SAFARI CRASH GOOGLE MAPS

Question

Possibly this is in the wrong area of Discussions ...
GOOGLE MAPS CRASHES SAFARI 1.3.2.
Maybe us old timers have been forgotten with respect to software updates?

Answer 1

I bought my first Mac a week after the first Mac was introduced in February 1984, and I'm still using (in Classic mode in OS X 10.3.9) three applications that I bought to run on that Mac in 1985-7. One of those was updated for the last time in 1991, has no OS X-based equivalent, and is absolutely indispensable to me: I use it every day. It was a great business decision on Apple's part to build Classic mode into OS X, so that nearly any software that ran in OS 9 would also run in OS X. That decision made it possible for me to transition gradually to OS X without leaving behind the huge software library I'd bought and learned through the years, and without paying through the nose to upgrade or replace all of it at once. I completely skipped the two years of 10.0 and 10.1 when OS X was, by all reports, only half there and quite underwhelming. By the time I edged into it at version 10.2.3, it was pretty serviceable, I'd had time to identify X-native applications that would serve many of my needs, and I had a plan for which Classic programs to let go of and which to keep using. When Panther was released, I let it mature to version 10.3.5 before upgrading (thus avoiding all the early bugs), and I stuck with 10.3.5 until after Tiger was released, when I updated to 10.3.9 for compatibility with application upgrades that required that version. Tiger offers nothing I need that Panther doesn't except, as time goes by, compatibility with more and more application upgrades I may want. Cutting-edge web sites have left Safari 1.3.2 behind, it's true, but I tend not to visit many of those sites — and when I do find a site Safari can't handle, I use FireFox or Camino.
In short, I'm immensely grateful to Apple for enabling me to transition to new operating systems at my own cautious pace, bringing along the old software I can't do without. My history with Macs is, in a sense, the whole history of Macs from 1984 through 2006. Up until the Intel Macs and Leopard, (neither of which supports Classic), Apple had bent over backward to accommodate old-timers like me. I've had *seven years* since OS X was introduced to prepare for the inevitable phasing-out of Classic. Back in 2000 I never expected to have that long. Many, perhaps most, Mac users today (possibly including you?) have never even seen a Mac running OS 9 or Classic. Whether you feel abandoned as progress marches on, or you appreciate whatever time you're given to adjust, depends somewhat on the length of your view.
I still use Safari 1.3.2 as my primary browser, with Camino and Firefox as alternatives. I'll probably upgrade my OS to Tiger in the next year, hopefully after demand for it dies down and prices drop. And when I finally replace my current Powerbook with an Intel MacBook Pro, I'll keep an older Mac to run my Classic applications on.