WWDC OS Keynote Summary - MacOS X Explained
By Robby West 

www.dailymac.com/corner/wwdcnotes.shtml

After hearing and watching the full 1 hour and 30 minute WorldWide Developers Conference Keynote today on Real Player, I was kind of confused. After going back and watching certain sections time and time again, I think I got on-track. I came to the conclusion that many other users may also have similar trouble, and decided to try to explain things in the easiest, best way possible so that everyone may understand where Apple is coming from. MacOS X, or MacOS 10 was the main topic of the keynote. No one knew what this way until now, it blew everyone away. This was very confusing for a while. I thought "Wasn't OS9 "Sonata" the end of the line for the MacOS, then it would be merged into Rhapsody?" Wrong, totally the opposite, Rhapsody is going to be merged into the MacOS. Confused yet? I sure was. Apple has been working very hard on this plan for 10 months, so hard, that it was the best kept secret in Apple history.

The aim of MacOS X is to provide users with all of the functionality of a modern OS, the usability of the MacOS, and compatibility with current MacOS applications. This is exactly what Jobs and team showed us is possible. The MacOS is built roughly of 8000 API's, or "Application Programming Interfaces". This allows for the development of MacOS applications through these set development tools. In order to turn the MacOS into a modern OS, some of these 10+ year old API's must be deleted. Apple has come up with a simple but elaborate scheme to do so painlessly.

For MacOS X, 2000 out of the 8000 System 8.X API's were deleted, leaving us with the core modern, clean API's that are usable, and the old unusable ones wiped out. Also, some more API's must be added to add the necessary features. The remaining 6000 API's are called "Carbon", the building blocks of life, suites the meaning doesn't it?
What does this mean for current apps, and compatability? NOT A PROBLEM says Jobs and Apple. All current OS8.X applications will run on MacOS X without code alteration. BUT, in order to take advantage of the modern features like protected memory and preemptive multitasking, the system 8 applications need a "tune-up." Jobs showed us that this can be done EASILY in 1-2 days, and a shipping version in 2 months max. This means that all current OS8 applications are already 100% compatible with 1999's MacOS X, and with a simple code alteration, your old apps can become robust, fully modern applications.

Questions arise as to how MacOS X is going to be so modern. Simple, the underpinnings are exactly that if not better than Rhapsody, using the Mach microkernel, giving us modern features like protected memory, preemptive multitasking, modern virtual memory, symmetric multiprocessing, ultrafast networking and I/O. It is a 100% PowerPC OS, optimized for the G3. All of this is great, but where did Rhapsody go, isn't it the Apple OS centerpiece? The answer- Its still there, and as viable as ever. It will still be developed at the same pace and concurrently as the MacOS. It will primarily be used as both a PowerPC and an Intel server OS, and for development. Its use in the further future is
unknown at this point once its features are all used in MacOS X. I suspect it will remain as a server/development OS, and for a choice where users can stay compatible with other UNIX applications and OS1s.

In the near future, Apple has set the map for the nearest MacOS releases. Allegro , or 8.5 will ship in August of this year, along with Rhapsody CR1, or Customer Release 1. 8.6, an update to Allegro will ship in January 99. Sonata, or OS9, is said to ship sometime in mid 1999, the purpose of this release I really still have not  comprehended. Allegro will have many of the building blocks for the Carbon based MacOS X to let developers get ahead. As for Rhapsody, DR2 , or Developers Release 2 was given to everyone today at the WWDC. Jobs and team had it running on G3's
hooked up to the big screens. An early set of the Carbon API's were running on Rhapsody to show how easily apps can be ported from their MacOS8 state to OS X. Versions of Simpletext, Movieplayer and Photoshop were shown running preemptively and protected just coded from OS8 to Carbon with a quick "tune-up." This was all done natively
in the Rhapsody Yellow Box environment, NOT the Blue Box. 

What we saw today was amazing, enough to make large companies like Microsoft and Adobe open their eyes even wider than they ever have been. Prepare for the type of Revolution that we saw with the first Mac in 1984. This is what we have been waiting for many years, set plans for our platform. Remember, Think Different, Think Positive, 

Think Apple.

Robby West 5/12/98 

rob@TheMacResource.dyn.ml.org