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[ssokolow]

I'm Stephan.

I spent most of my childhood on DOS and Windows and then switched to Linux for my main PC about a year into the Windows XP era, but the Mac SE with an AEK or AEK II that my father would bring home from work sometimes stuck in my mind. (I'm still trying to identify the trackball)

About two years ago, I got a Quicksilver 2002 on the KVM switch in my retro-hobby corner (and later picked up a, sadly currently out-of-order Mini G4 installed with Ross's CD v9 on the KVM switch on my main desk), and I can confirm that there's just something about the polish of classic Mac OS UI/UX that makes it special, above and beyond the elegance of things like resource forks. (And that Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines (1992) is the most "embody what you're teaching" UI/UX book in existence. Anyone who's only ever seen the digital copies really need to hold the print version at least once for the full effect.)

(By contrast, OSX is not fit for purpose, being Apple's demonstration that they know how to make both Mac OS and UNIX boring in one fell swoop... which is why I rarely turn on the 2009 Macbook or the 2010 iMac I received as hand-me-downs.)

If I can get my hobby time in order, I have plans to learn Toolbox programming so I can extend my enjoyment of writing utilities to classic Mac OS. Maybe a sibling for my Linux equivalent to tools like WinSplit Revolution, Spectacle, and Rectangle. I have yet to find one of those for classic Mac OS.

I'd have showed up sooner, but the CHRP System 7 support for New World Macs was the kick in the butt I needed. (I'll be sharing my results so far with the QS2002 in a bit.)

EDIT: ...and yes, I recognize that I've never been good at introducing myself.

[Jubadub]

Hey, welcome, Stephen! That was a flawless introduction!

I very much agree with the whole UI/UX commentary on Mac OS! And yes, OS X, to me as well, is just a UNIX box, and not Mac OS per se. And indeed, Mac OS' modularity which encourages more user autonomy, ownership and tinkering is definitely among the many of the highest distinctive qualities the OS has to offer.

Glad to have you participate here on "Mac OS 9 Lives!" and thus also in the Mac OS communities at large! Looking forward to seeing what you might end up working on for Mac OS!

[ssokolow]

Hey, welcome, Stephen!

Thanks... but I do have to make a small correction there. You're not the first to overlook it, but my name is an alternative spelling of "Stefan", not of "Steven". ("a" and "e" just look too similar at small sizes.)

That was a flawless introduction!

In hindsight, it felt a little too much like a self-centered ramble to me. All repetitive "I..." "I..." "I...".

And yes, OS X, to me as well, is just a UNIX box, and not Mac OS per se.

I'd also say the GUI layer is trying too hard to be an appliance to be a good UNIX box. While they had different philosophies for what to prioritize, classic Mac OS and proper UNIX are both designed around giving power users the freedom to customize their systems.

(As Eric S. Raymond's The Art of UNIX Programming pointed out, the UNIX ecosystem was so focused on good architecture that their UI design was neglected, while the classic Mac ecosystem was so focused on good UI design that elements relating to stability and robustness were neglected.)

And indeed, Mac OS' modularity which encourages more user autonomy, ownership and tinkering is definitely among the many of the highest distinctive qualities the OS has to offer.

It's not just the modularity. It's little details that other platforms never caught up to, like how much more polished "Hold shift to start with extensions disabled" is than Windows Safe Mode or UNIX's single-user mode, how easy it is for even a novice user to disable or uninstall problematic system extensions as a side-effect of not shying away from having users see and interact with files, etc.

Glad to have you participate here on "Mac OS 9 Lives!" and thus also in the Mac OS communities at large! Looking forward to seeing what you might end up working on for Mac OS!

We'll see. Right now, I'm still trying to climb out of the backlog that my hobby stuff fell into when the psychological and social effects of the pandemic had everything fall apart, so all I've really accomplished that's suitable for sharing is the mostly-finished set of custom icons for the Samba/Netatalk share I use to make it easy to load stuff onto a new/wiped hobby machine.

Here's a screenshot from before I added a Mac_68k folder since I don't have a newer composite. (It leverages that Windows 9x/XP and classic Mac OS use smaller icon sizes than Windows Vista/7/... and OSX to present different styles of icons, and leverages how Samba will use a different serialization of the Icon\r filename than Netatalk without vfs_fruit to serve up different icons to Classic Mac OS and PPC OSX vs. Intel OSX. The PPC OSX one is just a proof of concept at this point.)