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Maflynn · Jan 28, 2009, 11:42 PM

I fired up a G4 cube running OS9.2 and was pleasantly surprised at its speed. Office 2001, word and excel came up much quicker then their newer counterparts on my MBP. Photoshop 5.5 also started up as quick if not quicker on the 450MHz then CS3 on my MBP. I was playing unreal tournament and it struck me at how much efficient the classic OS was (is). I'm running a 450MHz 768mb g4 cube and I'm basically able to do most of what I do now (with the exception of vmware) on the cube that I do on my MBP.

I'm sure if I started doing something involved in photoshop, I'd start to notice the difference, indeed when I was surfing the net with icab, things were pretty slow at times. All in all though, I'm pretty pleased with the performance. I may even be tempted to upgrade the 450MHz to something faster from powerlogix or sonnet if I can spot a good deal.

This talk of the vintage computer systems, thanks to the 25th anniversary of the mac128k has me reminiscing of the "good old days." While OS9 and the older classic OS's were not perfect, and I remember the system crashes and the multitasking was only cooperative but still its pretty impressive that the cube can keep up on a lot of functions, such as word processing/excel, even photoshop (if you have an old version) and some old games.

freudling · Jan 29, 2009, 01:21 AM

Hi:

I of course use OS X as my main, but I do have several older PowerBooks that run OS 7.6-9.2.2.

As for OS 9.x, yes, it is fast, which is why I really like it. What do I use them for? Research and light web surfing. On my PowerBook 5300ce, I use mobile google so pretty much stamp out any flash crap and other ajax garbage stuff. It is nice. Fast, easy browsing. Today's internet is both good and bad: lots of fucntionality but totally distracting.

When I use older machines, under Classic, I am not as easily distracted. So doing research for my book and writing my book, it is a no contest: the classic OS wins.

The speed of the OS: OS 9 is blazing fast, no version of OS X has matched it. Leopard has come closer, but still lags (i.e. lag in finder, spinning beachball all the time, etc.).

OS 9 is just a joy to use with how fast everything is. I hope Snow Leopard is super fast...

Big Mac · Jan 29, 2009, 01:25 AM

This has come up before, but if your computer is running properly you should only see the beach ball very rarely. If you see it "all the time" something is not right.

sek929 · Jan 29, 2009, 01:53 AM

I'll see the beach ball when I'm downloading in XP, copying 6 gigs from my XP partition to my Mac and browsing.

Otherwise I never see it.

Spheric Harlot · Jan 29, 2009, 05:22 AM

Office...2001???

You're running OS 9 and not using Word 5.1a?

Dude - that was one of the best things about Classic (seriously)!

Maflynn · Jan 29, 2009, 08:27 AM

I hardly see any beachballs on my MBP, and its performance is very good, but what's surprising is the old OS and old software seems to be just as fast on my G4 cube 450MHz then OSX and newer software on a 2.53GHz dual core MBP.

While the hardware has made leaps and bounds in performance, since my G4, the software has kept pace, even the OS, adding "features" but in a lot of circumstances bloat. Take Office, old vs new.

Don't get me wrong, I wouldn't trade Leopard in for anything, a great OS with lots of features that OS9 didn't have, i.e., protected memory, full multitasking, etc. I'm finding like freudling said, there's a simplicity and efficiency that the classic OS has and the modern OS seems to have lost.

Edit; this isn't a slam on OSX or Leopard but rather an observation that I was surprised at how perky things were on my G4 cube

freudling · Jan 30, 2009, 04:22 AM

Yes, I see beachballs all the time and no I don't think anything is wrong with me or my set up. Many others complain about the sluggishness of OS X. I use my computer hard, very hard, so if anyone is going to see a slowdown, its me, and Leopard is a buggy pig.

That said, I know I could use more RAM and that is what I am in the process of doing, but even with permissions repaired and a restart, with only a modicum of programs open, Leopard still blows.

sek929 · Jan 30, 2009, 09:54 AM

Last night I was running CS4 with 30 images open, converting an .AVI to DVD, and downloading in uTorrent through Fusion running XP.

I still didn't see any beach balls.

Salty · Jan 30, 2009, 11:44 AM

I loved OS 9, didn't like OS X at first... though to be honest I tried booting OS 9 a when I still had my 900Mhz iBook, and it just didn't seem as worth it.

Dakar V · Jan 30, 2009, 11:46 AM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

This has come up before, but if your computer is running properly you should only see the beach ball very rarely. If you see it "all the time" something is not right.

Really? If you do any heavy web browsing it seems inevitable.

Laminar · Jan 30, 2009, 12:03 PM

Originally Posted by Dakar V

Really? If you do any heavy web browsing it seems inevitable.

Especially once Safari starts taking up 50% of my physical memory...and I have 2 gigs.

olePigeon · Jan 30, 2009, 12:47 PM

I have a IIgs and an LC III. The LC III runs System 7. It also has an IIe Card installed with two floppy drives attached. I run most of my vintage games on it.

olePigeon · Jan 30, 2009, 12:49 PM

If it would somehow run on a G5, I always wanted to see how fast System 7.1 Pro would run on a G5 Quad.

Laminar · Jan 30, 2009, 01:19 PM

Originally Posted by olePigeon

If it would somehow run on a G5, I always wanted to see how fast System 7.1 Pro would run on a G5 Quad.

You could play Spectre Challenger and Hypercard to your heart's content.

olePigeon · Jan 30, 2009, 01:44 PM

Originally Posted by Laminar

You could play Spectre Challenger and Hypercard to your heart's content.

Yeah.

I wonder how many FPS Spectre would get.

Big Mac · Jan 30, 2009, 02:04 PM

Originally Posted by Dakar V

Really? If you do any heavy web browsing it seems inevitable.

Not true. You're probably running out of RAM if that's when you see it. Were you the main person discussing this with us before, or was it someone else?

Dakar V · Jan 30, 2009, 02:08 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

Not true. You're probably running out of RAM if that's when you see it.

This is not incredibly hard to do with Safari and a couple programs open.

Maflynn · Jan 30, 2009, 02:20 PM

Originally Posted by Dakar V

This is not incredibly hard to do with Safari and a couple programs open.

Indeed, while I don't see a beachball very often, I can see my laptop's resources going down, when I have PS, Safari, VMWare open at the same time. I push it closer to the edge when I add bridge and rapidweaver to the mix.

Laminar · Jan 30, 2009, 02:55 PM

Originally Posted by Dakar V

This is not incredibly hard to do with Safari and a couple programs open.

Especially when I'm using Hulu or another online video player. Safari starts taking up huge amounts of RAM.

Dakar V · Jan 30, 2009, 03:25 PM

Originally Posted by Laminar

Especially when I'm using Hulu or another online video player. Safari starts taking up huge amounts of RAM.

Sites like ESPN are huge killers. Less so: a page with a lot of images. A forum with several ads (flash).

Big Mac · Jan 30, 2009, 03:25 PM

Originally Posted by Dakar V

This is not incredibly hard to do with Safari and a couple programs open.

I can have multiple instances of Safari open across four users, with around 10 tabs per user, and I don't see beach balls. But then again I have 6GB of RAM in my G5.

Dakar V · Jan 30, 2009, 03:26 PM

Originally Posted by Big Mac

But then again I have 6GB of RAM in my G5.

Yeah, I'd call that anything but typical. So is that what you were referring to, or something more applicable?

Edit: Also saw your answer coming a mile away.

freudling · Feb 2, 2009, 03:04 PM

I 'only' have 2 GB RAM. I stand by my comments that Leopard is a pig. And Safari... it sucks the life out of this machine, and it also sucked the life out of several others that I used before it.

besson3c · Feb 2, 2009, 03:21 PM

OS X is definitely a pig, I don't think there is any rational way to deny this. Freudling: just so you know, permissions have *nothing* to do with your performance, so I wouldn't bother worrying about them.