Now's the worst time to buy a Mac. How do I know? Because I can't take OS 9 off of my .5 GHz iBook.

Apple's new OS X is and has been out. Apple's even comfortable enough that OS X is the default OS on new Macintoshes. This is the transition period, but we're still going in, not yet coming out. I've got an older 350 MHz G4 at work, and OS X is pitifully slow. It's like running underwater. Even on the 500 MHz iBook, things take long enough to happen you have time to notice. I should never be four words ahead typing than what I can see on the screen.

What does this have to do with Mac OS 9? Wow, 9's speedy on both of the above Macs -- even my 240 G3 upgraded StarMax runs like a champ compared to OS X with 500 Mhz. I'm tempted to forgo all the advantages of OS X to get back to a place where my browser flies, Appleworks keeps up with typing, and all the software I want or need to use has already been written and well tested. My OS 9 performance for the same general tasks -- browsing, typing, iTuning, and even coding Java (VB on the Mac doesn't run very quickly at all :^D) -- are probably 5 times speedier, at least (subjectively) than OS X. When I'm not going to be coding for Java 2 or above, I tend to go right back to reboot-prone "Classic" Mac OS 9.

If you want iDVD2 and you want it now, grab a new iMac. Otherwise grab a copy of yellow dog linux or, better yet, Darwin to get all that "new free software" (GNU Free software?) & a newer Java virtual machine and get back to work in OS 9 -- before you too are performing underwater aerobics with the bluehai, ur, early adopters. Or, um, buy AMD compatible hardware and skip the issue entirely.