[JeffO]

I hope this is in the right area for this subject. Here's the situation. I have an iMac DVse which came with 9.1xx. I updated the firmware and installed OSX Jaguar. I am now going to give the computer to my aunt and she has a bunch of software for OS 9 and would prefer to go back to that OS. I know about classic mode, but she is not a very sophisticated user and I think it would be easier for her to use OS 9.

My question is, after updating the firmware will there be any problem re-installing and using OS 9?

Thanks,

Jeff

[Art Vandelay]

Nope. The firmware update will not cause any problems installing OS 9.

Edit:
Just clarifying my answer since the poster asked the question in two different ways.

[ntsc]

yeah that should work, but could i put one thought in your head before you do this? imagine a situation where your aunt buys some software in the future which requires OS X to run as much new software is these days, you are going to have to upgrade that machine to OS X for her to run said software and she will have to learn that OS. if she works out classic, then (assuming all this software works in classic) when the time comes she can run any new software. just i bit more future proof ya know?

anyway just putting my two pense in, feel free to ignore, i'm not the authority on everything.

[Big Mac]

NTSC is correct when he says it may be worth it to see whether the original poster's aunt can adapt to OS X. On the other hand, it doesn't sound as if she will be doing much with new software. When you installed OS X, did you reformat your drive before hand? If you didn't do anything except install OS X, just go to the startup disk pane, choose OS 9 and reboot. Simple. If you did do something to OS 9, boot from the OS 9 System CD and reinstall it.

[Eug]

Just set it up for dual boot, with OS 9 as the primary boot system.

It can't hurt to have OS X on there, except for a little lost space.

[Brass]

What OS 9 Software is she using? It may be worth switching over to OS X versions now, if they are available (or if equivalents are availabel), and OS 9 just gets older and older and older. So now is as good a time as any.

All of the users I've helped move from 9 to X are sooooo glad they made the change. Even the oldies. And they don't have problems using Classic either, once it's been explained to them.

[Telusman]

Well thats easy for you to say there Brass, most home users, myself included can't afford to upgrade with the high prices of software these days, the $700 office program, the $1000 graphics program, the $200 Operating system etc, etc, etc. If i actually bought all the software that I have god knows i'd be bankrupt. Im just glad my work gave me most of it.

On a side note, i feel classic is a waste of code, i really never liked how it was implemented "OS X doesn't suck up enough ram by itself, lets make it so they have to load *two* operating systems to run some of their software.... yeahhhh"

I was more than happy to delete classic starup.app as soon as i installed Panther.

-Telusman

Originally posted by Brass:
What OS 9 Software is she using? It may be worth switching over to OS X versions now, if they are available (or if equivalents are availabel), and OS 9 just gets older and older and older. So now is as good a time as any.

All of the users I've helped move from 9 to X are sooooo glad they made the change. Even the oldies. And they don't have problems using Classic either, once it's been explained to them.

[Brass]

Originally posted by Telusman:
Well thats easy for you to say there Brass, most home users, myself included can't afford to upgrade with the high prices of software these days, the $700 office program, the $1000 graphics program, the $200 Operating system etc, etc, etc. If i actually bought all the software that I have god knows i'd be bankrupt. Im just glad my work gave me most of it.

On a side note, i feel classic is a waste of code, i really never liked how it was implemented "OS X doesn't suck up enough ram by itself, lets make it so they have to load *two* operating systems to run some of their software.... yeahhhh"

I was more than happy to delete classic starup.app as soon as i installed Panther.

-Telusman

Yep, it was easy for me to say. That's why I asked what was the software in question. Perhaps then we could evaluate if it was worthwhile and/or cost effective. If there's one item of expensive commercial software required and a whole bunch of shareware then perhaps it would be well worth it.

I don't particularly like classic, but it is absolutely essential for some of us, so please don't begrudge us that Eg, I MUST run my classic-only Australian Taxation Office software at least 4 times a year to report my taxable activities to them. I also have a 3D modelling application, which is Classic-only (and windows) and for which there is no equivalent on Mac OS X.

I'm not going to stay in OS 9 and not use OS X full-time when they work perfectly well in Classic. In fact, I've found that some OS 9 applications actually run some operations faster in Classic than in native OS 9 - weird, I know. And running Classic (on the rare occasions I need it) has given me no noticible performance hit, even on the very modest machines I run on. So, it's really not that big a deal.

[mrmister]

I actually don't mind running Classic anymore now that I have Panther--of course, I don't need to very often, which may be one of the reasons it doesn't hurt so much.