And is SCSI2SD ready for OS8? I think most people use it with System 7-variants?
Yeah, it should work fine. I have 9.1 on a SCSI2SD v6, in an 8600/300, my read largely is that a 6100 isn't going to be fast enough to merit the v6, regardless of what OS you run on it, with the possible exception of a G3-upgraded unit.
The 7100, largely the same boat except those came in 66 and 80, and the you might be able to justify it.
The 8100 came in 80, 100, and 110 versions and I would suspect that the 100/110 are where you finally start getting fast enough to merit the v6, but, although I have a P120, I havent benched it. Same applies to the 9150/120, but the 9150 is sort of like "it might be worth finding some full height disks anyway" and "can cool a more modern server disk in a way an LC or a 6100 really can't" so there's some different options there.
The v5 should be fine with 8 too, whether it's on an '040 or a 601.
I've not been able to get the PC Card extensions working under MacOS 8 or 8.1 although I have tried on a 68k Performa 630 and not a PPC 6100.
Have you had an opportunity to try PC Setup 1.6.4? Kan.org's 6100 site suggests that version is for OS 8 compatibility with the DOS cards, but I don't know how universal that is (i.e. if that's still a 68k build of the program.)
I still don’t know why I can’t instal it, though.
Yeah, that is... something.
I should see about imaging the iMac 8.1
restore CD, because I'm curious to see if you could get 8.0 or 8.1 on it in some sideways manner. IME the iMac's 8.1 disc doesn't relaly like to install at least onto 68k, although it'll install the base 8.0 component, the important part is kind of getting to 8.1 so you can use HFS+ (though, you can do HFS boot and HFS+ data.)
8.0 isn't otherwise highly recommendable over 7.6.1, at least in my experience.
The DOS card being
present shouldn't (AFAIK) do it, I am pretty sure I've had 8.0 on my 6100 with it in, and I have definitely had 9.1 on it with it in.
nteresting, you found 9.1 being 20% slower or faster than 7.6.1?
MacBench 4 did, in day-to-day usage I'd argue it
feels worse than that, but I'll have to get my numbers out and try it again.
I'm sure there's a lot you can do to make this feel better, but there's sort of a practicality question of how long until you would be better off just going for a previous version. I also never did the test on newer hardware (like the 8600/300 or even 7200/90) and I didn't test 8.5 or 8.6.
Just from experience, I'd say it becomes worthwhile running 9 on anything with a 604e/200 or better in it. I haven't done it on any slower 604s or any fast 601s, like a 7500/100 with an L2 or a 7200/120 with an L2, so it's tough to say how it'd be there. My understanding is that 603 systems are roughly the same. 9 is "fine" on 603e/200s that have L2 and faster, and those systems typically support ~96-136 megs of RAM or there-abouts and IME that's enough to run a couple basic 9-era internet or productivity apps.
The other thing with when your base OS uses more RAM - if you're like me and your 6100 and 6200 have, say, 32 megs of RAM apiece and 9 needs 20 of those to boot, you're leaving a lot less room for early 8 era or even late 7-era software to run well. Word 98 does run "fine" on 6100/6200 with 7.6.1, I bet it'd still be fine on 8.1, all bets are off by the time you get to 9.1.
Though, I realize this is out of scope a bit but I don't see any reason not to go directly to 9.2.2 on anything that shipped with a G3 in it. G3s are all fast enough and their memory is upgradeable enough that it works fine, great even. 32 megs was only barely enough memory in 1998 the way 8 megs was only barely enough in 1995.