Mac OS 9 is the ninth major release of Apple's classic Mac OS

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...

which was succeeded by

Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and la ...

(renamed to OS X in 2011 and macOS in 2016) in 2001. Introduced on October 23, 1999, it was promoted by Apple as "The Best Internet Operating System Ever", highlighting Sherlock 2's Internet search capabilities, integration with Apple's free online services known as

iTools iTools or ITools may refer to: *MobileMe#iTools, iTools, an online service from Apple Inc., Apple (later known as MobileMe#.Mac, .Mac then MobileMe, before evolving into the current iCloud service) *ITools Resourceome, a computer image tool for dis ...

and improved

Open Transport Open Transport was the name given by Apple Inc. to its implementation of the Unix-originated UNIX System V, System V STREAMS networking stack. Based on code licensed from Mentat's Mentat Portable Streams, Portable Streams product, Open Transport wa ...

networking. While Mac OS 9 lacks

protected memory Memory protection is a way to control memory access rights on a computer, and is a part of most modern instruction set architectures and operating systems. The main purpose of memory protection is to prevent a process from accessing memory that h ...

and full

pre-emptive multitasking In computing, preemption is the act of temporarily interrupting an executing task, with the intention of resuming it at a later time. This interrupt is done by an external scheduler with no assistance or cooperation from the task. This preemp ...

, lasting improvements include the introduction of an automated

Software Update A patch is a set of changes to a computer program or its supporting data designed to update, fix, or improve it. This includes fixing security vulnerabilities and other bugs, with such patches usually being called bugfixes or bug fixes. Patches ...

engine and support for multiple users. Apple discontinued development of Mac OS 9 in late 2001, transitioning all future development to Mac OS X. The final updates to Mac OS 9 addressed compatibility issues with Mac OS X while running in the

Classic Environment This is a list of macOS built-in apps and system components. Applications App Store The Mac App Store is macOS's digital distribution platform for macOS apps, created and maintained by Apple Inc. based on the iOS version, the platform was an ...

and compatibility with

Carbon Carbon () is a chemical element with the symbol C and atomic number 6. It is nonmetallic and tetravalent—its atom making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds. It belongs to group 14 of the periodic table. Carbon mak ...

applications. At the 2002

Worldwide Developers Conference The Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) is an information technology conference held annually by Apple Inc. The conference is usually held at Apple Park in California. The event is usually used to showcase new software and technologies in t ...

, Steve Jobs began his keynote address by staging a mock funeral for OS 9.

Features

Apple billed Mac OS 9 as including "50 new features" and heavily marketed its Sherlock 2 software, which introduced a "channels" feature for searching different online resources and introduced a QuickTime-like

metallic Metallic may be a reference to: *Metal * Metalloid, metal-like substance *Metallic bonding, type of chemical bonding * Metallicity, in astronomy the proportion of elements other than helium and hydrogen in an object *Metallic color, a color that ...

appearance. Mac OS 9 also featured integrated support for Apple's suite of Internet services known as iTools (later re-branded as .Mac, then MobileMe, which was replaced by

iCloud iCloud is a cloud service from Apple Inc. launched on October 12, 2011 as a successor to MobileMe. , the service had an estimated 850 million users, up from 782 million users in 2016. iCloud enables users to sync their data to the cloud, inclu ...

) and included improved

TCP/IP The Internet protocol suite, commonly known as TCP/IP, is a framework for organizing the set of communication protocols used in the Internet and similar computer networks according to functional criteria. The foundational protocols in the suit ...

functionality with

2.5. Other features new to Mac OS 9 include: *Integrated support for multiple user accounts without using

At Ease At Ease was an alternative to the Macintosh desktop developed by Apple Computer in the early 1990s for the classic Mac OS. It provided a simple environment for new Macintosh users and young children to help them to work without supervision. At ...

. *Support for voice login through VoicePrint passwords. *

Keychain A keychain (also key fob or keyring) is a small ring or chain of metal to which several keys can be attached. The length of a keychain allows an item to be used more easily than if connected directly to a keyring. Some keychains allow one or b ...

, a feature allowing users to save passwords and textual data encrypted in protected keychains. *A Software Update control panel for automatic download and installation of Apple system software updates. *A redesigned Sound control panel and support for

USB Universal Serial Bus (USB) is an industry standard that establishes specifications for cables, connectors and protocols for connection, communication and power supply (interfacing) between computers, peripherals and other computers. A broad ...

audio. *Speakable Items 2.0, also known as

PlainTalk PlainTalk is the collective name for several speech synthesis (MacinTalk) and speech recognition technologies developed by Apple Inc. In 1990, Apple invested a lot of work and money in speech recognition technology, hiring many researchers in th ...

, featuring improved speech synthesis and recognition along with AppleScript integration. *Improved font management through FontSync. *Remote Access Personal Server 3.5, including support for TCP/IP clients over Point-to-Point Protocol (PPP). *An updated version of

AppleScript AppleScript is a scripting language created by Apple Inc. that facilitates automated control over scriptable Mac applications. First introduced in System 7, it is currently included in all versions of macOS as part of a package of system aut ...

with support for TCP/IP. *Personal File Sharing over TCP/IP. *USB Printer Sharing, a control panel allowing certain USB printers to be shared across a TCP/IP network. *128-bit

file encryption Encryption software is software that uses cryptography to prevent unauthorized access to digital information. Cryptography is used to protect digital information on computers as well as the digital information that is sent to other computers over t ...

in the Finder. *Support for files larger than 2 GB. *

Unix Unix (; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multiuser computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, an ...

volume support. *CD Burning in the Finder (introduced in Mac OS 9.1). *Addition of a "Window" menu to the Finder (introduced in Mac OS 9.1)

Mac OS 9 and the Classic Environment

PowerPC versions of

prior to 10.5 include a compatibility layer (a shell) called

Classic A classic is an outstanding example of a particular style; something of lasting worth or with a timeless quality; of the first or highest quality, class, or rank – something that exemplifies its class. The word can be an adjective (a ''c ...

, enabling users to run applications and hardware requiring Mac OS 9 from within OS X. This is achieved through running Mac OS 9 without access to its Finder inside OS X. This requires Mac OS 9 to be installed on the computer even though most computers that can run the Classic environment are not necessarily able to boot into Mac OS 9. Some Mac OS 9 applications do not run well in Classic. They demonstrate screen redraw problems and lagging performance. In addition, some drivers and other software which directly interact with the hardware fail to work properly. In May 2002, at Apple's

San Jose, California San Jose, officially San José (; ; ), is a major city in the U.S. state of California that is the cultural, financial, and political center of Silicon Valley and largest city in Northern California by both population and area. With a 2020 popu ...

, Steve Jobs, accompanied by a coffin, held a mock funeral to announce that Apple had stopped development of Mac OS 9. Mac OS 9.2.2, released in December 2001, was the final version of Mac OS 9 and the "classic" Mac OS. In June 2005, Jobs announced that the Macintosh platform would be transitioning to

Intel x86 x86 (also known as 80x86 or the 8086 family) is a family of complex instruction set computer (CISC) instruction set architectures initially developed by Intel based on the Intel 8086 microprocessor and its 8088 variant. The 8086 was intr ...

microprocessors. Developer documentation of the

Rosetta Rosetta or Rashid (; ar, رشيد ' ; french: Rosette ; cop, ϯⲣⲁϣⲓⲧ ''ti-Rashit'', Ancient Greek: Βολβιτίνη ''Bolbitinē'') is a port city of the Nile Delta, east of Alexandria, in Egypt's Beheira governorate. The Ro ...

PowerPC emulation layer revealed that applications written for Mac OS 8 or 9 would not run on x86-based Macs. The Classic Environment remains in the PowerPC version of 10.4; however, x86 versions of OS X do not support the Classic environment. Mac OS 9 can be emulated by using

SheepShaver SheepShaver is an open-source PowerPC Apple Macintosh emulator originally designed for BeOS and Linux. The name is a play on ShapeShifter, a Macintosh II emulator for AmigaOS (made obsolete by Basilisk II). The ShapeShifter and SheepShaver project ...

, a PowerPC emulator available on multiple operating systems, including

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

-based Macs. However, SheepShaver cannot run Mac OS versions newer than 9.0.4, as there is no support for a

memory management unit A memory management unit (MMU), sometimes called paged memory management unit (PMMU), is a computer hardware unit having all memory references passed through itself, primarily performing the translation of virtual memory addresses to physical a ...

. The

PearPC PearPC is an architecture-independent PowerPC platform emulator capable of running many PowerPC operating systems, including pre-Intel versions of Mac OS X, Darwin and Linux. It is released under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL ...

PowerPC emulator does not support Mac OS 9.

QEMU QEMU is a free and open-source emulator (Quick EMUlator). It emulates the machine's central processing unit, processor through dynamic binary translation and provides a set of different hardware and device models for the machine, enabling it t ...

has experimental support for running Mac OS 9 using PowerPC G4 emulation. The majority of G4 Macs released in 2003 that have a 1 GHz and higher processor cannot boot into Mac OS 9 outside of the

Classic environment This is a list of macOS built-in apps and system components. Applications App Store The Mac App Store is macOS's digital distribution platform for macOS apps, created and maintained by Apple Inc. based on the iOS version, the platform was an ...

as the "Mac OS ROM" was never updated to allow those Macs, which were developed during the OS X era, to directly boot it (All G5 Macs cannot boot into Mac OS 9 at all since Mac OS 9 does not recognize the G5 processors, and therefore can only be run under the

). An exception to this rule is the 1 GHz "Antimony" Titanium

PowerBook G4 The PowerBook G4 is a series of notebook computers manufactured, marketed, and sold by Apple Computer between 2001 and 2006 as part of its PowerBook line of notebooks. The PowerBook G4 runs on the RISC-based PowerPC G4 processor, designed by the ...

released in November 2002, which is able to boot both Mac OS 9 and Mac OS X natively and is installed in a “

dual-boot Multi-booting is the act of installing multiple operating systems on a single computer, and being able to choose which one to boot. The term dual-booting refers to the common configuration of specifically two operating systems. Multi-booting may ...

” configuration (with Mac OS X being selected by default). However, this was the final PowerBook that could natively boot into Mac OS 9 officially at the fastest speed of 1 GHz. Furthermore, the 1 GHz and 1.25 GHz "Mirrored Drive Doors"

Power Mac G4 The Power Mac G4 is a series of personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from 1999 to 2004 as part of the Power Macintosh line. Built around the PowerPC G4 series of microprocessors, the Power Mac G4 was marketed by ...

released in August 2002 and re-released in June 2003 were also able to boot into Mac OS 9 natively and is one of the last Macs to officially boot into Mac OS 9, again at faster speeds up to 1.25 GHz. In recent years, unofficial patches for Mac OS 9 and the "Mac OS ROM" have been made to allow unsupported G4 Macs to boot into Mac OS 9, though this is not officially supported by Apple.

Other uses

Aside from Apple-branded hardware that is still maintained and operated, Mac OS 9 can be operated in other environments such as

Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ser ...

and

. For example, the aforementioned

software was initially not designed for use on x86 platforms and required an actual PowerPC processor present in the machine it was running on similar to a

hypervisor A hypervisor (also known as a virtual machine monitor, VMM, or virtualizer) is a type of computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines. A computer on which a hypervisor runs one or more virtual machines is called ...

. Although it provides PowerPC processor support, it can only run up to Mac OS 9.0.4 because it does not emulate a memory management unit.

Version history

Updates to Mac OS 9 include 9.0.4, 9.1, 9.2.1, and 9.2.2. Mac OS 9.0.4 was a collection of bug fixes primarily relating to USB and FireWire support. Mac OS 9.1 included integrated CD burning support in the

Macintosh Finder The Finder is the default file manager and graphical user interface shell used on all Macintosh operating systems. Described in its "About" window as "The Macintosh Desktop Experience", it is responsible for the launching of other applications, ...

and added a new Window menu in the Finder for switching between open windows. Mac OS 9.2 increased performance noticeably and improved Classic Environment support.

Compatibility

# # #

References

External links

* from apple.com * from apple.com * from apple.com TN1176 Mac OS 9 from apple.com * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mac Os 9 1999 software Classic Mac OS PowerPC operating systems