February 23, 2004

The Market Value of OS 9

First things first. If you have an IBM GXP Deskstar hard drive:

  1. Stop reading this journal entry.
  2. Backup all your critical data right this minute.
  3. Run to your local computer equipment vendor and purchase a non-IBM, non-Seagate disk drive.
  4. Install your new hard drive and copy over your critical data, reinstalling your OS and applications as necessary.
  5. Take an axe to your IBM GXP Deskstar hard drive.
  6. Resume reading this journal entry.

So losing my hard drive after only a year and a half wasn't as bad as you might think. Okay, I'll admit I'm pretty annoyed with IBM for knowingly manufacturing defective hard drives. And it's disheartening to find out that Apple chose to use those defective hard drives as their stock Quicksilver PowerMac drive. But I'm past that now, mostly because I had my critical files backed up. I was actually feeling pretty smug about that. Hah, silly people who lose data.

Until I discovered that I needed to use FrameMaker at home to edit some files that very day.[1] See, FrameMaker for the Macintosh is a "Classic" application, and unfortunately, my laptop didn't have OS 9 installed. It used to have a Classic environment, but I had reinstalled Jaguar a while back and never bothered to re-install OS 9. Here's what I learned that day:

Tends to wipe the smug off one's face, let me tell you.

1. As far as I can tell, Adobe FrameMaker 7 for Macintosh is essentially abandonware. One of the hazards of being a Mac user. No one bothers to write viruses for you, but no one bothers to write applications either.

2. Kidding, kidding. Of course people bother to write Macintosh viruses.

Comments

  1. Market value of knowing that at least you have a Mac: Priceless.

    Posted by OS X-phile on Feb. 23, 2004 at 11:22 PM [#]

  2. Last Mac virus I encountered: 1991. (Borne by a floppy disk I inserted into a secretary’s machine at work, and then into my machine at home. Remember “sneaker-net”? Heck, remember floppy disks?)

    Number of Windoze email viruses stopped, per day, by ClamAV-Milter on golem? ……

    Posted by Jacques Distler on Feb. 24, 2004 at 6:27 AM [#]

  3. Shhh, Jacques. You’re going to bring down the evil eye.

    Posted by Evan on Feb. 24, 2004 at 7:15 PM [#]

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