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The Classic Environment

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Mac OS X Panther Unleashed, 3rd Edition

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The Classic Environment

The Classic environment is a complete implementation of Mac OS 9.x on top of Mac OS X. To Mac OS X, Classic is nothing but another application; to a user, however, Classic is a gateway to his older software programs.

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You must have at least 128MB of memory to use Classic, an installed copy of Mac OS 9.x, and a 400MHz G3 (or faster) is recommended. Because Mac OS 9.x no longer comes with Mac OS X, you must order it from Apple.

Classic is a process under Mac OS X. Mac OS X must be running for Classic to work. In essence, you're booting two operating systems simultaneously.

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When using the Classic environment, the 9.x operating system must access all hardware through the Mac OS X kernel. This means that software that accesses hardware directly will likely fail. Users of 3Dfx video cards, hardware DVD playback, video capture cards, and even some CD writers will find that their hardware no longer functions correctly.

On the other hand, Classic brings the benefit of Mac OS X's virtual memory underpinnings to legacy applications. Each Mac OS 9.x application can be configured for a much larger memory partition than was possible previously. To the Classic environment, the virtual memory appears to be real memory. Programs have much more breathing room in which to function.

Working with the Classic environment is a somewhat unusual experience. Depending on the application running, there can be graphic anomalies and confusing filesystem navigation. This chapter shows what you'll see and what to do when things don't seem to work right.

Launching Classic

The Classic environment is typically launched once during a Mac OS X login session—either manually or automatically. After it is running, Classic remains active until you log out or manually force it to shut down.

NOTE

Classic does not gain all the stability features of Mac OS X, such as protected memory. If an application crashes in Classic, it can bring down all applications running in Classic. The Mac OS X system will be unaffected, but you might need to manually restart the Classic environment.

There are two ways to launch the Classic environment: by double-clicking a Classic application and through the Classic pane within System Preferences.

Classic applications appear to the Mac OS X Finder just like any other application. To verify that a piece of software is indeed a Classic application, you can select the icon and choose File, Get Info or choose Get Info from the contextual or action menus. Figure 3.63 shows the General Information pane for the Graphing Calculator, a Classic application.

Figure 3.63 The General Information pane identifies Classic applications.

Memory Settings

Classic applications, because they still use the Mac OS 9.x Memory Manager, require a preferred and minimum memory size to be set. Because you have no direct access to the 9.2 Finder under OS X, Classic applications have an additional Get Info pane called Memory, as shown in Figure 3.64.

Figure 3.64 Classic applications allow memory limits to be set.

Two limits can be set:

Minimum Size—The minimum amount of memory that an application must have to run. The Mac OS 9.x environment prohibits the application from launching unless the minimum memory size can be met.
Preferred Size—The amount of memory that you want the application to have. This is the upper limit of the memory partition that will be requested from Mac OS 9.x.

To take advantage of the new Mac OS X memory architecture, set these values higher than you would in older versions of the Mac OS. If you do, be aware that your settings here will carry over if you boot directly into Mac OS 9.x, where you might not have as much real or virtual memory available.

Forcing Carbon Applications into Classic

Carbon applications are a special case of Mac OS X application. They are capable of running natively on Mac OS X, and on Mac OS 9.x through the use of CarbonLib. If you want to use the Classic environment to launch a Carbon application, a setting within the General pane of the Get Info pane can force a Carbon-compliant package to launch through Classic.

To launch a Carbon application in Classic, check the Open in the Classic Environment check box and then close the info pane. Double-clicking the application launches it in Classic rather than in Mac OS X until the box is manually unchecked.

Configuring Classic

If you have multiple Mac OS 9.x installations, or want to manually start or stop the Classic environment, you can do so from the Classic System Preferences pane. First, open System Preferences (path: /Applications/System Preferences) and then click the Classic icon.

Start/Stop

The Classic Preferences pane can control how and when Classic boots. As shown in Figure 3.65, the following options are found in the Start/Stop pane of the Classic pane:

Select a Startup Volume for Classic—Mac OS X can start the Classic environment by booting any available Mac OS 9.x system. It is recommended that you use a separate drive or partition for Mac OS 9.x, as you will be able to boot to the Mac OS 9 partition, bypassing Mac OS X in case of an emergency.
Start Classic When You Log In—If you want Classic to start up immediately after you log in to your computer (or immediately at startup, if you're using Mac OS X as a single-user system), click this button. Be warned; the Classic environment takes a few minutes to start, and your system performance will be degraded during this time.
Hide Classic While Starting—The Classic startup window will be hidden while the Classic environment boots.
Warn Before Starting Classic—Use this option to force Mac OS X to prompt you each time it launches the Classic environment. If you find yourself accidentally starting Classic by double-clicking legacy files, and so on, this can be helpful.
Show Classic Status in Menu Bar—Adds a menu extra, shown in Figure 3.66, that can start and stop Classic and provides access to the Classic Apple menu items.
Start/Stop—Click the Start button to launch Classic manually or Stop to shut it down.
Restart—Is equivalent to choosing Restart from the Mac OS 9.x Finder. Open applications prompt you to save open documents and then exit. The Classic environment will reboot.
Force Quit—If Classic becomes unresponsive (that is, it crashes), the only option is to force it to quit. Open documents are lost, exactly as if Mac OS 9.x crashed (as it tends to do from time to time). You can also use the Control-Option-Escape keystroke to force it to quit.

Figure 3.65 The Classic System Preferences pane configures the startup volume and allows manual startup and shutdown.

Figure 3.66 The Classic menu extra provides feedback on the status of Classic as well as provides controls for stopping/starting and restarting the environment.

Advanced Settings

Use the advanced startup options to provide control over the boot sequence and basic Classic operation. Figure 3.67 shows this pane.

Figure 3.67 Advanced settings control the boot and runtime features of Classic.

You can make four modifications to the startup process:

Turn Off Extensions—Turning off the extensions is the equivalent of pressing Shift while b