I switched: Not missing OS X a bit... I still miss OS 9 however.

20 years with the Mac

In February of 2011 I made a decision I would have never done in my computer history life. I switched from Macintosh to Windows. Is that right?... Yes. It was about time.

After 20 years of devotion to Apple products, I came to a state of realization. The reason that I originally fell in love with Macintosh computers was gone forever.

It had been gone since 2001 [1], really, but I could still deal with the "flaw" by means of work-arounds (with the help of a buggy Classic, restarting into OS 9, support from Apple, etc) - which was BTW soon enough dropped. Retracing my steps, the new Mac OS X 10.0 was a disaster, at least in my Beige Tower 433Mhz. 10.1 wasn't much of an improvement (in my blue/white and translucent grey tower). I still found myself stuck with Finder windows that I couldn't scroll (a common complaint that followed OSX users until 10.2). It was a bitter start, a rough start. If I had bought an OS X native Mac, I bet it would have been easier to deal with. BUT here comes the honest and sad truth: Macs ARE expensive. Brand new or USED, it doesn't matter. A 2 year old Mac will cost you as much as a brand new PC, only with "baggage" (if you're lucky you get some dents or scratches, if you're not so; you get an already obsolete computer with a BAD harddrive or known issues that Apple has already turned their backs on).

Mac OS 10.2: No hard feelings right?

Yes, you better believe that's the title. Here comes someone who is still bitter about this. "Holding a grudge aren't ya?" —you say. Well, anyways...

Apple finally released a stable, workable version of OS X when they released 10.2. What? Let me get this straight, this WAS the company who criticized Microsoft for not getting Windows right, until their 3.1 release... A bit cocky aren't we?

They said Microsoft rushed it... hmm, well what in the world was Apple trying to rush, and why?

As far as I remember, Apple had never had such an influential success since 1984. In 2000 after the success of Y2K's Macintoshes passing with flying colors, due to some older PC servers not completely immune to it; finally Apple was a "strong" and competitive computer company! What the hell happened?

Here comes Unix

Why did you have to do this Steve? No, I am not saying Unix is bad. It's not! Unix was going to be the future of Macs. I have no problem with that. You could have given another year to the development rather that releasing a horribly unstable system. Or you could have integrated emulation into it like Microsoft did when they released Windows 2000 with their NT base.

Mac OS X! - I have to admit I was excited! Until I heard "it will be built from the ground up and your old applications will not run on it, Apple is looking for a work-around which will be ready by the time of it's release"... "But", you say, "Windows Vista and Windows 7 can not run older software"... let me get this through as painless as possible...

I have Windows 95 programs running in Windows 7 with minimal patches and addons. I can still run Zork Grand Inquisitor (1997) in my Windows 7 laptop (a game that had native OS 9 and OS X app) but it has never run correctly in Classic; and it stopped working in OS X by the release of 10.3.

That's ridiculous.

What do you say? "But that's only ONE game..."

I can also run a 1997 Little Bear CD for Win/Mac. Runs on Windows 7, but not on Mac OS 10.4.9.

I can run a Reader Rabbit CD also 1997-98 era, on Windows 7. Not on Mac.

None of my classic retail games work in current Macs, only about half worked in Classic 10.4 and as-of the launch of OS X 10.5, Classic is no longer supported; which means I need something like Basilisk II or Sheepshaver to get them working. P-p-please!

Unfortunately neither Zork Nemesis, Zork Grand Inquisitor nor Return to Zork work under Sheepshaver. I tried running Oxyd Magnum! and the marble is so fast it cruises through the screen at lightning speed. Needless to say, you're lucky to pass level one. Lemmings is a torture to event try.

Truth be told, Sheepshaver was developed by the rich geeks who were "happy" with OS X, in order to shut the mouths of those still sore about OS 9.

"There you go, it looks like OS9, it's a hologram of OS9, now are you all happy?"

Apple Computer: the cell phone company

Hey, it was a fact. Many people were angry and didn't like the switch to OS X. Those who "were not", were those who suck-it-up to Apple. Or those who were rich and got OS X native Macs. They left the classic apps in the forgotten past. Plain and simple.

Nowadays people have to own an iPhone and an iPod. They may, or may not, own a Macintosh computer.

--*cough* *cough* sorry, I said that too fast--

Go to Apple website. You get 3 models of Mac computers in each category to choose from. Wow.

Hey! In the early days (in the OS 9 era) Apple was selling a good solid 6 models for each processor speed, some were even low-cost (LC): laptops (Powerbooks), desktops, duos, heck they even sold printers (remember those days)?

Now they sell, handheld pads, and cell phones. If you're rich, you may add a Mac on the side.

Not that you really need it!

What is all this Windows on Mac nonsense?

Mac OS 10.4.9 was getting old, really old... I remember being close to grabbing my hair a couple of times. I was sick of the way the Mac OS was cleaning up my system. No FREE geek software on the web to help with that though. My IDE hard-drive was failing and OS X claimed it was in a tip-top shape S.M.A.R.T analysis (My ordeal is recorded here). OnyX (a freeware consolation app) said the same thing.

Since OS X introduction, it was my third IDE failing drive, but I didn't know that yet. What a coincidence however, SCSI was not supported, due to being "too expensive" to maintain; and obsolete. *cough* *cough* I must be getting the flu.

What? One of the best things Macintosh computers used to have has been dropped to no return?

I remember reformatting a good number of SCSIs in the old days, and getting 1-2 more years of work done with them. Try to re-format an IDE drive, if it DOES survive, give it a month or two... then be really for a HARD crash. It happened to me, I used to own FWB Hard Disk Toolkit. That thing was without exaggeration, a true piece of expert tech software. Too bad IDE drives just couldn't take a low level re-format. My 433Mhz Mac crashed badly 2 months after a "successful re-format"....

They ditched Hard Drive maintenance tools, even though IDE drives are unreliable

Like I mentioned above. I had failing hard drives. My issues were MASKED by the fact that Disk Utility kept giving me satisfactory S.M.A.R.T analysis, when the disks were failing badly. I had to sort to the very rare, hard to find expensive hard-disk-management tools (Norton and FWB were history by then) to find that my drives were completely unusable. The only clue I got FROM THE MAC OS, was the endless spinning beach balls. In a Mac you get a machine that hides crucial details about your system, much like cancer in a sick patient.

Windows has always had their own hard drive defrag utility, that tells you about bad sectors, and usually masks them for you... in the Mac, most users don't even know what bad blocks are!

I don't get it. My friend's Windows computer's hard disk has 6 or 7 bad sectors, it says so in the De-fragmenting application that came with Windows.

HID Manager to some, was like a nightmare. Too buggy and even useless at some point.

And still he's not crashing as much as my Mac is. I'd plug a USB device, and the clock would crash (this was a WIDELY known issue check this and this as well) this was common in OS 10.2.x all the way up to 10.4.x

Oh I remember those endless spinning beach-balls, wow they'd never end. All of a sudden my clock was unresponsive. If I was lucky I could continue to work, with a frozen clock. You see, every time I'd plug a USB mouse, or Firewire external hard disk, when I was done I would "trash eject it" then unplug it, I'd end up with a frozen clock!

In the end, I found all of that may have been indirectly linked to a bad hard drive; or was it? I wasn't the only one having problems with the HID Manager, so it's hard to tell. I do know problems diminished when I installed a new hard drive. But the frozen clock issues were always there when I'd plug my OWC On The Go 250GB Western Digital drive (in my old iBook G4 1.33Ghz) RIP.

Old Mac Software support is HARD to find

Nobody cares. Just push forward! :(

I found that stuff like that doesn't happen for PCs. There is always a ton of sites where you will find a download of that super old remotely unknown DOS game you used to know and love. Not only that, there are tons of addons, dll files, patches, etc. to make sure you get that old thing going in your system; NO MATTER how old it is!

And guess what...

Windows DOES Classic Mac! - I can run Sheepshaver and Basilisk in Windows, better than any Mac can do so now!

Mac Computer Users are diminishing

In the 90s, Macintosh users accounted for 2% of the worldwide computer users, MacUser magazine explained. Today they account for 7% (12% if you include iOS for the iPhone operating system, but I honestly want to exclusively stay in the personal computer category). You'd say, "Wait a minute what do you mean? That's actually more than 2%!" Not exactly. If Macintosh computers had continued to have the scale of popularity that they used to have in those days (in those days most USA school systems were Mac based), there should be at least 20% Macintosh computer users worldwide nowadays. Let's add more detailed information, sorry I can't come up with actually mathematical calculations (hey I'm not getting a dime for this):

“In the fall of 1984, just 7.9 percent of U.S. households reported that they owned a home computer; by 1997 this had more than quadrupled to 36.6 percent. Patterns of access and use at the individual level reflect these general household patters. About half of all children ages 3 to 17 had access to a computer at home by 1997, as did about 40 percent of all adults (ages 18+). Growth rates are even more impressive at school (for children) and work (for adults). About 71 percent of children in school had some use of a computer; while 50 percent of working adults report that they now use a computer in their job.”

- Changes in computer Ownership and Use from the Census

Another calculation made by MacWorld Magazine in an article that's no longer available but luckily someone was able to provide the info:

“While the Apple products were of high quality, they were always more expensive than comparable products that were compatible with Microsoft's DOS operating system. Apple's share of the computer market has dropped to an estimated 2.4% worldwide and 3.48% of the US market (MacWorld July 3, 2002). This is an example of how a near lock on a market can be lost in a twinkling.”

- Computer Basics 8 - System Software: Types

I purposely didn't look for that information guys, this is what came up when I searched for "Macintosh usage by year vs. PC usage by year". This happens to be a great status site, unfortunately it doesn't go into in-depth detail, like for example "progression comparison chart of computer OS by overall usage through the years" http://www.statowl.com/operating_system_market_share.php

Pre-OS X Macintosh Operating Systems

Yes, PARDON the redundancy. It is very often that people think I am talking about hardware; when I am talking about software. I needed to make that really clear. Often people don't seem to realize OS X means operating system 10"; I hope I've made my point.

Pre OS X operating systems were a programmer's dream, highly customizable, you could also use ResEdit to change EVERYTHING! Including the OS dialogs, you could change them into your own language/dialect, change their appearance, change colors, change the trash-can-icon to a pile of dung, create your own icons pixel by pixel and create you own fonts; ALL OF THAT with just one simple 2,000 kilobytes program. Not only did Apple get rid of their wonderful customization abilities but it had gotten rid of SCSI (as I mentioned), the die-hard hard-disk drives that could be re-formatted again and again forever. I still have a SCSI harddrive from the Mac Plus era, and while a bit noisy; it still operates great!

It didn't take much exploring a pre-OSX mac to show how great beyond words they were. If you were familiar with Windows even more so; back then a Mac-OS Mac, was TRULY ONE of a kind machine. Nowadays, it's just sickening how similar Windows and Macs are. I got so tired of how Macs became so un-original, that I dumped my 20 year loyalty to them. I mean, this comes from a person who wouldn't allow a PC in her home 10 yrs ago, to a person that uses a PC as their primary system today.

It hurts to admit, but Apple used to be the kind of company who said "Windows was junk" (with pride) and wouldn't go anywhere close to being like Windows. But guess what, their Macs now run Windows natively (Mac Intels)... if the Mac OS is really THAT superior, then why so? Do you think I'm going to buy a Mac that can do Windows ($1000+)? Not a fat chance! I bought a $400 Windows computer instead, I'm happy.

This blog is still not complete (nowhere close) I will include the rest as I stumble across it.

I did promise: My research continues (April 2012)

More details for my research. If you look at statistics you will see the Mac was at its best in 1996, made it to #4 computer best seller worldwide. It wasn't easy to get there either, and it wasn't easy to lose their spot soon enough. That was back when Apple allowed clones. It seems being able to sell clones with Mac OS in them, helped users learn more about the Mac operating system. They got to experience the classic operating system (then Mac OS 7.6) and fall in love with the way it worked.

Then Apple stopped listening. Too focused on their "Think Different" campaign, too busy targeting certain people. They already had the edge when it came to schools, so they wanted to target the rich. Bad move.

That may work with cell phones buddy... but it doesn't work with computers. You see; people love to yap, and yap... usually, those who love to yap, hate to type! World nowadays evolves around who can yap the most, and they give you unlimited cell phone minutes to make sure you keep yapping.

People work less, and yap more.

So it is obvious the iPhone has saved Apple from doom. If it wasn't for the iPhone, the Apple company would have gone down a long time ago. And who is better to make something new and popular than Apple. They had been known for their out-of-the-box designs. So they designed the iPad which swoop the world.

More iPhones/iPads, less Macs

Research reveals that about 41 million iPhones sold between 2007 and 2009, way more than all Macs combined in that short period of time. Apple sold 55 million iPads since they were introduced. That's half of Macs EVER sold.

Now I want a "Wow" when I mention how many iOS (iPhone OS) have sold to age, and surpassed the Macs ever sold since the beginning in 1984!..

• So far OVER 150 million iOS operating systems have sold, which surpasses Macs ever sold by at least 40 million

“"The iOS platform overtook the OS X platform in under four years and more iOS devices were sold in 2011 (156 million) than all the Macs ever sold (122 million)."” — http://www.asymco.com/2012/02/16/ios-devices-in-2011-vs-macs-sold-it-in-28-years/