Mar 01 ADC Direct
Volume Number: 17
Issue Number: 3
Column Tag: ADC Direct
Carbon: An Essential Element of Mac OS X
By Mark Turner
One of the things that makes Mac OS X unique is its integration of five separate
application runtime environments: Carbon, Cocoa, Classic, Java, and BSD. Never
before has an operating system offered developers so many options. This series of
articles will give you the information you need to make an informed decision as to
which of these environments is right for your application on Mac OS X. This month,
I'm going to talk about Carbon and what it offers you as a Macintosh developer.
A Brief History of Carbon
Carbon represents the evolution of the Mac OS API, from a single-user, cooperatively
scheduled system, to a modern multi-user system with memory protection and
preemptive multitasking. Carbon sprang from Apple's desire to provide a gentle
migration path for developers, while at the same time delivering all the performance,
features, and reliability that Mac OS X has to offer. About 70 percent of the classic Mac
OS APIs are fully supported, and Carbon adds many new APIs specifically to take
advantage of Mac OS X.
ADC Programs and Mac OS X
As Steve Jobs, Apple's CEO, announced at Macworld San Francisco in January,
Mac OS X will be released on March 24, 2001. All ADC Members who receive a
monthly mailing will be automatically sent Mac OS X and the Mac OS X
Developer Tools on CD-ROM upon release.
If you are getting your hardware or software products ready for Mac OS X, be
sure to take advantage of our numerous ADC Member Discounts for Cocoa and
Carbon porting, Aqua integration, driver development services, and more. Mac
customers will be looking for hardware and software products that are built
for Mac OS X - make sure yours are ready! For the complete list of all ADC
Member Discounts, please see: