Mac OS 8 is an operating system that was released by

Apple Computer on July 26, 1997. It represented the largest

overhaul of the Mac OS since the release of System 7, some six

years previously. Released over a series of updates, Mac OS 8

was an effort to integrate many of the technologies developed

for Apple's overly-ambitious operating system known as

Copland. Mac OS 8 helped modernize the Mac OS while Apple

developed its next generation operating system, Mac OS X. Mac

OS 8 is one of Apple's most successful software releases, selling

over 1.2 million copies in the first two weeks.

Mac OS 8.0 brought about the most significant

changes in the line-up, including the introduction of the

Platinum interface and a native PowerPC multi-

threaded Finder. Mac OS 8.1 introduced a new, more

efficient file system known as HFS Plus. Mac OS 8.5

was the first version of the Mac OS to require a

PowerPC processor. It featured PowerPC native

versions of QuickDraw and AppleScript, along with the

Sherlock search utility. Its successor, Mac OS 9, was

released on October 23, 1999.

Originally envisioned as Mac OS 8, Apple's next

generation operating system, codenamed Copland, was

announced in March 1994 alongside the introduction of the

first PowerPC Macs. Apple developers envisioned Copland as

a completely native PowerPC operating system offering

intelligent agents, a microkernel, a customizable interface

known as Appearance Manager, and a relational database

integrated into the Finder. Copland was to be followed by

Gershwin, which promised protected memory spaces and

full preemptive multitasking. The operating system was

intended to be a complete re-write of the Mac OS, and Apple

hoped to beat Microsoft Windows 95 to market with a

development cycle of just one year.

The Copland development was hampered by

countless missed deadlines. The release date was first

pushed back to the end of 1995, then to mid-'96, late '96,

and finally to the end of 1997. With a dedicated team of 500

software engineers and an annual budget of $250 million,

Apple executives began to grow impatient with the project

continually falling behind schedule. At the Worldwide

Developers Conference in January 1997, Apple CEO Gil

Amelio announced that rather than release Copland as a

single monolithic release, Copland features would be phased

into the Mac OS following a six month release cycle. These

updates began with Mac OS 7.6, released during WWDC.

Mac OS 8.0, released six months later, continued to

integrate Copland technologies into the Mac OS.

By August 1997, Apple Chief Technology Officer, Ellen

Hancock, froze development of Copland and Apple began a

search for an operating system developed outside the

company. This ultimately led to Apple's purchase of NeXT and

the development of Mac OS X.

Developed under the codename "Tempo," Mac OS 8.0 was

released on July 26, 1997. Initially, the early beta releases of the

product which were circulated to developers and Apple internal

audiences were branded as Mac OS 7.7 (superseding the current

release, Mac OS 7.6). Afterwards, the software was later renamed

to Mac OS 8 before the final release.

Major improvements in this version included a three-

dimensional Platinum theme, a PowerPC native, multi-threaded

Finder and greater customization of the user interface.

Other features introduced in Mac OS 8.0 include:

Customization of system fonts and accent colors.

Contextual pop-up menus. (accessed via ctrl-click with a

single-button mouse)

Pop-up (or tabbed) windows in the Finder.

Spring-loaded folders.

Live scrolling.

WindowShade widget in window titlebars.

Multithreaded Finder - file copy operations run in a separate

thread and don't block the UI.

Revamped color picker.

Desktop Pictures control panel, allowing photographs to

be set as the desktop background. (not just tiled patterns)

Simple Finder, an option which reduces Finder menus to

basic operations, in order to avoid overwhelming new

users.

Creation of the 'Help' menu and a faster Apple Guide,

featuring HTML help pages.

Native support of AFP over IP.

Performance improvements to virtual memory,

AppleScript execution and system startup times.

Faster desktop rebuilding.

Released on January 19, 1998, Mac OS 8.1 was the last version

of the Mac OS to run on 68k processors. It introduced a new file system

known as HFS+, (aka Mac OS Extended,) which supported large file sizes

and made more efficient use of larger hard drives due to using a smaller

block size. To upgrade, users must reformat the hard drive, which deletes

the entire contents of the drive. Some third-party utilities later appeared

that preserved the user's data while upgrading to HFS+. Note that 68040

systems do not support booting from HFS+ disks; the boot drive must be

HFS Standard. Once the system is fully booted, however, HFS+ disks may

then be attached and used normally by 68040 systems.

Mac OS 8.1 also included an enhanced version of PC Exchange,

allowing Macintosh users to see the long file names (up to 255 characters)

on files that had been created on PCs running Windows, as well as

supporting FAT32.

New features:

Get Info windows for disk volumes show the volume format.

Folder windows have a "sort order" button which toggles the

order of list views. Sort order is also accessible through the

AppleScript property "sort direction" of class "container window".

A key sequence of "Command-Shift-W" will close any window,

including pop-up windows. A key sequence of "Command-Shift-

Option-W" will close all windows, including pop-up windows.

Either of these key sequences will return a pop-up window to its

"normal" state before closing it.

Support for "unconventional" desktop printing via LaserWriter 8.

"Introducing the LaserWriter Driver Version 8.5.1".

The bSupportsAsyncRequests bit of the vMAttrib field of the

GetVolParmsInfoBuffer structure is honored. File systems that set this

bit are guaranteeing that they can correctly handle asynchronous File

Manager requests.

The vmVolumeGrade field of the GetVolParmsInfoBuffer structure is

honored. File system developers should fill in this field according to the

following formula: -1 * (transfer rate in bytes per second). Since Finder

checks the vmVolumeGrade field before initiating each copy operation,

file systems should feel free to produce different values for this field as

often as they like. A file system might choose to change this field

based on such metrics as network reliability or the number of users

logged in to a server.

Enhancements to existing features:

File copying operations have been substantially

accelerated in many cases.

Window opening (both drawing and redrawing) has been

substantially accelerated.

Released October 17, 1998, Mac OS 8.5 was the first

version of the Mac OS to run solely on Macs equipped with a

PowerPC processor. As such it replaced some but not all of the

680x0 code with PowerPC code, improving system performance

by relying less on 680x0 emulation.

It introduced the Sherlock search utility; Sherlock allowed

users to search the contents of documents on hard drives (if the

user had let it index the drive), or extend a search to the

Internet. Sherlock plug-ins started appearing at this time; these

plug-ins allowed users to search the contents of other websites.

Mac OS 8.5 included a number of performance

improvements. Copying files over a network was faster than

previous versions and Apple advertised it as being "faster than

Windows NT". AppleScript was also re-written to use only PowerPC

code, which significantly improved AppleScript execution speed.

Font Smoothing, system-wide antialiasing for type was also

introduced.

The HTML format for online help, first adopted by the

Finder's Info Center in Mac OS 8, was now used throughout. This

made it easier for software companies to write online help systems,

but would contribute to making physical manuals become a thing of

the past.

In this release, the PPP control panel was removed and

replaced with Remote Access. The Remote Access control panel

provides the same functionality but also allows connections to

Apple Remote Access (ARA) servers.

The installation process was considerably simplified in

Mac OS 8.5. In earlier versions the installer worked in segments

and often required the user to click to continue in between stages

of the installation. The Mac OS 8.5 installer generally required

very little user interaction once it was started. Customisation

options were also much more detailed yet simpler to manage.

From Mac OS 8.5 onwards the popular MacLinkPlus

document translation software is no longer bundled as part of the

Mac OS.

Mac OS 8.5 was the first version of the Mac OS to support

"themes," or skins, which could change the default Apple

Platinum look of the Mac OS to "Gizmo" or "HiTech." This radical

changing of the computer's appearance was removed at the last

minute, and appeared only in beta versions, though users could

still make (and share) their own theme and use it with the Mac

OS. The Appearance control panel was also updated to enable

support for proportional scroll bars, and added the option for both

scroll arrows to be placed at the bottom of the scroll bar.

In addition to the themes support, 8.5 was the first

version to support 32-bit icons. Icons now had

24-bit color (16.7 million colors) and an 8-bit alpha channel,

allowing for transparency/translucency effects.

The 'application palette' made its debut with 8.5 - the

application menu at the right side of the menu bar could be resized

to show the active application's name, or 'torn off' into a palette of

buttons. This palette could be customized many ways, by removing

the window frame and changing the size and layout of the buttons. It

functioned much like the Windows 95 task bar.

Being a compendium of revised and new features of

interest to software developers in release 8.5 of the Mac OS.

This system follows Mac OS 8.1 and contains

several new and revised features including:

more PowerPC code

consolidated control panels

faster system startup time

improved AppleScript performance

new Unicode text drawing facilities

new HTML-based help facilities

Mac OS 8.5.1, released December 7, 1998, was a minor

update to Mac OS 8.5 that fixed a number of bugs that were

causing crashes and data corruption

Released May 10, 1999, Mac OS 8.6 added support to the Mac

OS nanokernel to handle preemptive tasks via the Multiprocessing

Services 2.x and later developer API. But there was still no process

separation; the system still used cooperative multitasking between

processes, and even a process that was Multiprocessing Services-

aware still had a portion that ran in the blue task, a task that also ran

all programs that are not aware of it, and the only task that could run

68k code.

Still, this free update for Mac users running 8.5 and 8.5.1 was

faster and much more stable than either versions of 8.5.x, and is by

some considered the most stable Classic OS. It was also the first Mac

OS to have the OS version displayed as part of the startup screen.

Many hardware upgrades require a minimum of Mac OS 8.6.

This system follows Mac OS 8.5.1 (the

majority of whose features are found in Mac OS

8.5) and contains several new and revised

features, including:

improved multiprocessor support

support for new Apple CPUs

improved QuickDraw Text performance

better MRJ performance

bug fixes

Startup and Shutdown

Welcome Splash

First Run

Empty Desktop

Desktop with Application

Note pad Text Editor

Calculator

Media Player CD Player

Volume Level Sounds

Keyboard map

Control Panel

General Control Screen

Appearance

Appearance (Desktop Pictures )

Display(Monitor and Sound)

Keyboard Setting

Mouse Setting

Time & Date Setting

International (Number)

International (Text)

Accessibility (Easy Access) Accessibility (Close View)

Application Manager Running Application

File Manager

Help Screen

Search

Trash Can

About Application

Open File

Colour Selector