[goMac]

I hate to say it but...

Trying to claim 2k was not a consumer OS is silly. I know far more consumers who use it and bought machines that came with it than ME or 98 (when 98 and 2k were both around).

Where I work (a school district) every machine is formatted with 2k professional even if it came with XP.

In many ways 2k was the consumer OS of choice since its introduction. ME was horrible and was not used very much by manufacturers, who usually offered 2000 as a choice, and eventually it became pretty standard. I know my friend who bought a Sony Viao laptop 3 years ago got 2k by default. My Dell came with Windows 2k by default.

[ghost_flash]

Originally posted by sniffer:
Just noticed the os 9 forum is getting more and more empty lately.


no big inline images!

Well, I used OS 9 for about a year and a half at my last job, and I thought it was ok, but when OS X came out, I was sold, and made the personal switch from my XP box to 100% Mac. Haven't looked back, and I would imagine many have done the same. I am just upgrading to Panther in the next few days, any thoughts or experiences for the process from those that have done it already? I'm moving from 10.2.8 >

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by Big Booger:
To your second point, I saw a whole site run by a Mac user devoted to proving how much better cooperative multitasking was.

Just checked the newsgroups for an argument I had way back then. One of the guys there provided the link to that site, just looking for that link. Be back.

Why should you have to go to the trouble? I thought the Internet was just full of such sites, which your Google search turned up so many of that you couldn't even decide which to post.

[starman]

Trying to claim 2k was not a consumer OS is silly. I know far more consumers who use it and bought machines that came with it than ME or 98 (when 98 and 2k were both around).

Bullsh*t.

It didn't run games well. MS tried to accomodate the gamers, but updates to DX were slow and buggy. I did testing on the same physical machine with WinME and Win2k with games like Tribes, Everquest, Unreal Tournament, and Q3A and in every test, the WinME-based benchmark won.

How can you call it a consumer OS if game performance was crap? Just because you could surf the net with it? For that I'll fire up my Atari ST .

Win2K was a good stepping stone to XP, but it was NOT a consumer OS.

EDIT: HAHAH! Found my original deja.com article on it:

Click here

Mike

[goMac]

Originally posted by starman:
Bullsh*t.

It didn't run games well. MS tried to accomodate the gamers, but updates to DX were slow and buggy. I did testing on the same physical machine with WinME and Win2k with games like Tribes, Everquest, Unreal Tournament, and Q3A and in every test, the WinME-based benchmark won.

Of course it was slower, but it was far less crashy. Anyone who has spent time with ME knows it was a pile of crap. Manufacturers knew it and abandon it. Game compatibility was also good. I know many die-hard gamers who use this as their OS of choice, and have used it ever since it came out. Many games at the time also were built for 2k also.

The difference in speed was not that bad, and the stability trade off was more than worth it.

In my whole life I have only seen one machine that came with ME. That machine was the most troublesome machine I have ever seen.

2000 was NT for consumers. But it failed to take hold of the market and fully replace 98 like MS wanted, so they released "NT for consumers" again in XP. Thats why NT5 moved to the year versioning system, it was intended to be the next step up from 98.

[Big Booger]

Originally posted by starman:
Bullsh*t.

It didn't run games well.

Win2K was a good stepping stone to XP, but it was NOT a consumer OS.

Ummm, I didn't say it was a consumer OS. I said it was a desktop client OS (too). Charles said it was only for servers. Doh. And it ran games better than Win 9x. Even back in the NT4 days when the Glide drivers were released all Glide games ran faster in every way.

Direct 3D games were a bit iffy for a while on 2K but Open GL was and still is just great.

[starman]

Originally posted by goMac:
Of course it was slower, but it was far less crashy. Anyone who has spent time with ME knows it was a pile of crap. Manufacturers knew it and abandon it. Game compatibility was also good. I know many die-hard gamers who use this as their OS of choice, and have used it ever since it came out. Many games at the time also were built for 2k also.

The difference in speed was not that bad, and the stability trade off was more than worth it.

In my whole life I have only seen one machine that came with ME. That machine was the most troublesome machine I have ever seen.

2000 was NT for consumers. But it failed to take hold of the market and fully replace 98 like MS wanted, so they released "NT for consumers" again in XP. Thats why NT5 moved to the year versioning system, it was intended to be the next step up from 98.

Uh, did you READ my benchmarks? Obviously not.

WHY did 2K fail to take hold? Because NOTHING WORKED.

I work at the kernel level for drivers at work. Let me tell you a little something about 2K - it was a NIGHTMARE to write drivers for it. I can't tell you how many long nights I spent trying to debug kernel-level code. XP solved the problem of having to do that.

And as for "stability", it was more stable than 9x/ME, but it wasn't bulletproof.

And I really must be the only person on the planet that had a stable ME box. Seriously. I never had a lick of trouble with it. Then again, I don't abuse my systems like most consumers do.

Nobody used Win2K as their "gaming OS of choice". Nobody. I can't believe anyone in their right mind would use 2K instead of XP.

Mike

[starman]

Originally posted by Big Booger:
Ummm, I didn't say it was a consumer OS.

Ummm...I wasn't quoting you.

Mike

[Big Booger]

Originally posted by starman:
Uh, did you READ my benchmarks? Obviously not.

WHY did 2K fail to take hold? Because NOTHING WORKED.


Nobody used Win2K as their "gaming OS of choice". Nobody. I can't believe anyone in their right mind would use 2K instead of XP.

Mike

Wrong on three counts.

Nothing worked? You mean all those hours of Quake III, Unreal, Fifa and Medal of Honor were a dream?

Nobody used 2K for gaming? ****, I saw gaming tournaments running on 2K because any other solution would've crashed. Didn't see anyone complain regardless of your bunchmarks.

Nobody would use 2K over XP? I'll take 2K anyday. When XP came out it had a very slight advantage in game framerates (like 2FPS here and there out of 100FPS) but in applications like Photoshop it was slower, XPs GUI was slower (for obvious reasons) and pop up boxes didnt help either.

[starman]

Originally posted by Big Booger:
Wrong on three counts.

Nothing worked? You mean all those hours of Quake III, Unreal, Fifa and Medal of Honor were a dream?

Nobody used 2K for gaming? ****, I saw gaming tournaments running on 2K because any other solution would've crashed. Didn't see anyone complain regardless of your bunchmarks.

Nobody would use 2K over XP? I'll take 2K anyday. When XP came out it had a very slight advantage in game framerates (like 2FPS here and there out of 100FPS) but in applications like Photoshop it was slower, XPs GUI was slower (for obvious reasons) and pop up boxes didnt help either.

Wow. Someone really needs to READ.

No, nothing worked. In the context of what I posted, I was talking about DRIVERS, not games. READ WHAT I WROTE.

And the original poster didn't say "used" 2K, he said "uses"...as in today. Big difference.

I know many die-hard gamers who use this as their OS of choice, and have used it ever since it came out.

On your third count, again, you're talking about 2 years ago.

Mike

[goMac]

Originally posted by starman:
Uh, did you READ my benchmarks? Obviously not.

WHY did 2K fail to take hold? Because NOTHING WORKED.

I work at the kernel level for drivers at work. Let me tell you a little something about 2K - it was a NIGHTMARE to write drivers for it. I can't tell you how many long nights I spent trying to debug kernel-level code. XP solved the problem of having to do that.

And as for "stability", it was more stable than 9x/ME, but it wasn't bulletproof.

And I really must be the only person on the planet that had a stable ME box. Seriously. I never had a lick of trouble with it. Then again, I don't abuse my systems like most consumers do.

Nobody used Win2K as their "gaming OS of choice". Nobody. I can't believe anyone in their right mind would use 2K instead of XP.

Mike

Windows ME has a horrible reputation which was well earned. Thats why it spent about 2 seconds on the market. It was probably the worst version of Windows ever.

You're also forgetting that networking was far better under 2k. It was far easier to take your machine around to LAN parties under 2k. ME liked to force you into restarts.

Sure, 2000 was not as friendly as XP, and it didn't have the same backwards compatibility as XP, but it worked far better than ME. All the software companies moved their development to 2000 anyway, so compabitility problems dropped.

Also, remember anything that shipped with Firewire probably came with 2000. IIRC ME didn't have firewire support. 98 did not for sure. This means anything Sony was 2000 at least.

Windows 2000 still has an absurdly large share of the market.

[Big Booger]

Originally posted by starman:
Wow. Someone really needs to READ.

No, nothing worked. In the context of what I posted, I was talking about DRIVERS, not games. READ WHAT I WROTE.

Starman, at least be specific about what didnt work otherwise it turns into a worthless argument. I had:

-Numerous graphic card upgrades
-A Miro DC30Plus editing card
-A Creative DVD Encore decoder card
-Soundblaster 64 Live!
-Five point surround sound speakers
-Internal Zip 100
-Separate CD writer

That was a beast of a system and guess what? It had drivers for NT4 and when I upgraded to 2K I had drivers for all the above within a few months (I only had to wait for the Miro and DVD decoder drivers). It was stable and never crashed. If memory serves me correct my graphics upgrades went like this:

-Matrox Millenium II
-3Dfx Voodoo add in card
-3Dfx Voodoo 2 add in card
-Nvidia TNT
-Nvidia TNT Ultra
-Nvidia Geforce

No problems. After that I moved to Mac full time (when OSX got to 10.1).

[starman]

It's irrelevant. Bottom line to what I responded to is whether or not Win2K was a consumer level OS. It wasn't. Even MS didn't say it was. 2K's lower level architecture didn't make it possible.

Mike

[goMac]

Originally posted by starman:
It's irrelevant. Bottom line to what I responded to is whether or not Win2K was a consumer level OS. It wasn't. Even MS didn't say it was. 2K's lower level architecture didn't make it possible.

Mike

Windows 2k was a consumer OS because it was the only OS at the time that supported consumer technologies, like FireWire.

[Big Booger]

Originally posted by goMac:
Windows 2k was a consumer OS because it was the only OS at the time that supported consumer technologies, like FireWire.

Oh, I had a Umax firewire scanner with the card too. 2K was fine with it, XP was iffy and OSX has no native 8400 scanner support. The offical Umax drivers didnt work either.

Just remembered. My litte brother has 98 and 2K on his PC. It's an Athlon 700 with a Geforce 4MX. He boots into 2K to play games because it handles the data better and games run more smoothly.

[starman]

Originally posted by goMac:
Windows 2k was a consumer OS because it was the only OS at the time that supported consumer technologies, like FireWire.

Then explain why at the time it only supported DX7 when 9x/ME supported DX8.

If it's a consumer level OS, then why couldn't you get better game support?

Answer: it wasn't a consumer level OS!

Just because it supported Firewire doesn't mean sh*t.

From Microsoft:

Windows 2000 Professional is the Windows operating system for business desktop and laptop systems. It is used to run software applications, connect to Internet and intranet sites, and access files, printers, and network resources.

Yeah, that sounds like a consumer level OS

Even their "Top 10 reasons to move" aren't consumer-based:

http://www.microsoft.com/windows2000...de/default.asp

You sound like those people that think Linux is for their parents.

Just because it worked on a very basic level doesn't mean it's meant for the home user in general.

Mike

[Big Booger]

Is OSX a client or consumer OS, or both?

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by Big Booger:
Is OSX a client or consumer OS, or both?

OS X is both.

XP is both.

Mac OS 1-9 was a consumer OS.

Win9x was a consumer OS.

WinNT was not a consumer OS. It was a professional/server OS.

A/UX and Rhapsody/Mac OS X Server were not consumer OS's. They were professional/server OS's.

Mac OS 1-9 and WinNT did not have the same purpose, and were not intended for the same market.

Clear?

[Big Booger]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
OS X is both.

XP is both.

Mac OS 1-9 was a consumer OS.

Win9x was a consumer OS.

WinNT was not a consumer OS. It was a professional/server OS.

A/UX and Rhapsody/Mac OS X Server were not consumer OS's. They were professional/server OS's.

Mac OS 1-9 and WinNT did not have the same purpose, and were not intended for the same market.

Clear?

No, not clear. Why is OSX both, XP both but not 2K. It makes no sense at all.

Let me see:

Running on OSX = Internet browsing, games, DVD playback, Office apps, Photoshop, etc

Running on 2K = Internet browsing, games, DVD playback, Office apps, Photoshop, etc

I fail to see what you're trying to prove. 2K was a client OS easily usable for consumers if they wanted too. Apple calls OSX a client OS and promotes it as a pro-tool and consumer tool.

Now go to Control Panel in 2K and tell me what you see. Wizards and control centers for consumer devices better than what was in Win 98. This was the foundation for XP, in 2K.

At the end of the day it depends on what you're running. Speaking from experience I ran 2K just as I run OSX.

[CharlesS]

^ ^ Win2000 was Microsoft's first attempt to make NT into a consumer OS. However, the final product was not yet ready for consumers, which is why the cobbled together ME at the last minute (which incidentally is why that release was so awful). Sort of like Mac OS X 10.0, which Apple shipped on new Macs but set OS 9 as the default because 10.0 wasn't ready to be a consumer OS yet. Windows XP was Microsoft's first version of NT that was truly a consumer OS, just like Mac OS X 10.1.

[sniffer]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
Windows XP was Microsoft's first version of NT that was truly a consumer OS,...

Yep! Don't know what this has to do with OS 9, but CharlesS has it right.

[Vpro7]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
Your anecdotal evidence does not change the fact that NT was not intended for the same market as OS 9, and not made for the same audience. It was not intended as a consumer OS. If it had been, why would anyone have bought Windows 98?

It was though, it wasn't sold as a purely server OS. One of the main reason for graphics professionals leaving the Mac for Windows, was NT, it cause thr big players to sink under, like SGI. Thios was i nthe workstation market, not the server one.

Apple only had Classic for those markets, whereas MS had differing OSs depending on your use. I personally started using NT as soon as it reached version 4, for the same tasks as I would use the Mac previously.

[Vpro7]

Originally posted by starman:
Uh, did you READ my benchmarks? Obviously not.

WHY did 2K fail to take hold? Because NOTHING WORKED.

Sorry, but that is not true. Win2K is still the most used, and most widelyspread NT based OS out there. In fact, many of us still use it, and feel hard done by having to drop it for XP. What is a consumer OS? Something jkust for games? If so, then Mac OS is anutter failure as a consumer OS since games for it are minscule compared to Win2k. Win2K Pro was an OS designed for virtually anything, it cpompletely dominated the workstation market, users who were tinkering with video at home would bve using it, right up to those using it as SGI replacement systems.

Games might habe not made the perfect transition with Win2K, but it certainly trashed anything else for years when it came to thiose in the graphics/film/video markets.

[Vpro7]

It doesn't matter to much when MS had the final push at making NT a consumer OS, siomple fact is, people from NT 4 days lunged towards NT as an alternative to other OS, by the time Win2K took hold, the Mac and any others, except Linux, was buried in the mid to high end. Win2K was sold as an all in one OS, and it certainlydid sell to those who just sat at home with it, orfpr companies. So rather than splitting this into consumer/workstation markets, let's look at sales and who uses it.

Put it this way, there are more consumers using Win2K than Macs ever sold probably.

[benb]

Originally posted by starman:
Nobody used Win2K as their "gaming OS of choice". Nobody. I can't believe anyone in their right mind would use 2K instead of XP.

Mike

Uh, I do. But only because of the almighty dollar, if you know what I mean. Although, if I could get XP for a reasonable price (ie $50) I'd use it instead of 2K at home. In fact, I use the machine for games only.

When 2K was first released, this wasn't a viable option at all; in fact it would be stupid. But now, because 2K has become established, and XP is now the standard Windows version, DirectX, and all the video card drivers I need are available, due to the fact that 2K and XP are so compatible. However, for someone who does not know what they are doing, I would not recommend 2K over XP.

[benb]

Originally posted by Vpro7:
and it certainlydid sell to those who just sat at home with it, orfpr companies.

Yea, most consumers for sure spent $300 on their OS instead of a $159 upgrade, or the one free that came in the box.

The only people who adopted 2K for home use either now, or in the past are:

a. Geeks who want to run every OS
b. People who got 2K for free (2K is the most pirated OS ever)
c. People who got a really good deal on 2K (me)
d. People with more money than cents (2000 is better than 98 right? Sure, I'll pay extra.)

No normal consumer would ever choose to pay more for 2K than 98 or ME.

But of course MS sold it to whoever wanted it, why wouldn't they. If you walked into a computer store and asked to buy 2K, they wouldn't tell you no, you are not a business.

[Big Booger]

Originally posted by benb:


The only people who adopted 2K for home use either now, or in the past are:

a. Geeks who want to run every OS
b. People who got 2K for free (2K is the most pirated OS ever)
c. People who got a really good deal on 2K (me)
d. People with more money than cents (2000 is better than 98 right? Sure, I'll pay extra.)

I got 2K the day it came out and its still the OS I've used for the longest period of time. I'm A, C (I bought an OEM version) and D.

The current version of OSX is no doubt a better operating system because of the security, apps packages (no DLL hell, only prefs mess), firewall, Unix, etc but I've always enjoyed running 2K for some reason. Maybe it's because I build really good PCs.

[nredman]

it's dead to people who don't use it.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by sniffer:
Yep! Don't know what this has to do with OS 9, but CharlesS has it right.

Doesn't have much at all to do with OS 9. I suspect that Booger is trying to distract us from the fact that he still hasn't found a single link to back up his ad hominem attack on Mac users, when he was claiming they were all over the Internet.

[Big Booger]

Originally posted by CharlesS:
Doesn't have much at all to do with OS 9. I suspect that Booger is trying to distract us from the fact that he still hasn't found a single link to back up his ad hominem attack on Mac users, when he was claiming they were all over the Internet.

Erm. I'm a Mac user. I haven't used anything else for a year now. Before that I was an OS secularist. Still am but I only have a Mac now.

Are you part of the Coalition of Mac Muhajideen?

[finboy]

Originally posted by MindFad:
Ah, for basic text editing, I've found nothing beats Tex-Edit:

http://www.macupdate.com/info.php/id/5077

Yep, worth every penny. The Mac-to-PC conversion stuff used to be my favorite Tex-Edit feature. And The Duke.

[finboy]

Originally posted by Big Booger:
Is OSX a client or consumer OS, or both?

It sure as hell ain't a consumer OS -- it's got too many ways to get f*cked up. There are too many ways for things to go wrong, and too many complications in OS X to make it a reasonable consumer OS.

Maybe it DOESN'T screw up, and that's good, but just the fact that it COULD screw up keeps it out of my book. At least with XP you expect it to fry once in a while and plan for it.

X is too complicated, underneath. I can't in good conscience recommend it to folks unless they know plan to know something about Unix.

For useability and "newbie friendliness", I'd still have to pick XP as a better consumer OS. X isn't there yet.

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by finboy:
It sure as hell ain't a consumer OS -- it's got too many ways to get f*cked up. There are too many ways for things to go wrong, and too many complications in OS X to make it a reasonable consumer OS.

Maybe it DOESN'T screw up, and that's good, but just the fact that it COULD screw up keeps it out of my book. At least with XP you expect it to fry once in a while and plan for it.

[goMac]

Originally posted by finboy:
It sure as hell ain't a consumer OS -- it's got too many ways to get f*cked up. There are too many ways for things to go wrong, and too many complications in OS X to make it a reasonable consumer OS.

Maybe it DOESN'T screw up, and that's good, but just the fact that it COULD screw up keeps it out of my book. At least with XP you expect it to fry once in a while and plan for it.

X is too complicated, underneath. I can't in good conscience recommend it to folks unless they know plan to know something about Unix.

For useability and "newbie friendliness", I'd still have to pick XP as a better consumer OS. X isn't there yet.

Thats uhhh... great. Every single teacher in the district I work for is now running OS X, and we haven't had this grand meltdown you're saying we should be having.

I really doubt that those teachers (or my parents actually) know UNIX. They all run OS X just fine. I actually was assisting a older couple the other day on their OS X machine. They didn't even know how to use iPhoto, yet there OS X machine was running just as stable as the day they got it.

[starman]

I'm going to move my mom's iMac to OS X.

If anyone can destroy an OS, it's her.

Mike

[york28]

Originally posted by NYCFarmboy:
well I just hope OS 10 continues to support classic operation. I use simpletext daily for webdesign doing basic html coding....... I have yet to find any basic simple text software that works as nicely as simpletext does in os9.

Wow....uh..... have you tried TextEdit? It's Cocoa....or my fav, SubEthaEdit.

OS 9 is not worth keeping around if all you use it for is a text editor, but that's my opinion.