Adam, Adam, Adam..... If the new mac system is that bad, just change Flowjo to Windows....at least it's predictably bad! Paul Date sent: Sun, 01 Apr 2001 13:00:35 -0700 From: Adam Treister <adam@treestar.com> Subject: Re: MAC 10 operating system To: cyto-inbox > > ----->>> On 30-Mar-2001, Ulrik Sproge-Jakobsen wrote: > > Thus, for those of us in the flow business using Mac > > computers, we cetainly have to hope that the software > > developers in BD and Treestar release MacOS X-compatible or > > at least carbonized versions of their flow software within > > the foreseeable future (i.e. months - 1 year). > -------------- > Tidbits has an article describing who should switch to OS X: > http://www.tidbits.com/tb-issues/TidBITS-573.html#lnk3 > > My take on the whole thing is that a summer release of X.1 is where > we'll see the marketing push, with native (carbonized) applications > available. > > I had planned to release at least a preliminary version of FlowJo for > Mac OS X on the same date that the operating system shipped, but > wasn't able to pull it off. I'm currently in a holding pattern > waiting for Apple to provide tech support on a couple of questions, > and for the makers of the tools I use to build FlowJo to release OS X > compatible versions of their tools. I just received a beta version of > the code used to support USB dongles, and that is expected to be > finalized in about a month, but there are a few other pieces of other > peoples code that I need before I can release a fully functional > version for you all. For the time being, I still have to develop > programs on OS 9, and then test them on OS X, getting very little > information about why the code doesn't work. > > As Ulrik explained, any Mac application that runs under OS 9.1 will > run under OS X. I know of people who have been using FlowJo with the > beta versions of OS X for months, so there is no problem there. But > there are limitations in performance and all of the FlowJo windows are > contained in one "classic" window, which is cumbersome. So I've been > anxious to put out a "carbonized" version, which will work on OS8, 9 > and 10. But the operating system has been changing so much in the > past six months that I have been waiting for the changes to settle. > > Apple sent me a version called "Release Candidate" about two weeks > before the March 24 release date, so I decided it was time to install > it and start working on what they call a "carbonized" version of > FlowJo. The changes in my code only took about a week, and runs fine > under OS9, but dies right away under OSX. (Apple has a smug new > dialog box, that says the application has died, but it has not > affected other applications or the operating system). > > Unfortunately, when I went to install the development tools so that I > could debug these problems, I found that my tools don't run under OS > X. The installer program wouldn't read the CD that works fine on my > older machine, so I had to run it across the network. That appeared > to work, but somehow left it in a state that kills the Finder when it > tries to launch the tools. So my experience has been that its not > ready for prime time. I'd recommend that those who try it out do so > on an extra computer, not only because its still unproven, but you > also have to erase the entire hard disk in the installation process. > > Apple's big developers' conference is in late May which is presumably > where they'll teach us programmers how to make it work, and fire us up > with rabid evangelism and Jolt cola. The big products like Filemaker > and Microsoft Office are claiming to release carbonized versions in > summer/fall. That's when Apple will start shipping OS X preinstalled > on the hardware. So I wouldn't recommend rushing into this now, > unless you like to be on the bleeding edge, but figure that by July > new computers will come with it installed, so thats a good time to > move other machines as well. > > All that said, it does look like OS X going to be quite nice. It > handles multiple programs very smoothly, is going to scale up nicely > as they start adding more processors to the boxes, and stabilizes the > memory management that has been what makes it so hard to write > reliable Mac software. There are some nice improvements to the Finder > (look for FlowJo to bring the NeXT multi-column file browser to look > at cell populations) and I'm excited about having real Unix, OpenGL > and Java environments to leverage off of. So I'll commit to saying > that FlowJo will run native on OS X sometime soon, and those who want > to test out the early versions should contact me. But I wouldn't > recommend converting earlier than this summer, other than as a > learning experience. > > Adam > ------------------------------------------------------------ > Adam Treister Tree Star, Inc. > ph: 1-800-366-6045 fax: 1-650-508-9186 > adam@treestar.com <http://www.treestar.com> > ------------------------------------------------------------ > J.Paul Robinson, PhD PH:(765)4940757 Professor of Immunopharmacology Professor of Biomedical Engineering Purdue University FAX:(765)4940517 EMAIL:jpr@flowcyt.cyto.purdue.edu WEB: http://www.cyto.purdue.edu
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