running classic apps on panther

"Miro Jurisic" <macdev.TakeThisOut@meeroh.org> wrote in message
news:macdev-679B3C.05011108122003@senator-bedfellow.mit.edu...
 > In article <br1hld$27cqe3$1@ID-196037.news.uni-berlin.de>,
 > "John Harrison" <john_andronicus.TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> wrote:
 >
  > > My company develops this application. It is fully carbonised but depends
  > > upon a third party component that is not. Under OS 9 and OS 10.1 and OS
10.2
  > > this component is installed in the OS 9 extensions folder. The
application
  > > then runs quite happily under Classic.
  > >
  > > What are our changes of getting it to run under Panther? My
understanding is
  > > that (at least by default) Panther does not have OS 9 installed and
  > > therefore there is no OS 9 extensions folder, is that correct? Are we
going
  > > to have to tell our customers to install OS 9 as well as Panther? Will
all
  > > our customers be able to do this? Or is there some other solution?
 >
 > Your question is too lacking on technical details of the implementation of
the
 > extension for us to be able to give any good answer. I would imagine that
 > machines shipping from Apple today still include Mac OS 9 by default.
 >
 > meeroh
 >

I'm not looking for a technical answer. I'm looking for simple answers.

For instance suppose a customer installs Panther and chooses all the
defaults. My limited understanding is that this will not install OS 9, and
there will not be an OS 9 extensions folder. So our installer will attempt
to put the extension into a non-existent extensions folder, what will
happen then? Is Panther smart enough to cope with this situation or do we
have to advise our customers to install OS 9?

Thanks,
John<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: running classic apps on panther 

In article <br1hld$27cqe3$1@ID-196037.news.uni-berlin.de>,
"John Harrison" <john_andronicus.TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> wrote:

 > What are our changes of getting it to run under Panther? My understanding is
 > that (at least by default) Panther does not have OS 9 installed and
 > therefore there is no OS 9 extensions folder, is that correct? Are we going
 > to have to tell our customers to install OS 9 as well as Panther? Will all
 > our customers be able to do this? Or is there some other solution?

No version of OS X, that I can remember, came with Classic installed by
default. When you buy a new machine from Apple, usually Classic is
there, but if you reformat and reinstall, you have to install Classic as
a separate step. This has been true for several years. New machines come
with install CDs which include Classic, but standalone copies of Panther
(and Jaguar) do not.

So the answer to your question is, yes, you will have to tell your
customers to install OS 9, but this is nothing new. I would say that
most of your customers will be able to do this, but there have been
enough people whining about Jaguar and Panther not including OS 9 CDs
that it seems not everybody will.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: running classic apps on panther 

"Michael Ash" <mail.DeleteThis@mikeash.com> wrote in message
news:mail-959D64.11475008122003@localhost...
 > In article <br1hld$27cqe3$1@ID-196037.news.uni-berlin.de>,
 > "John Harrison" <john_andronicus.DeleteThis@hotmail.com> wrote:
 >
  > > What are our changes of getting it to run under Panther? My
understanding is
  > > that (at least by default) Panther does not have OS 9 installed and
  > > therefore there is no OS 9 extensions folder, is that correct? Are we
going
  > > to have to tell our customers to install OS 9 as well as Panther? Will
all
  > > our customers be able to do this? Or is there some other solution?
 >
 > No version of OS X, that I can remember, came with Classic installed by
 > default. When you buy a new machine from Apple, usually Classic is
 > there, but if you reformat and reinstall, you have to install Classic as
 > a separate step. This has been true for several years. New machines come
 > with install CDs which include Classic, but standalone copies of Panther
 > (and Jaguar) do not.
 >
 > So the answer to your question is, yes, you will have to tell your
 > customers to install OS 9, but this is nothing new. I would say that
 > most of your customers will be able to do this, but there have been
 > enough people whining about Jaguar and Panther not including OS 9 CDs
 > that it seems not everybody will.

Thats the sort of info I need. A couple of things still confuse me however.

1) Currently our documentation advises our customers that our application
runs under OS X Classic, would a Mac user understand this to mean OS X with
OS 9 installed, or do we need to modify our documentation?

2) My understanding (possibly incorrect) of this situation is that something
has changed with Panther in regard to Classic emulation. You are suggesting
that it has not, but it seems that every time you ask someone about this you
get a different answer. Can you elaborate on what if anything has changed in
this regard.

Thanks again,
John<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: running classic apps on panther 

In article <br1m3a$287sjr$1@ID-196037.news.uni-berlin.de>,
"John Harrison" <john_andronicus DeleteThis @hotmail.com> wrote:

 > 1) Currently our documentation advises our customers that our application
 > runs under OS X Classic, would a Mac user understand this to mean OS X with
 > OS 9 installed, or do we need to modify our documentation?

I would probably figure out what it means, but it's not a known term,
nor is it very clear. If you need Mac OS X with Classic installed, I
would suggest actually saying "Mac OS X with Classic installed" in your
requirements. "Mac OS X Classic" sounds like some strange old version of
OS X.

 > 2) My understanding (possibly incorrect) of this situation is that something
 > has changed with Panther in regard to Classic emulation. You are suggesting
 > that it has not, but it seems that every time you ask someone about this you
 > get a different answer. Can you elaborate on what if anything has changed in
 > this regard.

I have not heard of any significant changes in the Classic environment
in Panther. My experience with it is that it works just like it did
under Jaguar.

 > For instance suppose a customer installs Panther and chooses all the
 > defaults. My limited understanding is that this will not install OS 9, and
 > there will not be an OS 9 extensions folder.

This has been true for every version of OS X ever released.

 > So our installer will attempt
 > to put the extension into a non-existent extensions folder, what will
 > happen then?

How do you even find the extensions folder? You're acting like Classic
is some monolithic entity, but it's not. A system can have several OS 9
installs, all of which may be valid for use with Classic. OS 9 could be
installed on the same partition as OS X, it could be on a different
partition (this is what I do) or a different hard drive, or it could
even be on a disk image.

Your installer may be smart enough to figure out where your Classic
System Folder is and install there, but from your description this
doesn't sound very likely.

What will happen when you try to install to a non-existent extensions
folder is exactly the same as will happen when you try to install to any
other non-existent folder. That is, depending on your installer, it will
either fail or it will create the folder. Neither behavior is
particularly useful for you.

 > Is Panther smart enough to cope with this situation or do we
 > have to advise our customers to install OS 9?

No, Panther is not smart enough. Classic is really just a sophisticated
application with somewhat better ties to the OS than a normal app. The
rest of the OS is not aware that copying an OS 9 extension to a
particular folder means that suddenly Classic needs to be installed.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: running classic apps on panther 

"Michael Ash" <mail.RemoveThis@mikeash.com> wrote in message
news:mail-46990A.12470208122003@localhost...
 > In article <br1m3a$287sjr$1@ID-196037.news.uni-berlin.de>,
 > "John Harrison" <john_andronicus.RemoveThis@hotmail.com> wrote:
 >
  > > 1) Currently our documentation advises our customers that our
application
  > > runs under OS X Classic, would a Mac user understand this to mean OS X
with
  > > OS 9 installed, or do we need to modify our documentation?
 >
 > I would probably figure out what it means, but it's not a known term,
 > nor is it very clear. If you need Mac OS X with Classic installed, I
 > would suggest actually saying "Mac OS X with Classic installed" in your
 > requirements. "Mac OS X Classic" sounds like some strange old version of
 > OS X.

OK, thanks.

 >
  > > 2) My understanding (possibly incorrect) of this situation is that
something
  > > has changed with Panther in regard to Classic emulation. You are
suggesting
  > > that it has not, but it seems that every time you ask someone about this
you
  > > get a different answer. Can you elaborate on what if anything has
changed in
  > > this regard.
 >
 > I have not heard of any significant changes in the Classic environment
 > in Panther. My experience with it is that it works just like it did
 > under Jaguar.

Well, our marketing and testing guys certainly think something has changed
because they are raising this as an issue. I guess nothing has changed from
a technical point of view but something has changed in the way that Apple
market and supply OS X.

Our bottom line is that we need to be able to say sensible things to our
customers and our colleagues about what the requirements are for our
application. As you can problably tell Mac is not our main area of
expertise! From what you're saying the requirement is OS X (any version,
Panther, Jaguar etc makes no difference) with Classic also installed.

Another issue that has arisen, is the difference (if any) between having
Classic installed on an OS X mcahine and having Classic bootable on an OS X
machine. Is it possible to have Classic installed but not bootable?

 >
  > > For instance suppose a customer installs Panther and chooses all the
  > > defaults. My limited understanding is that this will not install OS 9,
and
  > > there will not be an OS 9 extensions folder.
 >
 > This has been true for every version of OS X ever released.

OK, thanks.

John<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: running classic apps on panther 

In article <br1q2s$26amu5$1@ID-196037.news.uni-berlin.de>,
"John Harrison" <john_andronicus.TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> wrote:

 > Well, our marketing and testing guys certainly think something has changed
 > because they are raising this as an issue. I guess nothing has changed from
 > a technical point of view but something has changed in the way that Apple
 > market and supply OS X.

Well, maybe you need to get your marketing and test guys to be more
specific about what they think has changed. :-)

I've not heard of any technical changes with regard to how Classic works
since Mac OS X was first released. Non-technical changes which may be
relevant

1. Current new Macs cannot boot into Mac OS 9 directly-- that is, they
cannont run Mac OS 9 on its own as opposed to classic mode. However
they still run Mac OS 9 as "Classic" in Mac OS X just like they have
since Mac OS X first came out. Some users have misinterpreted this
change as meaning that Classic is not supported on new Macs, but this is
simply untrue.

2. Apple doesn't include Mac OS 9 with Mac OS X any more. So people who
have bought, for example, Panther, may not have a Mac OS 9 install disk
available. Thus they may not have Classic, and may not easily be able
to get it.

I don't know if Classic is still preinstalled on new Macs.

--
Tom "Tom" Harrington
Macaroni, Automated System Maintenance for Mac OS X.
Version 1.4: Best cleanup yet, gets files other tools miss.
See <a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://www.atomicbird.com/" target="_blank">http://www.atomicbird.com/</a><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: running classic apps on panther 

In article <br1ld3$27n3rk$1@ID-196037.news.uni-berlin.de>,
"John Harrison" <john_andronicus.DeleteThis@hotmail.com> wrote:

 > I'm not looking for a technical answer. I'm looking for simple answers.

Try this on for size: simply replace the OS 9 component with an OS X
component. *That* is the real solution to your problem and you should
be asking about things for OS X that do whatever this OS 9 thing did.
Trying to maintain a shackle to Classic is the absolute wrong way to
address the problem.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: running classic apps on panther 

In article <br1q2s$26amu5$1@ID-196037.news.uni-berlin.de>,
"John Harrison" <john_andronicus.RemoveThis@hotmail.com> wrote:

 > Well, our marketing and testing guys certainly think something has changed
 > because they are raising this as an issue. I guess nothing has changed from
 > a technical point of view but something has changed in the way that Apple
 > market and supply OS X.

The two somewhat similar things that I can think of are when Apple
stopped shipping OS 9 along with OS X (10.1 was the last version to have
OS 9, on separate CDs, after that you had to have OS 9 from somewher
else), and when Apple started making computers that wouldn't boot OS 9
directly (sometime in the past year, I forget). I have no idea what they
would be worrying about in this case. Maybe Apple stopped installing OS
9 on new computers by default?

 > Our bottom line is that we need to be able to say sensible things to our
 > customers and our colleagues about what the requirements are for our
 > application. As you can problably tell Mac is not our main area of
 > expertise! From what you're saying the requirement is OS X (any version,
 > Panther, Jaguar etc makes no difference) with Classic also installed.

Yes, the version of OS X shouldn't matter with regards to how Classic
works, the only issue is, of course, whether your OS X app supports it.

 > Another issue that has arisen, is the difference (if any) between having
 > Classic installed on an OS X mcahine and having Classic bootable on an OS X
 > machine. Is it possible to have Classic installed but not bootable?

This is more of a terminology question than anything. You don't really
install Classic. Technically, Classic is just a virtual machine
environment that lets you run Mac OS 9 as a subprocess of Mac OS X. In
that sense, Classic is present on every install of OS X, but it needs OS
9 to be installed to do anything. But most people will understand
"install Classic" as meaning "install OS 9".

So, can you have OS 9 installed but not usable from Classic? I imagine
so. First, you can just not start Classic if you don't want to. You
could also have it on a removable drive or disk image of some kind that
isn't always available to the system. Of course, people who are going to
do that should be advanced enough to know how to get it going when they
use your app.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: running classic apps on panther 

In article <br1ld3$27n3rk$1@ID-196037.news.uni-berlin.de>,
"John Harrison" <john_andronicus.TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> wrote:

 > For instance suppose a customer installs Panther and chooses all the
 > defaults. My limited understanding is that this will not install OS 9, and
 > there will not be an OS 9 extensions folder. So our installer will attempt
 > to put the extension into a non-existent extensions folder, what will
 > happen then? Is Panther smart enough to cope with this situation or do we
 > have to advise our customers to install OS 9?

This is not a matter of Panther being smart enough, but of your
installer being smart enough.

(BTW: is your installer Carbonized/native? If not, you can count on
Classic being installed by the time the installer tries to create the
folder.

Reinder<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: running classic apps on panther 

In article <br1q2s$26amu5$1@ID-196037.news.uni-berlin.de>,
"John Harrison" <john_andronicus.TakeThisOut@hotmail.com> wrote:

 > Another issue that has arisen, is the difference (if any) between having
 > Classic installed on an OS X mcahine and having Classic bootable on an OS X
 > machine. Is it possible to have Classic installed but not bootable?

I would guess that this is possible, but unlikely. For example: Classic
under Mac OS X does not need the Mac OS 9 Finder. Removing it would make
Mac OS 9 unbootable, while Classic might still run.

The reverse is definitely true, but also quite unlikely. For example:
install Mac OS 9 on a read-only volume without the extensions needed to
run Classic in Mac OS X, or a writable volume without room for those
extensions.

Reinder<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: running classic apps on panther 

Panther does install the classic environment by default. The only
thing missing is the dual boot into either OS 9 or OS X. You can only
boot into OS X and then run OS 9 in Classic mode.

In article <br1hld$27cqe3$1@ID-196037.news.uni-berlin.de>, John
Harrison <john_andronicus.RemoveThis@hotmail.com> wrote:

 > Hi,
 >
 > My company develops this application. It is fully carbonised but depends
 > upon a third party component that is not. Under OS 9 and OS 10.1 and OS 10.2
 > this component is installed in the OS 9 extensions folder. The application
 > then runs quite happily under Classic.
 >
 > What are our changes of getting it to run under Panther? My understanding is
 > that (at least by default) Panther does not have OS 9 installed and
 > therefore there is no OS 9 extensions folder, is that correct? Are we going
 > to have to tell our customers to install OS 9 as well as Panther? Will all
 > our customers be able to do this? Or is there some other solution?
 >
 > Thanks,
 > John
 >
 ><!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: running classic apps on panther 

"Doc O'Leary" <droleary.usenet.RemoveThis@subsume.com> wrote in message
news:droleary.usenet-837CD6.14280208122003@corp.supernews.com...
 > In article <br1ld3$27n3rk$1@ID-196037.news.uni-berlin.de>,
 > "John Harrison" <john_andronicus.RemoveThis@hotmail.com> wrote:
 >
  > > I'm not looking for a technical answer. I'm looking for simple answers.
 >
 > Try this on for size: simply replace the OS 9 component with an OS X
 > component. *That* is the real solution to your problem and you should
 > be asking about things for OS X that do whatever this OS 9 thing did.
 > Trying to maintain a shackle to Classic is the absolute wrong way to
 > address the problem.

It might happen, but its a question of demand from existing our customers
for a pure OS X solution. Marketing don't seem at all interested in selling
this product to new customers.

John<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: running classic apps on panther 

Thanks to Michael Ash and everyone else for some very helpful answers,
things are a lot clearer now.

John
 >> Stay informed about: running classic apps on panther