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I'm going to regret this, but as the author of the blog post, let me be explicit about what I'm complaining about. Apple used to care that their stuff kept wor

I'm going to regret this, but as the author of the blog post, let me be explicit about what I'm complaining about. Apple used to care that their stuff kept working. The 68K example was that you could buy a computer, in 2005, that would still run software from 1990 or so. Now I'm worried about a computer I bought in 2014 being still able to run software which may have been updated last only a couple years before that. I don't think Apple cares much about this anymore. As far as telnet and ftp, I'll even concede no one would probably use at least password secured stuff over cleartext in a WAN context (anonymous FTP is arguable). But "just install it from Homebrew" is only a solution as long as Apple lets it be a solution; see previous paragraph. The iMac Pro is not a Mac Pro. It's an all-in-one desktop with high-end features. That appeals to certain people, but not to me. And I don't care for x86, never have. If the post makes much about these issues and more than you think is warranted, it's mostly because they do personally matter to me, but I think they're emblematic of bigger problems with Apple. IMHO, Apple doesn't have an interest in legacy users, and certainly not in legacy users that have professional needs. Clearly, pretty much everyone in this thread disagrees, and that's fine. Good luck with it.

scarface74 9y ago
I'm not disagreeing with your right to your opinion - just that I think you have rose colored glasses on about Apple and their quest to maintain backwards compatibility. The Mac came out in 1984 and was incompatible with the Apple //e. System 7 back in 1992 broke a number of old apps. The 040 line came out and broke a number of apps. Sure you could run 68K Mac apps on the first PPC Macs but they were dreadfully slow and people ended up buying SpeedDoubler by Connectix with a much improved emulator. Have you forgotten about all of the apps that broke that weren't "32 bit clean" and the ones that broke that used self modifying code when the '040 came out?
- classichasclass 9y ago
  But in all of those cases there was a mitigation. Apps that weren't 32-bit clean could be run in 24-bit mode, at least for those machines that supported it. The '040 had a cache switch. Heck, there was an IIe card for certain models (though I think the Mac vs Apple II example is a little unfair; the systems really have almost nothing in common architecturally, far less than even Intel and Power Macs have in common). For that matter, the 68K performance problem was mostly an issue for the 603. It wasn't an issue on the 601, which had sufficient cache, nor for the 603e which quickly displaced it. And when the PCI Power Macs came out, Apple had a much better dynamic compilation translator available. In none of these cases was the answer "too bad." To flip your question around, would you argue that Apple's backwards compatibility right now about the same as it was previously? Objectively I don't think the evidence supports that.
  - scarface74 9y ago
    Yes. My first Mac in 1992 was a Mac LCII with a //e card. Before that, I had an Apple //e. But the card only worked on a few Macs, was discontinued a few years later, and never supported the //gs. Just like Apple made a software emulator for the 68K. They could have done the same for the Apple //e. There was a third party software Apple emulator that worked fine on my 16Mhz LCII called Stop The Madness. I had a 6100/60 - that was my 2nd Mac. It ran 68K software at about the speed of a 25Mhz 68030 Mac and slightly slower than my by then LCII with a 68030/40Mhz accelerator. All that being said, I left the Mac around 1998 and didn't come back until the G4 Mac Mini in 2004 and the Intel Core Duo Mac Mini in 2006 and left again around 2008. The Mac outside of the iMacs are in sad shape now. I probably will get another Mac this year just because I want a real Unix environment with more polish and It's the only computer that I can do iOS development. I think the 5K iMac is a decent buy.
    - classichasclass 9y ago
      > They could have done the same for the Apple //e. Well, actually, they did, there was Gus (for the IIgs, but that would run IIe stuff, of course). In fairness this didn't have wide distribution and is best described as unofficial, but it existed. http://macgui.com/downloads/?file_id=14109&keywords=gus http://macgui.com/downloads/?file_id=14109&keywords=gus Anyway, I actually do agree the 5K iMac is a nice computer for the right person. I don't like high-end AIOs because I rarely upgrade all the components simultaneously, but I can't deny it's slick.

scarface74 9y ago

I'm not disagreeing with your right to your opinion - just that I think you have rose colored glasses on about Apple and their quest to maintain backwards compatibility. The Mac came out in 1984 and was incompatible with the Apple //e. System 7 back in 1992 broke a number of old apps. The 040 line came out and broke a number of apps. Sure you could run 68K Mac apps on the first PPC Macs but they were dreadfully slow and people ended up buying SpeedDoubler by Connectix with a much improved emulator. Have you forgotten about all of the apps that broke that weren't "32 bit clean" and the ones that broke that used self modifying code when the '040 came out?

classichasclass 9y ago
But in all of those cases there was a mitigation. Apps that weren't 32-bit clean could be run in 24-bit mode, at least for those machines that supported it. The '040 had a cache switch. Heck, there was an IIe card for certain models (though I think the Mac vs Apple II example is a little unfair; the systems really have almost nothing in common architecturally, far less than even Intel and Power Macs have in common). For that matter, the 68K performance problem was mostly an issue for the 603. It wasn't an issue on the 601, which had sufficient cache, nor for the 603e which quickly displaced it. And when the PCI Power Macs came out, Apple had a much better dynamic compilation translator available. In none of these cases was the answer "too bad." To flip your question around, would you argue that Apple's backwards compatibility right now about the same as it was previously? Objectively I don't think the evidence supports that.
- scarface74 9y ago
  Yes. My first Mac in 1992 was a Mac LCII with a //e card. Before that, I had an Apple //e. But the card only worked on a few Macs, was discontinued a few years later, and never supported the //gs. Just like Apple made a software emulator for the 68K. They could have done the same for the Apple //e. There was a third party software Apple emulator that worked fine on my 16Mhz LCII called Stop The Madness. I had a 6100/60 - that was my 2nd Mac. It ran 68K software at about the speed of a 25Mhz 68030 Mac and slightly slower than my by then LCII with a 68030/40Mhz accelerator. All that being said, I left the Mac around 1998 and didn't come back until the G4 Mac Mini in 2004 and the Intel Core Duo Mac Mini in 2006 and left again around 2008. The Mac outside of the iMacs are in sad shape now. I probably will get another Mac this year just because I want a real Unix environment with more polish and It's the only computer that I can do iOS development. I think the 5K iMac is a decent buy.
  - classichasclass 9y ago
    > They could have done the same for the Apple //e. Well, actually, they did, there was Gus (for the IIgs, but that would run IIe stuff, of course). In fairness this didn't have wide distribution and is best described as unofficial, but it existed. http://macgui.com/downloads/?file_id=14109&keywords=gus http://macgui.com/downloads/?file_id=14109&keywords=gus Anyway, I actually do agree the 5K iMac is a nice computer for the right person. I don't like high-end AIOs because I rarely upgrade all the components simultaneously, but I can't deny it's slick.