Good news, Mac classicists: rumors are rampant that Mac OS 9 may have been quietly granted a reprieve. You may recall that Apple has been announcing the death of the "classic" Mac OS for quite a while, now; just check out this presentation on The Future of Mac OS 9 from the last MacHack-- thanks to faithful viewer John A. Vink for the tip (and the camerawork). Indeed, a few months back the company officially announced that, starting in 2003, new Macs would no longer boot into Mac OS 9 at all. As far as coffin nails go, that one looks to be pretty final.

Many people, however, see this decision as a gargantuan risk on Apple's part, since professionals who rely on specific applications and/or drivers which may run better (or only) in Mac OS 9 aren't likely to buy any new Macs until their tools gain Mac OS X support. There's a distinct possibility that Apple's gambit (obviously intended to force the slowpokes out there in Developerland to get on the stick and port to Mac OS X, already) will wind up depressing sales of pro Macs still further-- and those sales aren't looking too great to start with.

Well, here's where the rumors come in: according to Think Secret, representatives from Quark, currently the biggest bad boy when it comes to a lack of Mac OS X support, have been calling up important publishing customers to assure them that, despite Apple's claim to the contrary, Quark users "will still be able to buy Mac OS 9-booting hardware" after New Year's. Apparently the company is claiming that it "negotiated with Apple to ensure that XPress users would be able to buy new Mac OS 9-bootable Macs until the middle of next year." That could mean a couple of different things; either Apple has decided to hold off on killing Mac OS 9 bootability until later, or the company plans to keep offering existing hardware to any poor Quark-using saps who want to buy it, despite the fact that faster and ginchier Mac OS X-only Macs will be available.

If it's the latter, then we're really starting to believe all those folks who insist that Quark CEO Fred Ebrahimi is ninety-seven hues short of a Crayola Big Box. We've heard several anecdotes that indeed seem to place Fred at the top of the Crazy CEO Heap; we're not at liberty to repeat them, but suffice it to say that if they're true, several of the things Fred has done and said over the years makes Steve Jobs look like Saney McSane of the Saneville McSanes. And if he really thinks that publishing professionals are going to spend good money on last year's (er, this year's) hardware just to keep running Quark XPress in Mac OS 9, well, the men in white coats had better start reaching for their oversized butterfly nets. We can't wait to hear how this one turns out...