We're going back in time.

I was, I freely admit, a latecomer to the whole OSX thing. I had built my life around OS9, and upgrading the operating system would mean also having to upgrade all the software Lots and lots of software. Most of it, at the time, not...um, how to put this delicately. Most not eligible for software upgrade. And even if it was, I didn't have a whole lot of cash to throw at buying new versions of old apps. So I stuck with old apps for as long as I could.

In fact, it was only when 10.2 was getting long in the tooth that I finally decided to break out the OSX 10.0 disk that came with my G4 and put it on the computer. I could always launch system 9 to get back at those old apps, if I really needed them.

I quickly upgraded to 10.2, then dotthree when it came out, then dotfour, and now dotfive. Which I love.

The trouble is, while I now have updated (and legit, thank you very much) versions of Creative Suite and Lightroom and Dreamweaver and all those other apps, there are a couple that never made the leap from 9. They hit end of life, and if I want to use them, I have to go back to my old computer, and fire up system 9.

Which I haven't needed to do in...years, probably. But one of the programs stuck in 9 is a cookbook program called MasterCook. My wife, you see, used to do food services for a retreat centre, and had a fairly complete stack of recipes inputted.

She hasn't needed access to these recipes for the last few years, as she is not currently working, choosing instead to raise our two kids (and let me work three jobs to make ends meet...), but tonight, we were going out for supper at my sister's, and my wife wanted to bring along a special salad.

She could not find the recipe in her files, so sent me down to print up a copy. I sat down at the old G4 (which has currently been relegated to functioning as a file server), and clicked on MasterCook.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited for classic to start up. I never would have called booting into classic snappy, but I don't think it used to be this slow. Must be the fact that I'm running 10.4 on the computer, and 10.4s support for classic is fairly thin (and went missing completely with 10.5).

Finally it started up and I was greeted with that cheery rainbow apple logo in the top left, and all that Geneva text...

A couple weeks ago, OS X turned seven years old, but it didn't dawn on me just how far we've come until I had to go back and relive system nine in all its glory. I poked around in the software for a while, but finally had to stop. I stuck with Apple through the bad old days, but it's a bit embarrassing to look back on those days. Kinda like looking through the old high school year books. They're nice to have around for nostalgia sake, but I don't really want anyone else looking at them. I mean, were my glasses really that big? My haircut really that...bad?

I like to pretend that the mac has always been this cool, but opening up classic, I was reminded, quite acutely, how far we've come in the last few years.

Since classic is no longer supported, I finally exported the recipe files as text files. That should be the last time I need to open up classic. Now to find a suitable replacement....I'm open to suggestions.

There's a side of me that's a bit sad. It's a bit like thinking about your lost youth. But then I look at how...I'm sorry, but how ugly it, and I don't think I'll miss it. The G4 will probably not get updated to 10.5 unless I find a compelling need to use back to my mac to access files on it. Even so, I think that's it for Classic.

Farewell, I shall remember you fondly, so long as I never need to look on your face again.