Mac OS Evolution: From System 1.0 to Snow Leopard

http://blogof.francescomugnai.com/2009/11/mac-os-evolution-from-system-1-0-to-snow-leopard-55-wonderful-images/

by anderzole • 17 years ago

42 39 17 years ago

blogof.francescomugnai.com

NathanKP2• 17 years ago

The oldest Mac system that I remember using was System 7.0. The screenshots took me back to the good old days when I was child in elementary school, playing around with Kid Pix. I remember I used to love using the "explode" tool.

Apple sure has changed a lot since then.

boucher2• 17 years ago

Oh No!

(I love KidPix)

stevejohnson2• 17 years ago

I'm slowly working on a similar app. It's not polished enough to even call it a beta yet, but you can check it out at [1]. I've got a nice tool plugin API, but my graphics system needs work. Improvements are in the works.

[1] http://www.steveasleep.com/splatterboard

kingkilr• 17 years ago

Oh man, major memory lane: "its not mu fault, replace existing file?".

ugh2• 17 years ago

Go to http://www.guidebookgallery.org/screenshots if you want to see more (also: screenshots from many other operating systems of past times).

GUIdebook sadly only goes up to 10.3 Tiger – would be really great if someone would pick up the work.

(I especially like GUIdebook’s comparisons of different system components like here: http://www.guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/splash I would argue that it’s immediately obvious which is the classy OS :)

city41• 17 years ago

I went to art school and was a designer for a short stint, where Macs completely ruled supreme. I learned and completely grocked the living hell out of OS7, 8 and 8.5. Despite their incredibly archaic architecture under the hood, they are still probably my favorite operating system. Interface wise, OSX has actually been a step back in a lot of ways.

unalone2• 17 years ago

I'm in art school right now, and OS X was my first Mac. Would you mind telling me what you liked about older OS's that OS X doesn't have? I probably missed a generation of great ideas and I'd like to know what they were.

pwpwp• 17 years ago

See for example http://arstechnica.com/apple/reviews/2003/04/finder.ars

While OS X may be prettier than earlier MacOSes, conceptually, it's much closer to Windows than to the MacOS spirit.

lsb• 17 years ago

How so?

ax0n2• 17 years ago

Really? The menu bar at the top is basically the same, albeit squishier than before. They added a dock, and a ton of chrome. I'm not seeing how anything was "a step back" by any means. The only irk I really have is lack of keyboard navigation on dialog boxen. I should be able to hit tab or arrow keys or something to switch between buttons on dialogs (example: the shutdown menu) - but that's always been the case, it's nothing new. Care to elaborate, or even take to task some of my assertions?

dchest2• 17 years ago

Control+F7 (or System Preferences > Keyboard Shortcuts > Full Keyboard Access: All Controls). Then use Tab and Shift+Tab.

Also, for shutdown dialog (and other) navigation is not needed at all: Return = default button (Shut Down), Space = alternate (focused) button (Cancel).

duskwuff2• 17 years ago

At least one of those images (http://winmac.emuunlim.com/Images/Screenshots/OS8.jpg) is a terrible Photoshop job.

houseabsolute• 17 years ago

Because of the pixels? This OS was before my time so I can't really see your objection here.

*I exaggerate a little, but I really didn't have a computer until right around this time, and it wasn't a mac.

maelstrom• 17 years ago

Probably because it is running on a Pentium? Perhaps it is an emulator or a Linux theme?

zephjc• 17 years ago

It's WinMac (as evidenced by the URL) - some hacks that let your windows machine look like various flavors of the classic MacOS

duskwuff2• 17 years ago

Aha... so, yes, a terrible Photoshop job. :) The progress bars are particularly galling - they don't even line up with the frame properly.

treblig2• 17 years ago

Dead giveaway: the dotted line around the folder name for "Apple Extras". That's some Windows UI right there.

pc• 17 years ago

This really drives home how bad the space-based ("Aurora"?) theme of 10.5 and 10.6 is: when we look at this in ten years, I think the screenshots of 10.5 and 10.6 will have aged the worst.

There's something timeless about the earlier Mac OS versions. 10.5 and 10.6 are just kitschy.

nonrecursive• 17 years ago

I don't know, I don't really feel like an OS needs to look timeless. It seems strange to me to judge an OS's appearance based on how it will look in 10 years, when hardly anyone will care anyway.

unalone2• 17 years ago

Really? I have the exact opposite reaction. Every development in OS X has made itself more subtle. Gradients are lighter, windows are softer... The unified 10.5 theme got rid of what I felt was a kitschy plastic feel in the system, and it created a much more intuitive menu set-up where buttons are a part of the top bar. 10.6 takes steps even further — I love the new Dock menus and hope that's the standard from which Apple develops its new look. Some things moved backwards — the new iTunes got more gradient-y and that's an issue — but in general Apple's design is growing more and more subtle.

The default backgrounds are a little silly, yes, but I think when we look back we'll view it like we view 60s typography — perhaps a bit gaudier than we needed, but it was done in a sense of fun rather than a sense of self-importance. The space-age design feels to me like a wink.

blahedo2• 17 years ago

Agreed, but it's mostly in that awful background---I ditched that first thing, and everything else is pretty well in continuity with the previous versions.

adamc• 17 years ago

Wow, that was really a trip down memory lane. The first mac I ever owned (a Mac Plus) was System 6... inits and cdevs. I had a lot of fun learning to program on one.

rmason• 17 years ago

Steve Jobs in his first meeting with execs after he came back said Apple products had lost their sex appeal. Take a look at the leap Mac OS made after he returned.

IsaacSchlueter• 17 years ago

Looking over these things, I realized why the Mac platform is not properly metal. Its volume only goes up to 7.

Poiesis• 17 years ago

I feel old.

Up until a few years ago I had original, shrinkwrapped Copland (what was to be the new Mac OS, pre-Next acquisition) demo disks. That isn't to say it was working code or anything, it was more of a promo "here's what it's gonna look like".

I'm so glad Copland didn't work out. Funny thing is, I actually have owned only Windows machines since about Mac OS 7 or 8, so I essentially haven't gotten to use the Mac since it's actually had the more modern architecture.

I do have an iPhone, though, so I guess that counts. :)

mark_l_watson• 17 years ago

Wow, that brought back some memories. I wrote a commercial app for the Mac in 1984/85 but I had forgot how the original Mac screen looked.

catweasel• 17 years ago

Gads! Those shots of Explorer 5 gave me some horrible flashbacks. My first mac, Mac II System 7, fond memories

rbanffy• 17 years ago

Actually, the System lineage died with MacOS 9. Rhapsody and OSX are really direct descendants of NeXTSTEP and, thus, are a completely different family. OS 9 lived on, for some time, as a subsystem of OSX for PowerPC.

joshu• 17 years ago

Why is this being voted down? It is correct.

blahedo2• 17 years ago

True, especially if you're looking at what's "under the hood". But visually, there are a lot of continuities between the two, and of course the user base largely transitioned as if 9->X were just another upgrade like going from 6.0.7 to System 7.

jparise• 17 years ago

According to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Mac_OS#System_1.2C_2...), System 2.0 is from 1985, not 1987 as listed.

ja2ke• 17 years ago

This is a great reminder of what's stayed the same more than what's different. Or, at least, how gradual the change has been. The jump from 9.x to 10.0 is surprisingly subtle compared to the jump from 9.x to Snow Leopard.

ugh2• 17 years ago

Wouldn’t be if they had the same wallpaper.

treblig2• 17 years ago

Great point. Apple seemed to take the NeXT OS and try and mask it to resemble the visual functionality of OS 9 as much as possible.

Anyone remember the OS X beta with the blue apple in the middle of the menu bar? Yikes.

Mac OS Evolution: From System 1.0 to Snow Leopard

Related Stories