Oolite Bulletins

Captain Patrick wrote:

OS 10.4 is the last Mac OS that will support all my Classic/OS 9 software, and that will run on my PowerMac (non-Intel) Powerbook G4.

Tiger was the last OS were apple officially supports classic programs. There are however solutions like SheepShaver/Chubby Bunny to run classic programs on OS 10.6. Its far from user friendly as classic under tiger, but at least it allows you to run some of the old programs when you need them.

I must say that it was a pain when I had to withdraw my old OS 7 mac last summer. With it I lost a lot of useful software. But I agree, when you want to improve your software, there comes a time you have to ditch compatibility with computers that don't have the hardware for those nice new features.

I might have been mistaken in an earlier remark: my Powerbook G4 can run OS X 10.5 Leopard after all – though definitely not 10.6 or 10.7, and not any of my OS9 programs (unless there's a Classic emulator somewhere for that).

That's still no reason to change from 10.4, in which I can presently do everything I want – except, it seems, perhaps play future editions of this game. Which, as I fondly recall, I once played on my Commodore 64, that moreover let me use a realio trulio joystick.

Why (he grumbles) can't we just stick with one progamming environment that won't mutate every few years to make all our past software incomprehensible, and our past efforts all to naught? Does Oolite really need all the bells and whistles of the Next New Thing?

The poll should really have had separate answers for Intel and PowerPC systems, because supporting PowerPC going forward is not a reasonable option. It was announced a long time ago that “MNSR” (1.76) would be the last feature release to support PowerPC and 10.4.

Building for PowerPC is not supported in the development tools for Mac OS X 10.7, and installing older development tools requires modifying the installer. This makes it difficult for new people to work on Oolite, and it may stop working at any time.

Building for operating systems older than 10.6 has similar but less urgent issues. We can build for older systems using modern tools, just not be sure it will work.

Avoiding these problems would essentially require all Mac Oolite developers to maintain and use museum pieces.

Captain Patrick wrote:

That's still no reason to change from 10.4, in which I can presently do everything I want – except, it seems, perhaps play future editions of this game.

Or, indeed, almost any other software released since 2009.

Ah the inevitable march of progress.

How about a subtle compromise. What about long term parking of the last power pc version of oolite?
Forge ahead by all means but leave a little something on the site for the digital poor.

Think of it as a charitable gesture for those less fortunate than yourself.

ClymAngus wrote:

Ah the inevitable march of progress.

How about a subtle compromise. What about long term parking of the last power pc version of oolite?
Forge ahead by all means but leave a little something on the site for the digital poor.

Think of it as a charitable gesture for those less fortunate than yourself.

Yesterday I wanted to launch an Java application on my Mac OSX 10.5 system that runs in a browser window. It didn't start because it needed Safari 5.1 as a minimum. But Safari 5.1 won't run on OSX 10.5. The highest Safari version to be installed is 5.0.x And within a few years the number of applications that need at least 10.6 will only grow. So it is not worth the trouble to compile code for very old macs when not even the new developer tools support those old versions.

And as 1.76 is declared as the stable release, I assume this version will stay around for very long time, alongside the newer trunk en test releases. So tiger users will still be able to access a working version of Oolite for a long time.

The intention is that any future bug fix updates to 1.76 – a 1.76.2, say – will continue to support the same systems as today, as long as the tools continue to work. What we’re considering now is the target for future feature releases – probably a 1.77.x test series and a 1.78 stable.

Coming late to the polls, but still cast my vote (Snow Leopard).

For those with the lower end hardware: Every now existing version that works on your setting will of course continue to work on your setting. If Oolite 1.76 is working, then you'll be able to play the now official release of Oolite for quite a long time to come. And as 1.76 is now our stable release, all mainstream OXPs should be working on it for the foreseeable future as well.

So I wouldn't be too worried about future developments in that regard. At some point in the future your old hardware is going to crash anyway, and if you replace it you'll be on the cutting edge again almost automatically.

I first discovered Oolite when it was in version 1.58 and I had a clamshell first generation Blueberry iBook which I had upgraded from OS 8.6 to OS X 10.3.9, together with maxing out the RAM to a full 288MB and giving it a bigger HD than the original 3.2GB. It could run Oolite, and I could get a glimpse of its beauty, but that was basically it. I don't remember whether I got 3FPS or perhaps 4, but you get the idea.

Thus I only got back to Oolite when I had replaced the then seven year old iBook with a first generation MacBook Pro, and Oolite had just made the transition to 1.65. The iBook still worked and was good for writing, browsing, and a whole bunch of other stuff, but it was never meant to run Oolite. The same can be said for computers that nowadays can be called old gear. In my opinion continuation of support for those older machines doesn't need to be a development priority.

Was looking at laptops just now (pcworld.co.uk - but don't shoot me ), their Macs are all currently either OS 10.6 or 10.7.

Wow, I'm surprised they're selling 10.6 machines at all!

They’re selling previous-generation MacBook Pros alongside current-generation ones.

Ahruman wrote:

They’re selling previous-generation MacBook Pros alongside current-generation ones.

In the hope that the ill-informed buy an old, out-of-date (relatively speaking) machine?

DaddyHoggy wrote:

In the hope that the ill-informed buy an old, out-of-date (relatively speaking) machine?

Well, you get last generation’s i7 for the same price as this generation’s i5 with a better graphics chip. It’s the sort of confusing choice Apple tries to avoid by not having 27 models at the same time, but not necessarily outright evil. You can’t really blame retailers for wanting to clear old stock.

Anyway, all of them can play Oolite with full bling, and that’s the important thing, right? :-)

The minimum system requirements for trunk have been raised to Mac OS X 10.5 on an Intel-based Mac. The maintenance branch (where any 1.76.x updates will come from) is unaffected.

Currently, the goal is for these to be the system requirements of the next stable release, but since we don’t know exactly when that will happen they may need to be raised further.

For those building along at home, the project is now set up for Xcode 4. It still builds under Xcode 3, but this is now unsupported. it may not be possible to open the project in Xcode 4 if you update an existing working copy; in this case, I suggest throwing out your working copy and checking it out again. (Alternatively, delete the Xcode projects and explicitly update them: rm Oolite.xcodeproj && svn update Oolite.xcodeproj etc.)

Edit: the build instructions on the wiki have been updated and simplified.

Coda: the switch to newer tools exposed about a dozen bugs, including several crashers and memory leaks, that have now been fixed.