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[Ashlander]

Does anyone here actually daily OS 9? What have your experiences been throughout the years of doing so?

[Bolkonskij]

Yes, I have been daily driving Mac OS 9, as have many others here. The best two words to describe doing it is "think different".

You'll obviously have to change habits, as you won't be able to keep your "modern computing consumer life-style". This might seem shocking at first, but if you've dwelt long enough on earth you may remember a time we could do well without it. And fun times they were.

I can't tell as to why others pick Mac OS 9 and I sure hope they'll speak up for themselves, but for me - apart from some nostalgia for Mac OS - it wasn't a decision to make modern life impossible. It's not about escaping from modern times - it foremost really is about wasting less time.

We've talked about this on System 7 Today before but to me, "time" has become the most valuable commodity. More valuable than money. If people keep watching after their stock portfolio, why not watch your time portfolio?

And I want my imagination back. I used to be a kid that loved day-dreaming. And a creative one too. But creativity, as I have learned, needs silence and it needs procrastination. You can't force it. And I don't get it while I'm distracted consuming a video in my Facebook news stream. The best ideas come to me when I'm in bed before sleep, showering or commuting on the train / bus watching outside the window. From what I understand it's probably the same with most of you too.

I feel that ever since I started consuming less online, I've gained back some of my creativity & drive. I've since started and worked on web projects like Cornica, Bolkonskij's Cheat Emporium, re-invigorated System 7 Today and helping Knezzen here on Mac OS 9 Lives. I couldn't have done this if I was still hanging out for hours on my newsstream in Facebook. Because I know I would - I'm susceptible to Facebook's never-ending stream of news.

So as a result of that, by using Mac OS, my internet has become rather small and catering to my personal interests. "Fine-Tuned" if you'd like to say so. It's a small universe for me to check daily now:

System 7 Today, Macintosh Garden (recent changes), OS9 Lives and two bookmarked gopher pages - and then I'm done. That's my basic daily routine. Well, add my e-mail in Classilla. Usually done in under 10 minutes. 10 minutes! (yes, there are days when I go "exploring" but above really is the daily core routine)

You wanna know how much time I used to spend daily on Facebook, YouTube and others before? Hours flew by arguing with strangers about politics, following links to news outlets and watching video after video. By the time I shut down the Mac it was dinner time, I had done nothing but just to consume.

So while that might sound odd at first, I feel that I gained much by limiting myself to my old Macintosh. Yes, it does limit my options and that's good. Lots of people don't get it. I couldn't either until I tried it out and started to understand. I wonder what others on here have to say about this and whether they experience the same.

Right now I'm limiting my YouTube access times. (I have a smartphone next to my G4 Mini). But YouTube is sucking out the creativity of ordinary people. Yeah, I can hear you guys protesting  already :-) ... "wait Bolko, but among the trash there's all these cool life hacks and how-to tutorials!".

Well, granted, there IS some really useful stuff. Showing you this or that much better than any textbook could and making for a real learning experience. But it also gives you very often the faux feeling of learning something helpful when in reality all you do is just staring onto a screen for hours. How are you ever possibly going to fix your leaking bathroom faucet with a wire and a rubber band? You probably won't - 99,9% will just exchange it for a new. And then there's this related video that you click, and that has an interesting related video, and then ... the way YouTube perfected the hacking of my visual space is almost frightening. (anyone remember SimSense addiction from Shadowrun?)

Back when we had only televisions, you'd switch through the channels if an interesting program ended. But eventually nothing of interest would be shown anymore. So you'd switch off the TV and go on doing other things. That doesn't happen anymore thanks to YouTube's algo.

So why Mac OS? Again and in short, three reasons: bringing back imagination into my life. Sharpening my senses. Getting more time. I suddenly find the time to do more things with my three children, to read books again (remember those paper sheets glued together), play some classic games that help me unwind after a stressful day and do things around the house that I should have been doing weeks ago. Or simply just have more social interactions with the people around me - be it a simple chat with the neighbours or inviting interesting people over for a coffee / tea. It is all connected.

Sorry, this got a little longer as expected ... but I hope it gives you a good idea as to why some people still use Mac OS 9 in this day and age.

[IIO]

imagine you own a porsche as your "daily driver."

it is 20 years old, has 400 hp, can go 180 mph, and looks somewhat nice. it clatters when you move it, some parts may brake soon, but you can still find affordable replacements.

you mainly use it to drive your kids to kindergarden and to buy milk.

its advantages compared to a wheelchair or a scooter is obvious.
 
 
now someone offers you a brand new electrical bugatti. it has 2500 hp, can go 375 mph, you can choose between gold, rose gold, and mercury finishing and today you can get it for half the regular price.

but it only has one door on the driver side, which can only be opened using a hardware wallet and when you forget your passphrase it can never be opened again.

its radio supports dolby atmos up to 14.8.2 but is limited to advertisement channels (for your safety.)
 
 
i´d continue to drive the kids with the old porsche and walk by foot to buy milk.

in case i really can afford, i might get the bugatti in addition and use it to drive speed races in the desert once per year.
 
 
the speed limit in my city has in some areas been reduced from 35 mph to 13 mph last year.

people who used the gold plated 2500 hp car to buy milk need professional help IMHO.

[MigMac]

driving...

"There's something inside it
It's hard to explain
They're talking about you Mac
But you're still the same"

 

[smilesdavis]

i use my old macs to to send digital (lossless) audio to and from them to process them in old ways nobody sounds like today anymore

https://web.archive.org/web/19971014200807/http://www.prosoniq.com/pandora.html

we got the standalone?

[Ashlander]

Yes, I have been daily driving Mac OS 9, as have many others here. The best two words to describe doing it is "think different".

Do not apologise, this was a great answer! Really put some things into perspective and validated some feelings I've been wrestling with when considering using Mac OS 9 as I myself have been looking for alternatives to limit my technological use. I too have been wanting my creativity back, amongst other things, and I know how easily distracted from those things I have been. So, I'm really glad it can at least still provide a liveable experience.

I'm a little too young to remember OS 9 seeing any mainstream use (I mainly grew up with Win XP and OS X from Snow Leopard onwards) but I certainly remember a time where the internet felt like each website was its own tribe. While I've been visiting OS 9 Lives often enough since joining, I'm glad to see it so tight-knit with regulars and a wealth of resources (thank you for your contributions, by the way) and I'd certainly like to get involved a little more once I have a proper chance.

So, while I have been slightly apprehensive beforehand, you've certainly convinced me to give it a fair go! Thank you!

[Ashlander]

i use my old macs to to send digital (lossless) audio to and from them to process them in old ways nobody sounds like today anymore

I can certainly imagine it still has its unique uses today. Cheers for the response :))

driving...

"There's something inside it
It's hard to explain
They're talking about you Mac
But you're still the same"

 ;D

I wish I understood the reference haha.

imagine you own a porsche as your "daily driver."

A great analogy! It'd certainly be a particular lifestyle with OS 9, which is what I'm aiming for. Cars for me are no exception too. If I could daily a Citroën 2CV for the rest of my life, I would!

[Mat]

;)

Does anyone here actually daily OS 9? What have your experiences been throughout the years of doing so?

Well I am still using Mac OS 9 as my daily and main OS. The cool thing is, I never switched to X (in fact I still consider its rollout back than, its long lasting Beta functionality, its killing of every well working philosopy of interacting with your tool computer – just for the presentation and look, an effrontery and do not understand why anybody ever accepted it. But ok this is another story). So I am in the glad situation, that I stopped "catching up" in the first moments when I recognized that something is really going wrong in IT industry.

Thus I never started with any "social" media, which even in the beginning felt wrong to me. In the meantime I consider "social" media usage as a danger to the society, and think it will stop one day. The beginning is that young people do not pick up the phones anymore, … let's see.
Anyways because of "staying with Mac OS 9", I never had the feeling I am missing something. I never focused my live on strange communications via strange companies. And you cannot imagine how happy I am with being in this situation, to have an live and sourroundings being focused to real things and analouge stuff!
As for the things I am doing with computers, Mac OS 9 is still perfectly, and through it's Finder still the fastest and most logical OS I know. For the very few things I like to do in the net that cannot be done, like internet banking the last few years, I am powering up Linux – and I hate it every time I have to do so, as all of these  interfaces are so dumb, silly and useless complex, … for desktop computing.

All of this made me existing "aside any mainstream" for two decades soon, and gave me the possibility to think much about planned obsolescenc, sustainability, marketing, real innovations vs money making, society,  control, digitization, and the benefits of nice systems etc. etc. etc.

And this while my PowerMacs with Mac OS 9 are doing, in incredible snappyness, what they already did 20 years ago, and everything I need. ;)

[MigMac]

driving...

"There's something inside it
It's hard to explain
They're talking about you Mac
But you're still the same"

 


I wish I understood the reference haha.

aha, I've been playing silly with the lyrics of Night Call, the theme song from cult movie "Drive", which resurfaced recently at the French Olympics (live collab: Angèle x Phoenix x Kavinsky)

[smilesdavis]

i instantly thought about NIN BURN https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XdhKnAw6VZw