ahhh!

9 to 10 was that era if I remember right. I've also heard files from other versions of mac not compantiple with newer versions mac maybe it was the OS X cant remember. ALso they are a Pain for Ventrillo users...THey cant use GSM Codec(most widly used) so you have to use speex..pc can use both (=

I can assure you that files from either previous versions of Mac OS, windows or Linux are recognised by Mac OS X (windows and linux can't recognise older Mac OS files because instead of the extension eg .txt Mac OS used the type and creator code).
About Ventrilo I don't think you can judge a whole OS because it doesn't support a codec, Ventrillo isn't available for Linux but that doesn't mean that Linux isn't good. And about communicating between users iChat (that comes with OS X) is one of the best IM and video conference clients.
Cheers

They cant use GSM Codec

Actually they can. In the very least, Mplayer and xinelib support direct loading of windows codecs. However there is also a free port of GSM to gstreamer multimedia framework which is supported by OSX/linux/*bsd.

Generally speaking, I don't know of any open technology that does not have a good implementation on linux, and if it does, chances are it is ported to ppc and OSX as well.
Now, if a technology is not open, it limits your freedom: you can proudly give it the finger and move forward

Can any of those solutions be used to get GSM to work with ventrilo?

I believe that what Nske is trying to say is that it is not Mac OS X's fault that the codec is not supported but Ventrilo's. By the way have you tried the latest edition of Ventrilo to check if it works?

Yea dont work the mac can't use the GSM codec. You can however run a speex server so both PC and Mac can use it.