Here's what happens to Isaac 4.1 after upgrading to Mac Catalina

Post Reply
Velocomp
Velocomp CEO
Posts: 7793
Joined: Fri Jan 11, 2008 8:43 am

Here's what happens to Isaac 4.1 after upgrading to Mac Catalina

Post by Velocomp »

RIP Isaac/Mac 4.1.1

Download the Catalina-compatible version of Isaac, Isaac/Mac/5.1, from here:

https://velocompforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=35&t=5318
Attachments
Screen Shot 2019-10-08 at 11.12.55 AM.png
Screen Shot 2019-10-08 at 11.12.55 AM.png (12.56 KiB) Viewed 4361 times
John Hamann
Velocomp
Velocomp CEO
Posts: 7793
Joined: Fri Jan 11, 2008 8:43 am

Re: Here's what happens to Isaac after upgrading to Mac Catalina

Post by Velocomp »

For what it's worth:

1) After upgrading to Catalina, I did not notice any noticeable improvements in any of the things I do, in speed or other performance

2) Catalina really messed-up my main hard drive. Many, many files disappeared. Eventually I found them inside a new "Security" folder that was buried inside my User folder. There was no documentation that pointed me to where I would find my missing files; I found them only because I remembered some of the file names. HUH?

3) One of the features I was looking forward to using, "Sidecar", apparently doesn't work with my "old" iMac computer, which is a late 2014 device.

4) To continue operating my critical 32 bit apps, I had to create a backup hard drive, with Mojave installed.

Honestly, I don't see the benefit of this upgrade. I have a laptop Mac and I will not be upgrading it to Catalina.
John Hamann
User avatar
lorduintah
Posts: 642
Joined: Fri Jan 11, 2008 9:37 am
Location: Plymouth, MN

Re: Here's what happens to Isaac after upgrading to Mac Catalina

Post by lorduintah »

The Security folder should have been identified in a Relocated Files Folder - which also had a few somewhat vague words about what that was all about. The issues with that is they basically left it up to you to figure out where it was relocated FROM.

Unfortunately there are many older files stuffed away in places like Application Support - which could be in the System or User folder as well as System Library and User Library.

I have found that deleting older applications or ones that just do not cut it for my needs leave a trail of supporting files all over the place and typically the developer that built the application did not use really any rational naming scheme, so many of these get left abandoned.

Now, I also mentioned several ways to back up a full duplicate of your Mojave system - and not rely on Time Machine to rebuild. I have the Time Machine backups from over a year, but I also have two external drives = one SSD and another of the older spinning platter version ( having a few around) - plus some emergency files like installers from back to El Capitan and High Sierra, where I could rebuild a system drive from these, if needed. So I have been using these systems long enough to know that preparation is needed - in fact it is usually a good choice to do two things to upgrade to a new operating revision - reformat the drive where you will install and for all Macs - after the first boot into the new OS - zap the PRAM.

The reviews I have seen have not made any declarations of speed improvements and that is also not surprising as many of the routines used in a new operating system have extra safe-guards which will slow the system a bit - it usually takes two or three updates before Apple starts preening out the code that really is there to catch the gremlins that can get into a complex build.

For me, I also see no need for Velocomp to try to find a way to get all the previous ride files we all have collected and a way to convert their 32 bit structure to a 64 bit equivalent - a new format for the data files would be just fine - the code to do calibrations and transformations should not have much need for alterations - algorithms are just that - not sure what else, unless it is some of the third party stuff - like USB communications and ANT that the National Instruments package provide - that have some unresolved issues.

Now, the new security aspects might be a different story.
Post Reply