[HN Gopher] Like the macOS Dock but for macOS System 7
___________________________________________________________________
Like the macOS Dock but for macOS System 7
Author : zdw
Score : 35 points
Date : 2023-05-02 13:28 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| mixmastamyk wrote:
| Hmm, I remember a little strip that would sit in a bottom corner
| collapsed. You would push it and it would expand like a toolbar,
| showing app buttons similar to a dock.
|
| Think it was around System 8 time, as it had purple/blue and gray
| bevels. Ring any bells?
|
| Edit: Yup, thanks, guess it wasn't apps after all. Though it
| probably could have included them.
| duskwuff wrote:
| That was the Control Strip, but the objects in it represented
| system features (like screen brightness, battery life, or audio
| volume), not running applications.
|
| It was a fairly weird feature, IMO. It was initially added for
| laptops, but somehow ended up on desktop systems as well, and
| had a couple of bizarre features added to it later on, like the
| ability to enable/disable file sharing or control iTunes.
| Lammy wrote:
| You're likely thinking of
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_Strip
|
| There are "springloaded" folder tabs as of Mac OS 8.0,
| originally planned as a Copland feature, triggered by dragging
| any Finder window into the bottom edge of the screen.
|
| As of Mac OS 8.5 it is also possible to drag the application
| menu out into a floating palette that can be rearranged by
| clicking its zoom box while holding various modifier keys. One
| of the combinations bears a striking resemblance to the Windows
| 95 taskbar :)
|
| Here's a photo of me using all three at once on my TAM if it
| helps jog your memory: https://i.imgur.com/sVVbMun.jpg
|
| edit: Almost forgot about At Ease which I personally never
| really used but does fit your description of having app buttons
| and being purple: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_Ease
| robertoandred wrote:
| I just want my Oscar the Grouch trashcan back...
| matheist wrote:
| Nice! Works in https://macos8.app/ too.
| whartung wrote:
| So how are folks doing "Classic Mac" development these days?
|
| Was this done on real hardware? Are folks developing within
| simulators? Just curious what the Classic development experience
| is like today.
|
| Sometimes I muse it might be fun to dabble, but then I look at
| that 9" screen and go "Um, nah."
|
| For example, many folks do CP/M development, but almost none of
| them do it actually on a CP/M machine. I think that's similar for
| many retro projects.
| warrenm wrote:
| I thought all editions of System 7 were color!
|
| Apparently I was mistaken :)
| duskwuff wrote:
| System 7.0 supported color, but could run on most black-and-
| white Macintosh systems.
| TMWNN wrote:
| Specifically the Mac Plus (January 1986), which is the all-
| time longest-supported Mac[1] in terms of operating systems.
| It is compatible with 7.5.5, not superseded until 7.6 in
| January 1997 (!).
|
| [1] The all-time champion among all Apple products is the
| original Apple II (1977), which ProDOS 8 supported until 1993
| (!!).
| duskwuff wrote:
| > Specifically the Mac Plus (January 1986)
|
| More specifically, that's the _oldest_ model which System 7
| ran on. (The only unsupported models were the Macintosh
| 128K, 512K, and 512Ke.) It certainly wasn 't the only
| supported system with a monochrome display; that also
| included the Mac Classic, SE, SE/30, and a bunch of the
| early Powerbook models.
| TMWNN wrote:
| Sorry, did not mean to imply that Mac Plus is the only
| System 7-compatible monochrome Mac; only that it is the
| longest-supported and (as you said) oldest such.
|
| I do wonder how many Mac Plus owners would have upgraded
| to System 7 as opposed to staying with, say, System 6. I
| imagine there is a significant performance handicap.
| KerrAvon wrote:
| IIRC it would have mainly been a question of RAM size
| rather than CPU cycles -- among other new features, the
| Finder was always running in the background in System 7,
| so you needed more memory.
| mattkevan wrote:
| I used to use System 7 on a Mac Plus right up until about
| 2002.
|
| That alongside (and on top of) a huge, noisy 100mb Frog
| SCSI drive and a StyleWriter II printer made for a
| surprisingly useful machine.
|
| The Plus still works fine today, though the Frog died
| long ago.
| Lammy wrote:
| Not to diminish the super-coolness of modern FOSS for Classic
| Macs, but as a fun historical fact the Mac OS X Dock was itself
| inspired by a Classic Mac application called DragThing.
|
| https://www.dragthing.com/english/tenyears.html sez "The reason
| there wasn't much DragThing development between 1998 and 2000 is
| because I was then part of the team working in secret on the
| Finder and Mac OS X Dock at Apple. I felt then that the Dock
| would ultimately replace DragThing. However, for a variety of
| reasons, I left Apple shortly after Aqua and the Dock were
| announced in January 2000, and very little of my code survives in
| the current Dock."
| cgy1 wrote:
| I assumed the Mac OS X Dock was just an evolution of the
| NeXTSTEP Dock?
| augment004 wrote:
| > a fun historical fact the Mac OS X Dock was itself inspired
| by a Classic Mac application called DragThing.
|
| This simply can't be true. The dock first appeared in NextStep
| 1.0, which was released in 1989, six years before dragthing 1.0
| appeared in 1995.
|
| James Thomson may have worked on the dock in OSX, but he did
| not inspire it.
| Lammy wrote:
| Copying [dead] reply here so I can reply to it: "This simply
| can't be true. The dock first appeared in NextStep 1.0, which
| was released in 1989, six years before dragthing 1.0 appeared
| in 1995."
|
| The NeXT Dock was removed from Rhapsody and Mac OS X DP1/DP2.
| The Mac OS X DP3 Dock was a new creation.
|
| See http://www.rhapsodyos.org/misc/docs_and_faqs/Misc_FAQs.html
| which recommends a third-party dock called Fiend --
|
| Q: Is the OPENSTEP Dock going to be available in Rhapsody?
|
| A: It is actually still there in 5.0 to a degree. In 5.1 and
| later it has been replace with the Applications Menu (but you
| can get it back using Fiend[0]). Also you have the option to
| use the minimize to tile for windows like in NEXTSTEP/OPENSTEP
| instead of window shade.
|
| [0]: http://www.rhapsodyos.org/misc/fiend/fiend_1.html
___________________________________________________________________
(page generated 2023-05-03 23:00 UTC)