Apple began migration of its computing systems to OSX around the year 2001. MacOSX is essentially the Macintosh user experience perched on top of a powerful, fast and stable UNIX base. Some older G3 and G4 processor computers can run both OS9 and OSX. Current (2003-2004) G4 and G5 models of Apple computers only boot into OSX. Backwards compatability in OSX with many programs designed for OS9 is provided via the "Classic" environment which is an emulation of OS9 running as an OSX application. Forward compatability in OS9 with some programs designed for OSX is provided through the "Carbon" system extension. OS9 programs can also be revised to use the Carbon APIs so as to run natively under OSX.

Due to the complex way in which 3D graphics and digitizers are managed in the hardware, earlier versions of Plaque Simulator that were designed for OS9 do not behave properly in the Classic environment, and the "Carbonized" version of Plaque Simulator does not behave properly under OS9. For this reason the Plaque Simulator installer places two versions of the application on your system. Plaque Simulator 5.2.x is designed for OS9. It should only be used on a G3 or G4 computer that was booted into OS9 (ie not under OSX Classic). Plaque Simulator X is a revised version of Plaque Simulator 5.2.x which has been designed to run natively under MacOSX 10.3 (Panther). It should only be used on a computer that was booted into OSX 10.3 (ie do not attempt to run it as a carbon application under OS9 or on versions of OSX prior to 10.3).

The MacOSX graphic user interface (GUI) is similar to the earlier MacOS9. A menu bar runs across the top of the screen. An icon for the startup hard drive is in the upper right corner. Clicking on the hard drive icon opens a window in which programs and data are organized in folders.

There are, however, a few UI differences between the two operating systems. The appearance and layout of MacOSX windows differs from those of OS9. In the OSX Finder application, alias (or "shortcut") icons linked to common functions and locations are organized in tool bars along the left and top borders of the windows. The small control buttons in the title bar of a window which are used to resize, collapse or hide a window are organized differently from OS9. For instance, the small button in the upper right corner of an OSX Finder window hides the tool bar icons. In OS9 that button opened the window to full screen.

The default appearance of OSX windows may differ slightly from the screen captures in this user guide. To match your system to the OSX 10.3 appearance settings in this user guide go to System Preferences (under the Apple menu) and click the Appearance icon.

In the System Preferences Appearance pane set the Appearance popup menu to Graphite and the scroll arrows radio buttons to At top and bottom.