Because dropping support was a decision, not a baked in outcome. 8.0 will run on an 030, and yes it makes no difference because you can patch it about, but when someone says they have an alpha of OS 8, and the main changes were dropping support for 030s and adding HFS+... I'll ponder about one of those
Everyone today can download 7.7 a2c5, which is Alpha 2, candidate 5. The 7.7 that’s being talked about here is just listed as “a2”.
If a2c5 doesn’t boot a 68030 Mac without “hacking help”, then this “a2” likely won’t either.
I do get checking out all of the bits found on an internal prototype Mac. Especially if there are software bits that have never surfaced in public. I am just as excited.
However, this release candidate being so close to the already made public a2c5, hardware support is likely going to be exactly the same. What makes it all interesting is the extra software bits included on the drive or with the release.
If I could only find my Apple CDs in the garage, I could rip and upload MANY internal Apple builds that I had access to, for people to dig into and check out. Sadly, the larger corner of stacked large and heavy boxes has daunted me, especially since it gets really hot here, to the point of feeling dead when inside a garage. When it’s cool, it rains, which doesn’t help sorting through stuff.
On a side note, I have a complete set of Nautilus CDs as I subscribed to them for many years, and almost none of those are found online. If I could just find my treasure we could all have exciting bits and bytes.
In short, don’t get me wrong: I am excited about the software found on this prototype. I just don’t think it will run on anything that a2c5 already does/doesn’t.