Mixing stripes and spots

Upgrades always make me nervous, since they invariably involve the loss of some existing features as well as the gaining of new ones, and of course the literature surrounding the upgrade tends not to draw attention to what is being biffed, in favour of the shiny newness of it all.  So it was that I put off for some time upgrading my desktop PowerPC Mac to Leopard, until today.

A brief history: until around 2007 I was exclusively a Mac user, save at work where I am in the PC-running part of the university (in this there seems to be a split as much geographical as disciplinary: south side runs Macs, north side PCs).  The main reason for this was following in the footsteps of harvestdad, who has been an Apple enthusiast since he first began using personal computers in the 1980s.  Our first home computer was a clone of an Apple IIe (the poor man’s Apple, if you will, not unlike the present-day putting of lower-case “i” before things of all kinds, to engender an association with the Apple brand) and our first Macintosh the lovely LC, which harvestdad christened Elsie (naturally) and kept running in a back room for many years longer than was necessary.

Forces both social and economic, however, have compelled me to make sorties to the other side in the last few years.  The lower cost of the equivalent machines influenced my choice to buy a Windows-running laptop last year, despite the fact I am no particular fan of that operating system.  Living with someone more conversant with PCs has also affected me, suggesting that in brand and OS matters, I am in fact fickle.  A few years ago I had cause to spend time with people I came to think of as Macintosh snobs or, even worse, Macintosh dicks, people whose enthusiasm for the Mac extended to being near-exclusively interested in the latest of all software or hardware associated with it.   With my third-generation iPod and my second-hand desktop it was the equivalent of being laughed at for being a poor child with shabby clothes.  That general experience was souring of my loyalty as well.

So, to return to the Leopard upgrade: what did I lose?  The Classic environment, it turns out, which appears not to be a big deal but is an essential feature for me, since it’s from a never-updated piece of freeware, Gene, that I’m transcribing the database of pedigrees and dog histories to my current project, the Norwich Terrier Wiki.  I do have another copy of the database as a word-processing document, but it’s the genealogy software that generates the connections between individual entries.  Reinstalling Tiger would be the obvious solution, but I lack the appropriate system discs, missing in the handover of the desktop computer to me from its previous owner some years ago now.  Harvestdad came to the rescue with another alternative, which also turned out not to work, since it was the Tiger discs for his Intel Mac, which technology mine pre-dates.

Eventually I was able to copy the Gene software and database to my eight-year-old G3 iBook on which the Classic environment still happily runs, thus unintentionally validating my sentimental decision not to throw it away back in the day.  Here it runs fine, and I am saved the labour of turning back and forward between Mac desktop and Windows laptop as I attend to the wiki database: the old iBook can sit on the table beside me while I transcribe!  (I do wonder if such a sedentary setup of technological wonders is the slippery slope to washing myself with a rag on a stick, never leaving the computer all the while.  One day, I suppose, I’ll know.)  Meanwhile, the Leopard-running desktop is faster than ever and can continue in its role as giant AirTunes jukebox.  May it ever so flourishing be.

Tagged as: Apple IIe, Leopard, Macintosh, Tiger, Windows