Mac OS X v10.0

Mac OS X version 10.0, code named “Cheetah”, was the first major release of Mac OS X, Apple’s desktop and server operating system. Mac OS X v10.0 was released on March 24, 2001 for a price of US$129. It superseded the Mac OS X Public Beta and preceded Mac OS X v10.1.

Mac OS X v10.0 was a radical departure from the previous “classic” Macintosh operating system and was Apple’s long awaited answer to the call for a next generation Macintosh operating system. It introduced a brand new code base completely separate from Mac OS 9's, as well as all previous Apple operating systems. Mac OS X introduced the new Darwin Unix-like core and a totally new system of memory management. It proved to be a rocky start to the Mac OS X line, plagued with missing features and performance issues, although it was praised for being a good start to an operating system still in its infancy, in terms of completeness and overall operating system stability.

System requirements

The system requirements for Mac OS X v10.0 were not well received by the Macintosh community, as at the time the amount of RAM standard with Macintosh computers was 64 megabytes of RAM, while the Mac OS X v10.0 requirements called for 128 megabytes of RAM. As well, processor upgrade cards, which were quite popular for obsolete Power Mac G3 computers, were not supported (and never officially have been, but can be made to work through third-party utility programs).

• Supported Computers: Power Macintosh G3, G3 B&W, G4, G4 Cube, iMac, PowerBook G3, PowerBook G4, iBook (The original "Kanga" PowerBook G3 was the only G3-based Mac not to be supported by Mac OS X).
• RAM required:
  • 64 MB minimum
  • 128 MB recommended
• Hard Drive Space: 1.5 gigabytes
  • 800 MB for the minimal install

Features

• Dock – the Dock was a new way of organizing one's Mac OS X applications on a user interface, and a change from the classic method of Application launching in previous Apple Operating Systems.
• XNU kernel – the Unix-like kernel was a first for Macintosh operating systems, and was one of the largest changes from a technical standpoint in Mac OS X.
• Terminal – the Terminal was a feature that allowed access to Mac OS X's underpinnings, namely the Unix core.
• Mail (e-mail client)
• Address Book
• New word processor replacing SimpleText called TextEdit.
• Full preemptive multitasking support, a long awaited feature on the Mac.
• PDF Support (create PDFs from any application)
• Aqua Interface
• Built on Darwin, a Unix-like operating system
• OpenGL
• AppleScript
• Supports Carbon and Cocoa APIs
• Sherlock desktop and Internet search
• Protected memory – memory protection so that if an application corrupts its memory, the memory of other applications will not be corrupted.

Limitations

• File-sharing client — The system can only use TCP/IP ^[1] , not AppleTalk, to connect to servers sharing the Apple Filing Protocol. The System cannot use SMB to connect to Windows or Samba servers.

• File-sharing server — As a server, the system is set up to share only the afp (over TCP/IP), http, ssh and ftp protocols.

• Shortage of native applications — While the System can run Classic Mac applications (in the Classic environment), and has some support for Java applications and ported UNIX applications, there are few if any native Mac OS X applications available for this version of Mac OS X. Most applications for Cheetah were ported using the Carbon libraries, and subsequent application releases required features present only in later versions of Mac OS X. As of 2008, it is typical for Mac OS X applications to require at least 10.4 "Tiger" or later.

Criticisms

While the first Mac OS X release was an advanced operating system in terms of its technical underpinnings, and in relation to its brand new code-base, Mac OS X v10.0 was heavily criticized. There were three main reasons for criticism:

• Interface Responsiveness — The brand-new Aqua interface was sluggish at best. It was heavily criticized for its slow application launch speed and user interface response speed. The interface response times compared to earlier Apple operating systems showed that Mac OS X still had a long way to go in terms of interface performance.
• Stability — While 'theoretical' stability in Mac OS X was much better than stability in Mac OS 9, Mac OS X v10.0 was riddled with fatal bugs that caused kernel panics, especially in complex hardware setups.
• Missing Features and Hardware Compatibility Issues — Another reason for criticism were the missing features, especially missing DVD playback, as well as CD burning, both of which were available in Mac OS 9. Mac OS X v10.0.2 included the necessary software frameworks to allow iTunes 1.1.1 to provide audio CD burning support, but data CD burning had to wait until version 10.1. There were also several issues in respect to missing printer drivers and other hardware drivers.

The heavy criticism of Mac OS X version 10.0 ultimately resulted in Apple offering a free upgrade to Mac OS X v10.1 to users. ^[2]

Multilingual snags

With Mac OS X version 10.0.0 began a short era (that ended with Mac OS X version 10.2 Jaguar's release) where Apple offered two types of installation CDs: 1Z and 2Z CDs. The difference in the two lay in the extent of multilingual support.

Input of simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese, and Korean were only included with the 2Z CDs. They also came with more languages (the full set of 15 languages), whereas the 1Z CDs came only with about eight languages and in version 10.0.x, could not actually display simplified Chinese, traditional Chinese and Korean (except for the Chinese characters present in Japanese Kanji). A variant of 2Z CDs began when Mac OS X version 10.0.3 was released to the Asian market. However, it could not be upgraded to version 10.0.4 of the operating system. The brief period of multilingual confusion ended with the release of version 10.1, and came to a real end with version 10.2. Currently, all Mac OS X installer CDs and preinstallations include the full set of 15 languages and full multilingual compatibility.

Version history

References

External links

• John Siracusa Mac OS X 10.0. Retrieved October 30, 2005.
• John Siracusa Mac OS X 10.1. Retrieved October 30, 2005.
• John Siracusa Mac OS X DP2: A Preview. Retrieved October 30, 2005.