Summary

When you start actually living in the Classic application environment, your next ambition will quickly become how to stop using it. Apple has done a great job making the Classic application environment work side by side with the Mac OS X environment. However, it’s so inconvenient to have to deal with the slow Classic screen redraws, menus switching color and placement, and visibly antiquated underpinnings, that you’ll soon realize how much easier your life would be if you left Classic behind. Four generations into Mac OS X (five if you count the public beta release), so many applications have been updated, built from scratch, or ported from other operating systems, that you’ll find that there are now enough options that you should not be forced to rely on the Classic application environment in your daily life.

In this Chapter, you’ve learned the following:

• That the Classic application environment is a version of Mac OS 9 running on top of Mac OS X.

• The Classic application environment is useful when you need to run old applications that haven’t yet been updated for Mac OS X.

• The Classic application environment doesn’t take full advantage of Mac OS X’s advanced memory protection, multitasking, and multiuser environment.

• How to use Classic control panels, manage fonts in Classic, configure printers (even unsupported LPR printers), and the Classic System Folder.