines to do a single task, the productivity gain from replacing a IIx with a IIfx or a Quadra 700 is absolutely insane. Same with the many exotic expensive Mac accelerators at the time. And so... I think what a lot of those places would do is that they would get one of the newest machines for the person doing the heavy-computer-crunching tasks (e.g. the Photoshop filters), and then the older machines would be used for more interactive, less demanding tasks like QuarkXPress. And I suspect QuarkXPress on 8 megs of RAM on System 6.0.x or even 7.1 was perfectly manageable for most of that kind of work. And don't forget that the OS couldn't handle more than 8MB of RAM until May 1991, and most of those professional users were sticking to 6.0.5 or 6.0.7 (7.0 was buggy) for at least a few months, if not until they got their first Quadras in early 1992. Single-tasking System 6.0.x + a 21" monitor is how this worked.

But the point is this - by 1992 or so, the IIx/IIcx, let alone the II, were already on the way out in those kinds of shops. Tasks that needed high compute power were already moving to Quadras. So Apple probably thought that by not providing an official path to 32-bit-cleanness, they were just going to... hasten...the process mildly. But then Connectix started selling MODE32, and... well... Apple ended up buying it and giving it away.

Hm. I see.

What about sentimental value, though?
The Macintosh II was pretty, like an Commodore A2000 or IBM AT Model 5170.
Personally, if I was an owner of one of them, I wouldn't want to trade them for the next best modern replacement with better specs.
It's also a matter of prestige, I think. The older models look more professional.

The Macintosh II and IIx could also hold more Nubus cards than the later 32-bit clean IIci could. Yes, there was the IIfx, but that machine was quite expensive at the time.

I'm a big fan of the IIgs - best II era machine IMO.

That said, talking about PPC Macs, I agree with @Jo22 that the 10.4 Tiger version of the OS was ideal. Yeah, the G5 was 64 bit, but it wasn't really possible (IMO) to realize much benefit from that.

If you're interested in OSX 10.4 Tiger, I recommend a basic install plus Shuriken - https://www.macintoshrepository.org/48943-shuriken

If you're interested in OSX 10.5 Leopard, the last OSX update with PPC support, I /highly/ recommend Sorbet Leopard - https://macintoshgarden.org/apps/sorbet-leopard

While I'm at it, if you'd like to look at native OS9 on til-now unsupported G4 computers, check out this forum - https://macos9lives.com/smforum/index.php?board=127.0 - I highly recommend checking out a G4 Mac Mini for what I feel is a pretty ideal OS9 environment.

Granted this is pretty far away from the intent of this thread, but...what the hell 😜

NJRoadfan wrote on 2024-12-14, 03:12:

The Macintosh II and IIx could also hold more Nubus cards than the later 32-bit clean IIci could. Yes, there was the IIfx, but that machine was quite expensive at the time.

Nubus was neat. There was a Pro AudioSpectrum 16 for Nubus, even! ^^
Often I think that Nubus would have been a fine alternative to 16-Bit ISA bus.
Not as a replacement (ISA is great for prototyping), but as a high-speed alternative.
Would have been great to see 80286 PCs with some additional Nubus slots..

cloverskull wrote on 2024-12-14, 03:24:

I'm a big fan of the IIgs - best II era machine IMO.

Me, too! I don’t own one, though! I just think it's neat! 😁
It was/is sort of a missing link between Apple II and Macintosh.
Come to think of it that it essentially uses the SNES processor blew my mind!
It also has a System-ish OS and can do AppleTalk!

The concept of an "Apple II on-a-chip" is cool, though. The IIgs used a form of (hardware) emulation before it was cool!
It's a bit like a NOAC (Nintendo in a Chip) used by modern Famiclone consoles.
Funnily, they're using a 6502 derivative, as well, just like Apple II.

cloverskull wrote on 2024-12-14, 03:24:

That said, talking about PPC Macs, I agree with @Jo22 that the 10.4 Tiger version of the OS was ideal. Yeah, the G5 was 64 bit, but it wasn't really possible (IMO) to realize much benefit from that.

Thanks! I often think that Tiger meant as much to Power PC users as Snow Leopard meant to Intel Mac users.
Both provided excellent compatibility and had modest hardware requirements.
That being said, "Tiger for x86" has its own place in history. It was first Mac OS X to run on x86. With the exception of Rhapsody DR1/DR2, which were betas.

PS: Mac OS X 10.6.8 is still being supported by quite some applications.
The amateur radio programs I have can run on it, still.
The rest can be made run via Mac Ports, if a more recent version of XCode is downloaded by hand (as DMG, the Mac OS updater doesn't show it).

Likewise, 10.4.11 can run a more recent preview of Java. I got a newer Arduino IDE running that way!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wc_r2ohnRiE

Yeah, It's "just" the old v1.06.. But it's light years apart from the ancient v0.22 that used to be the limit for Tiger.
The Arduino IDE 1.06 can at least be used with an ordinary Arduino Uno R3 (ATMega328) and many simpler to medium scale projects are fine with the feature set.

Jo22 wrote on 2024-12-13, 20:14:

What about sentimental value, though? The Macintosh II was pretty, like an Commodore A2000 or IBM AT Model 5170. Personally, i […]
Show full quote

What about sentimental value, though?
The Macintosh II was pretty, like an Commodore A2000 or IBM AT Model 5170.
Personally, if I was an owner of one of them, I wouldn't want to trade them for the next best modern replacement with better specs.
It's also a matter of prestige, I think. The older models look more professional.

I don't think anybody viewed them as particularly pretty at the time. If anything, I would note that the world was starting to move away from desktop form factors towards minitowers, including in Apple land - look, for example, at how the Quadra 700 used the IIcx/IIci case but changed the labeling to emphasize vertical orientation. Then that was followed by the launch of the 800. And the minitower would remain the highest end option - Quadra 840av, PM 8100, the PCI minitowers, the beige G3 minitowers had mildly higher specs than the desktops, and then with the blue and white G3, the desktop case vanished entirely.

I think minitowers won for two reasons, really:
1) More flexibility for internal expansion, particularly CD-ROM drives, etc.
2) As CRTs got bigger and heavier and more affordable well, you can't really put a 21" CRT on top of a lot of desktop cases.

I can't remember if people put 21" CRTs on top of Mac IIs, it's worth noting that Apple only offered the 13-14" monitor and the 21" in those days. The 16" (really 17" if you measure it the way the rest of the industry did) came out in late 1991. The II form factor would be very, very inconvenient if you can't put a monitor on top of it.

I would note the same trend away from desktops happened in PC land. Look at, say, IBM Aptivas - the first year of Aptivas had both desktops and minitowers, and then it was all towers until the end of the Aptiva line. So while you may think the PC/AT/etc look pretty... in the late 1990s they were just either low-end or dated.

The other point I would make is that I don't think anybody in the 1990s had sentimental value for their old computers. Certainly not if you were using them for work - you would just appreciate that, on the new one, a task that took an hour now only took 15 minutes. But even home computers... in my experience at least, you just tended to keep a little 'too long' and by the time they finally got replaced, well, any positive feelings towards the old one were long gone.

VivienM wrote on 2024-12-15, 17:54:

I don't think anybody viewed them as particularly pretty at the time. If anything, I would note that the world was starting to move away from desktop form factors towards minitowers, including in Apple land - look, for example, at how the Quadra 700 used the IIcx/IIci case but changed the labeling to emphasize vertical orientation.

Okay. It just came to mind because my own grandfather was an architect who was picky/excentric about certain things.
For example, he couldn't stand colour TV. Watching the news speaker in colour was indigniful. According to him, the news had to be in serious black/white.
That's why he had imported a high-end black/white TV from East Germany to W-Germany.
Because, GDR was the only remaing country left to produce large and pure B/W TV sets.
- It was also the last country with pure black/white transmitter stations.
They would be turned on each time a pure black/white TV programme was aired. For better picture quality, it says.

That's why I thought that other people from such fields might be similar minded.
That they do view their computers as their personal tools, in short, rather than some machinery.
Just like an artist who has a preferred brush or painter palette.
Or an architect, who has his/her favorite rapidograph.

Edit:

Then that was followed by the launch of the 800. And the minitower would remain the highest end option - Quadra 840av, PM 8100, the PCI minitowers, the beige G3 minitowers had mildly higher specs than the desktops, and then with the blue and white G3, the desktop case vanished entirely.

Indeed. The blue/white G3 was pretty - or rather, aestethically pleasing.

Not sure if that can be said about the Quadra 840av, though.
I looks a bit out of place, I think. Like an interference factor. The wavy chassis doesn't fit the rest.

By comparion, the Macintosh II and it's peripherals look like one set.
The keyboard, the monitor, the chassis. Everything matches nicely.
Like with an Amiga A1000 or Commodore 128D.

They're harmonic, in short. To designers or architects that might be of relevance.
They want to have their workplace the way they want it to, I can imagine.

PS: If I was in that situation in the 90s, I guess I might have opted for a DayStar/Umax Mac compatible.
A big tower model, installed on a separate table or under my desk.

Edit: Or an Atari ST (Mega ST 2 or 4) or an Atari TT030, maybe, since it quite was popular here in western Europe.
DTP software such as Calamus did exist already.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calamus_(DTP)

I think minitowers won for two reasons, really:
1) More flexibility for internal expansion, particularly CD-ROM drives, etc.
2) As CRTs got bigger and heavier and more affordable well, you can't really put a 21" CRT on top of a lot of desktop cases.

It's logical for sure. And as a computer fan, I do like big towers for sure.
But if I was an artist.. Not sure if I wanted to have that monstrosity sitting on the desk, staring at me.
I probably would mount it under the desk or put it on ground, so it can't be seen and won't get in the way.

The other point I would make is that I don't think anybody in the 1990s had sentimental value for their old computers.
Certainly not if you were using them for work - you would just appreciate that, on the new one, a task that took an hour now only took 15 minutes.
But even home computers... in my experience at least, you just tended to keep a little 'too long' and by the time they finally got replaced, well, any positive feelings towards the old one were long gone.

Hm. I had a soft spot for both Windows 2.03 and Windows 3.1x in the 90s, when both of them were less than 10 years old.
I prefered both GUIs over then-new Windows 95, which had felt cold.
I also liked PC-DOS 3.30 for its simplicity and elegance.
That was in a time when these older OSes weren't retro yet.
But I was using them at home at the time, understandably.
Windows 95 was dominating PC landscape in a storm.