Talk:Copland (operating system)

Title? and rewrite
I'm not sure that this article shouldn't be under the page Copland_Project. There are many more internal links to Copland the composer, all the ones I have checked link to Aaron_Copland and avoid confusion, but it is common to refer to a composer by just their surname.

The Copland project is also discussed on the Mac_OS_X page, so there might be scope for a merger. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Solipsist (talk • contribs) 11:22, 17 March 2004 (UTC)


 * I think you're right that the page should be renamed, but perhaps Copland_OS would be more suitable than Copland_Project. I reviewed this page a number of times while researching the topic, and I think the page could use a major re-write to make it more focused, concise, and a bit more objective. --MFNickster 06:30, 21 April 2004

Why not use Mac OS 8 (Copland) —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.205.90.122 (talk • contribs) 20:58, 26 April 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree this page needs a rewrite; the phrase "provided an opportunity for Apple's soul - Steve Jobs - to return" especially wrankles. I doubt handing Apple over to Jobs was one of Amelio's objectives... Corvus 02:23, 13 September 2004


 * Major rewrite. New section headers.  Some objectivity fixes.  Reference to "soul" deleted.  New to Wikipedia, would appreciate some feedback. --Hadley 04:06, 29 Oct 2004 (UTC)


 * Great rewrite, Hadley! You've turned it into a much more substantial article. Some of it comes across as being commentary rather than informational, though. I would like to try ironing it out a little, if it's okay with you. --MFNickster 06:18, 2 November 2004

Kudos to Maury Markowitz, for adding a ton of information I didn't know. This article is looking much better. Thank you, MFNickster.--hadley 19:49, 2 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Code Names
These code names are incorrect. Apple had both external and internal code names. In part, the ideas was that an overheard conversation would be harder to connect to the actual project if people inside the company used an entirely name. For example, Copland was known as "Maxwell," Gershwin was known as "Edison," and System 7.5 was "Capone," because "Capone shot up Chicago." "Mozart" was a code name quickly pulled from a list in Developer Support shortly prior to the first seed release of System 7.5. "Mozart" had been used for dozens of projects over the years and the lack of a specifically planned external code name was indicative of how little attention the Capone project received internally because of the immense focus on Maxwell. Clearly code names are interesting to readers or the mention of Mozart wouldn't be relevant, but is this level of detail really interesting? Alexr wiki 18:51, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Screenshots to be available soon.
I have a computer that I am installing the DR0 and DR1 releases of Copland on, so I will have some screenshots of this not-terribly-impressive OS in action :) Goat-see 28 June 2005 21:30 (UTC)


 * Looking forward to seeing them --John Kenneth Fisher 23:10, August 2, 2005 (UTC)

The released Mac OS 8
Eventually they released a number of such upgrades as Mac OS 8, in order to deliver on their promise of having something called Mac OS 8 running on all existing machines and thereby avoiding a lawsuit.

This says that Tempo was only called version 8 for legal reasons, which seems rather odd; is it suggesting that they should have frozen the version number at 7.x forever just because they couldn't deliver the 8.0 they had planned? David Arthur 22:30, August 14, 2005 (UTC)


 * Both really. At some point during this period of time, perhaps as early as 94 and certainly as late as 96, Apple put stickers on all their machines that said "ready for OS 8" or something like that. The basic gist was "don't worry, buying this machine is fine". When Apple cancelled the project there was an abortive class action lawsuit saying that Apple had been involved in false advertizing, because the next major OS (Rhapsody) would NOT run on (m)any(?) of these machines. They "solved" this neatly by calling the next version of 7.x "8.0", and I suppose the lawyers were realistic enough to know that since Apple's stickers never said what OS 8 actually meant, there was no longer a lawsuit to be had. Maury 12:52, 15 August 2005 (UTC)

I'm aware that they avoided certain legal troubles with the designation; I just don't think it's fair to suggest that Tempo's release name was unjustified or motivated solely by such issues. David Arthur 15:17, August 15, 2005 (UTC)


 * Well I'm not the author of the original quote, but I'm pretty sure it is the case -- I seem to remember many comments about this at the time. Well I think it's safe to say it's more true than not, at least. Maury 03:39, 16 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Wasn't there some "clone wars" going on at the time?  I think the clones had licenses to make System 7 machines but maybe not System 8? Copland&#39;s Robbas 02:20, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

System 8 vs. Mac OS 8
Well, I made a mistake in my edit - Mac OS 7.6 had not been released when Copland was canceled. Nevertheless, the publication of this book in late 1996, just as Copland was being canceled, clearly shows that Apple intended to release Copland as "Mac OS 8" and not "System 8," I hope this can be considered a definitive source. MFNickster 01:41, 9 September 2006 (UTC)


 * There was an unreleased "System 7.7" which became Mac OS 8, and included the Copland Appearance extension. Copland was to be System 8. The story is they changed it from "system" to "OS" for legal reasons. I know this is true because I had a pre-release (and unfinished) copy of System 7.7. DavidRavenMoon (talk) 14:48, 8 August 2011 (UTC)


 * Yes, I know they released a System 7-based OS as "Mac OS 8." The point is that Copland was going to be called "Mac OS 8" on release. The Tony Francis book testifies to that. MFNickster (talk) 19:20, 24 February 2012 (UTC)

Amelio wasn't there for WWDC 1995
Spindler was still in charge at that point. I was there. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.101.133.172 (talk • contribs) 12:48, 28 September 2005 (UTC)


 * Absolutely correct, I had "back-dated" the WWDC's by a year. Fixed. Maury 16:17, 23 February 2006 (UTC)

PPC Nativeness
''System 7 had been recompiled on the PowerPC with great success, but the system still relied on the processor looking like a member of the Motorola 68000 family. In particular the sixteen-level interrupt handlers used in the Mac OS had to be emulated, requiring an expensive call into the OS to translate these to the PowerPC's much simpler two-level system. Removing this limitation would allow Copland-native applications to run much faster, as much as 50% in many cases, with no special effort on the part of the developers.''

This rather glibly ignores the fact that bits of the system were still emulated, and the wonderful fun of the Mixed Mode Manager. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Ahruman (talk • contribs) 17:01, 9 October 2005 (UTC)


 * If anything it simply doesn't provide as much detail as it needs to. Apple had repeatedly commented that Copland would have no emulated code in the OS. It doesn't "glibly ignore" any such fact, because that "fact" is not true in this case. Maury 15:58, 23 February 2006 (UTC)


 * No, the complaint here is the "System 7 had been recompiled on the PowerPC with great success" part, not the Copland-native issue. I clarified this in the text.

Howzabout a mention of compound documents?
As i recall, one of the highly touted and most axiously awaited features of Copland was it's support for the opendoc compound document architecture. Shouldn't there a be a word or two about this in the article? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Ericfluger (talk • contribs) 00:35, 25 March 2006


 * Maybe, but OpenDoc wasn't going to be integrated into the OS in any way. It was going to be included in Copland in exactly the same way as in System 7.5, as a set of shared libraries - even SOM was going to be a shared library rather than an OS-level service. Still, it might be worth including a wikilink to OpenDoc. MFNickster 19:07, 25 March 2006 (UTC)


 * I was under the impression that SOM was going to be included in the OS itself. I do remember them talking a whole lot about it at WWDC'96 anyway. Maury 20:06, 13 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Could be... I've never been to a WWDC, so I am relying on Tony Francis's book Mac OS 8 Revealed for my information. It says that "SOMobjects for Mac OS is based on the Code Fragment Manager so that SOM classes are implemented as shared libraries." MFNickster 05:23, 14 April 2006 (UTC)


 * SOMObjects was indeed provided; It had shipped prior to Copland as well. Alexr wiki 18:51, 24 July 2006 (UTC)

Not Aaron Copland
I bet that 95% of the people searching for "Copland" are looking for the composer - is it possible to keep track of which disambiguation links are most followed most frequently to determine which page should have priority? Tiki2099 17:02, 27 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I'd think it more likely that people looking for the composer would be trying Aaron Copland. Anyway I'm not aware of a way to track disambig link clicks.  But you can see which articles link to this page.  And out of the fortyish links, only one was anything to do with Aaron, which I fixed with this edit. AlistairMcMillan 19:46, 29 July 2006 (UTC)


 * Hey, thanks for reverting my move without discussing it. I didn't do it out of boredom or randomness, AM, I put quite some thought into it.  Weeks, really.  First thing: Read the talk page. this has been mentioned a few times, including this offensive comment that I removed.  The fact that it's a recurring issue suggests there's room for improvement.  Second thing: people will come to Wikipedia looking for information on the composer (who is far more popular than a cancelled OS project, which was named after the composer), and they'll type "Copland" into a search box.  Or maybe "Copeland", because that's how some pronounced it.  Copeland drops you off at a disambiguation page, which lists all the different things with a last name of Copeland, oh, and there's a band named Copeland (who, like Apple's Copland project, have the distinction of being the only thing on Wikipedia with that exact name -- but are nonetheless located at Copeland (band)).  Disambiguation encourages us to use disambiguation pages where there is a risk of confusion.  Third thing: Try doing a Google search on Copland.  Not "Aaron Copland", just Copland.  The large majority of the search results are about the composer, not the operating system, and Wikipedia should behave accordingly.


 * This is why I feel Copland ought to be a disambiguation page. -/- Warren 20:05, 29 July 2006 (UTC)

Copeland is a totally different issue. There are other things called simply "Copeland". Although we have them with other things added to their article title to disambiguate them (like band or Kansas), their name is simply Copeland. There is nothing else called simply "Copland". Everything is either X Copland or Copland X.

The search thing I don't get either. If people are looking for Aaron Copland, they are probably going to search for "Aaron Copland" or some misspelling of his name, rather than just "Copland". And even if they do, we have a disambig link at the very top of the article.

If you really think this a serious problem, then change the disambig notice to something like "For the composer, see "Aaron Copland", for other meanings see "Copland (disambig)". AlistairMcMillan 21:00, 29 July 2006 (UTC)


 * With regard to searching, it is very, very common to refer to a classical composer by their last name. Would people search for "Ludwig von Beethoven" or "Beethoven"?  "Wolfgang Mozart" or simply "Mozart"?  How about Mussorgsky or Chopin, most people don't even know their first names.


 * Next, look at the number of links to the composer page versus the os page - that should give some indication of the relative popularity of the two subjects


 * Finally, let us not forget that the OS was named after the composer! Should Gershwin point here?  If not, how many screen shots does it take for a failed OS to claim the page of its namesake? Tiki2099 03:01, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

"...claim the page of its namesake?" If the OS had been called "Aaron Copland" I would support your point 100%. However it is not.

Does this help at all? Or do still think there is a chance people are going to be confused? AlistairMcMillan 18:56, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


 * If there were no OS called "Copland", the page would surely point to the composer, and the OS was clearly named after the composer, as mentioned in the article itself. It's not about confusion, people can figure out that a page about an OS is not a page about a composer.  However, on general principle, searching for a particular term should go directly to what the most people are likely to be expecting when they search for that term.  The goal is to minimize the time people spend looking for information.  Like Gershwin, the most appropriate page should be to the composer.  Tiki2099 19:38, 31 July 2006 (UTC)

So you think we should re-arrange pages based on two assumptions? (1) More people want to read about the composer than the OS project. (2) A significant portion of the people who are wanting to read about the composer will search for "Copland" instead of "Aaron Copland". The first I think you are probably correct about, although I could be wrong. The second I don't think likely.

And please, stop comparing with Gershwin. That is totally different. As far as we know Gershwin, was never more than a footnote in a press release, whereas parts of Copland actually shipped (HFS Plus, etc). AlistairMcMillan 22:23, 31 July 2006 (UTC)


 * I am fine with Copland going straight to the current article on the OS. I don't think it should redirect to Aaron Copland, at most it should redirect to the dab page. MFNickster 00:50, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

The Gershwin analogy is very appropriate - both composers, both code names for OS projects that never were released. However, perhaps a better analogy is Darwin, a real OS project and a real person, where the Darwin page is at Darwin (operating system). Also, note that there have been several (5+ now) comments on this very page from people who have made the same observation regarding seaching for the term "Copland". At the very least it should point to the disambuigation page Tiki2099 03:00, 1 August 2006 (UTC)


 * Where do you get 5+ from? I see 1 anon comment, 1 vandal comment and yourself.


 * How can you compare Gershwin and Copland? No-one even started work on Gershwin.  Not only did people work on Copland, but people outside Apple actually used Copland and every single Mac sold in the last seven/eight years uses technology that was developed for Copland.


 * And Darwin is different. There are other things called simply "Darwin", towns, comic book characters, etc.  There is nothing else called "Copland".  Everything else is something that has "Copland" in its name. AlistairMcMillan 11:25, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

The reason I can compare Gershiwn and Darwin is because it shows how Apple uses code names to describe projects, and how the main page for those projects incorporates the fact that it is a project into the page name. This OS project is just another thing with "Copland" in its name. There are comments like this from Solipsist, MFNickster, and 69.205.90.122 in the section "Title? and rewrite", then in this sections there are comments from me, Warren, and MFNickster (again). Look man, do what you want, but you're not convincing anyone that the most appropriate content for a page called "Copland" is a page about historical OS project Tiki2099 16:06, 1 August 2006 (UTC)


 * You said "This OS project is just another thing with "Copland" in its name." Sorry but that is wrong.  It doesn't have Copland IN its name, its name is Copland.  That is it, those seven letters and nothing else.  It isn't called Copland Bob or Copland OS X.  It was simply called "Copland".  If there was ANYTHING else called simply "Copland" I wouldn't dispute this, but EVERYTHING else is either "Copland Something" or "Something Copland".  AlistairMcMillan 16:18, 1 August 2006 (UTC)

research help
this article is very nice. i am doing research on apple computer and this is precisely the sort of information i am looking for -- insider details on what happened in the mid 90s at apple (why did the company do so poorly from 93-97?). at least, i am guessing these are insider details because they don't seem to be cited.

if you are interested in sharing whatever you know drop me a line at my talk page, or send me an email. thanks.

Copland&#39;s Robbas 02:21, 7 November 2006 (UTC)

Article name
As a fan both of classical music and of Apple computers, I have to say it is quite farcical that an abandoned operating system project apparently takes precedence over the most significant composer in America's history. AlistairMcMillan's argument that the OS is the only thing which is called "Copland" tout court cuts no ice at all: the only thing called "Beethoven", rather than "x Beethoven" or "Beethoven x", is a 1992 film about a dog, but guess where Beethoven redirects to? The only thing just called "Thatcher" is the profession, but where does Thatcher redirect to? The only thing just called "Bach" appears to be a New Zealand beach house. Etc, etc. If this article is to remain under its present name, I'd be fascinated to see some evidence that the failed OS is of more significance than the internationally-famous composer. (This anonymous comment may be expressed in unnecessarily offensive terms, but the general gist seems to be spot on.) Vilĉjo 20:48, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * All fair comments, but is it really to much to direct the user to the "correct" article by clicking on a link in the very first line? Maury 22:40, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * I've renamed the article (again). Disambiguation says:


 * When there is a well known primary meaning for a term or phrase, much more used than any other (this may be indicated by a majority of links in existing articles or by consensus of the editors of those articles that it will be significantly more commonly searched for and read than other meanings), then that topic may be used for the title of the main article, with a disambiguation link at the top. Where there is no such clearly dominant usage there is no primary topic page.


 * A failed operating system project at a computer company with a 2.5% computing marketshare is not a more important subject than the other things known by "Copland". Disambiguation pages are fair, and give due prominence to all subjects, and, like you've pointed out, there's a lot of precedent for doing it this way. -/- Warren 23:20, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Uhhh, do we really need the parens? If so, move Gershwin. Maury 23:35, 12 February 2007 (UTC)


 * Score one for common sense! Tiki2099 03:27, 20 March 2007 (UTC)

Article moved
As I said on Talk:Apple Rhapsody (operating system), I'm not crazy about this renaming scheme, but can we at least get rid of "(operating system)" now? MFNickster 22:09, 12 June 2007 (UTC)

System 7 and GB hard drives
I reverted the recent change which was justified with the claim that there weren't any 1GB+ hard drives when System 7 was current. I bought my Power Mac 7500 with a 1GB drive and System 7.5.2 in late 1995, as Copland was in development. HFS+ didn't arrive until Mac OS 8, and good old HFS was kind of creaking with the larger drives.

That said, a lot of this section should probably be revised or removed, because it reads more like commentary/argument than encyclopedic text. MFNickster (talk) 18:46, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

narrative mode?
FTA:Later that summer the situation was no better, and Amelio realized something serious had to be done.



♠ ♥ Trickrick1985  ♦ ♣+2¢ :: log 18:05, 12 November 2008 (UTC)

Merge with Gershwin
The Gershwin operating system wiki page is woefully sparse; as it's probably not referenced from anywhere but this article, IMHO it would be best to simply put Gershwin as a small section here.--C xong (talk) 04:25, 31 July 2009 (UTC)
 * Agree The Gershwin operating system link should then redirect here. MFNickster (talk) 10:00, 1 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Agree. Gershwin was never more than a vague idea of ‘what will happen after Copland’, and isn’t independently notable. For that matter, the existing article seems to suggest (erroneously) that Gershwin was a project pursued after the failure of Copland. David Arthur (talk) 21:51, 3 September 2009 (UTC)
 * Merged. Maury Markowitz (talk) 15:03, 25 November 2009 (UTC)

Date of cancellation?
The article now states Copland was cancelled in August 1996, using Macworld as its source. It seems that the news was not made public at the time. Sometime around Christmas 1996 TIME magazine says MacOS 8 had been thrown into the "binhex of destiny". The situation is still unclear to Dr. Dobb's Journal in January 1997: Can we find contemporary sources for these events? -- Petri Krohn (talk) 01:27, 1 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Looks like it was mid-August 1996 when Apple announced on their dev site (http://devworld.apple.com/devnews/devnews0808.html ) that Copland DR1 would not ship, and system releases would become incremental. Then, on August 29, the Wall Street Journal spilled the beans that Apple was talking to Be, Inc.. MFNickster (talk) 01:44, 4 November 2011 (UTC)


 * Neither of the two sources referenced says Mac OS8 has been canceled, only that it would be "released incrementally". If Apple had made the final decision in August I guess they wanted to avoid the "Elop Effect". -- Petri Krohn (talk) 21:51, 5 November 2011 (UTC)


 * True, but I'm not sure even Apple knew what they were going to do at that point. They were obviously committed to shipping parts of Copland, but the idea of "Mac OS 8" as a monolithic release went out the window when DR1 was canceled. Add to that the overtures toward Be and NeXT, and Apple saying they would announce their "new OS strategy" in January 1997, it was pretty clear that the old strategy (Copland) was dead. They had nothing to offer developers who had been ramping up for it. If you're looking for a source from Apple that says "we have canceled development on Copland," I doubt you'll find one. MFNickster (talk) 21:59, 5 November 2011 (UTC)

Pink, Blue and Red meeting
The article states this meeting took place in March 1987, and that Singh erroneously says 1988. I checked Jim Carlton's book Apple: The Inside Story... and he also says March 1988. Do we have any other sources on this? MFNickster (talk) 18:53, 24 February 2012 (UTC)
 * On p. 99 of Carlton's book, he writes, "By October 1988, Pink had been underway for about six months." MFNickster (talk) 16:11, 25 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Anyone care to address this? Is there any reason to pick Linzmayer's date as "correct" rather than Singh's & Carlton's? MFNickster (talk) 06:35, 8 March 2012 (UTC)
 * Okay, since nobody else has looked into this, I can report that some sources say 1987 (Linzmayer, Tom Hormby) and others 1988 (Singh, Potel, Roy Allan, Apple Museum). Carlton's book says both, in different places. Given that the Pink team moved into the Bubb Road offices when the Newton team was already there, having moved in late 1987, I'm going to change this to 1988. MFNickster (talk) 00:04, 22 April 2012 (UTC)

Needs to talk about Newton
The reason Copland was so Fd up was that the Mac was supposed to be dead by 1994, replaced by large-scale Newton devices. Newton devices being touch screen Lisp Machines.
 * I am unaware of any documentary evidence to back up this claim, and as someone who was on the alpha/beta cycle, I certainly don't recall any plans to this effect. Newtons are completely unlike LMs, they have much more in common with JavaScript, via SELF. Maury Markowitz (talk) 19:09, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Was there a red? Or just pink?
Can anyone definitely confirm the existence of red cards separate from pink? I see many histories containing mention of blue and pink, but only one saying red. I am concerned that someone at the original meeting was interviewed years later and talked about red cards, but was in fact talking about the pink set. I'm doubly concerned because one can go to a dollar store today and see white, off-yellow, light blue and pink index cards. No red. And this has been true since I was a kid. I wouldn't be surprised to find, yes, there really are red index cards available for purchase, but at first glance, it would seem someone was talking about the same ones everyone else called pink. Maury Markowitz (talk) 19:16, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi, Maury. Checking the sources I have, Hormby, Carlton and Singh all refer to pink, blue and red cards. Linzmeyer and Potel only mention pink and blue. BUT Carlton gives a quote from Erich Ringewald who initiated the Pink project saying they chose red for the really advanced features because it was "pinker than Pink." I don't think there's any reason to redact the description we currently have, unless we find an alternate source quoting someone who was there, indicating that there were in fact no red cards. MFNickster (talk) 20:37, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Fair enough, none of the sources I have mention this. The quote is nice and should go in the article IMHO. Maury Markowitz (talk) 12:08, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
 * It's in the Taligent article if you want to steal it from there! MFNickster (talk) 13:23, 12 March 2020 (UTC)