Good OSes for your 68k Mac

[tanuki65]

First, please note that I have never used a 68020 or 68040.

The Mac OS can really be divided into three main groups:

• System 6.0.x (1989-1991)
• System 7.0.x/7.1.x (1991-1994)
• System 7.5.x/7.6.x (1994-1997)
• Mac OS 8.0/8.1 (1997/1998)

Now, for which OS:

_________________________________________________

|                            | Speed | Modernity      |Compromise|

|68000 (with HDD)| 6.0.8   | 7.5.5/7.5.4     | 7.1/7.0.1      |

| 68020                 | 6.0.8   | 7.5.5/7.5.4     | 7.1.1            |

| 68030                 | 6.0.8   | 7.5.5/7.5.4/8.1| 7.1.1           |

| 68(LC)040           | 7.0.1  | 8.1                   | 7.5.5/7.5.4 |

_____________________________________________________________________________________

I recommend the "Compromise" option for most systems.

System 7.5.4 was released for anywhere between a few hours and a week, and was pulled by Apple due to the fact it causes (some?) PowerPC machines to crash.

It's just fine for 68k, and is my recommendation for all 68040 systems. An updater going from 7.5.3 to 7.5.4 may be found on Max1zzz's server (Google "max1zzz"), and 7.5.3 is free from Apple. Apple also released 6.0.8 and 7.0.1. 7.1 and 7.1.1 can be found on the Internet pretty easily.

If you have any practical experience, go ahead and reply.

 

[tanuki65]

Also, does anybody know how to do a table?

 

[Elfen]

Unless the forum allows HTML; no.

The LC and the Mac II are the only '020 68K machines. The LC II & LC III, along with the Mac IIx, IIcx, IIci, IIci, IIfx and others are '030 Macs. And there were a few accelerators for the B/W 68K Macs that were '020 and '030 68K CPUs. Long ago I had a '020 accelerator for the SE, making is an SE\20 - LOL!

The OS depends on the machine, amount of RAM and what programs are being used.

My preferences - 6.0.X for the B/W 68K Macs, with the exception of the SE\30 and Classic II which would have System 7.

System 7 on my IIcx, IIci and IIfx. Later System 7 (7.6.1) on my PowerPC Machines and '040 machines. But I would strip the code to fit the machine's CPU.

 

[Schmoburger]

As a general rule of thumb, any 601-based PowerMac I use OS8, 8.5/8.6 on 603-based machines and 9.1 on 604-machines... that being said I am running 9.2 on my 9600 with OS9helper. G3's and G4's from the graphite era, OS9.1/9.2 and OS 10.3 are where it is at... 10.3 actually runs faster than 10.2 or 10.1 on a given machine, whiilst 10.4 is a little sluggish on all G3's and G4's that are slower than about the 733 mark. The G5 I simply use 10.5 as it is the latest supported operating system and it runs flawlessly.

As for 68k machines, depending on variables... most 68000 machines I run 6 simply because it is small, fast, and doesnt chew RAM. I do use 7.1 on classics and SE's but most of them already had it when I got them and it runs reasonably well but RAM is an issue.

anything '020 or slower '030, I am most comfortable with 7.1 on them... on faster 030's I prefer 7.5 for it's added functionality and support, and I use this on most of my '040 machines as well. For what it's worth, I've never found myself with any desire to run 7.6, as it really seems it was designed more with PPC in mind but at the same time, PPC machines are a whole lot more versatile with 8-8.6.

 

[croissantking]

First, please note that I have never used a 68020 or 68040.

The Mac OS can really be divided into three main groups:

• System 6.0.x (1989-1991)
• System 7.0.x/7.1.x (1991-1994)
• System 7.5.x/7.6.x (1994-1997)
• Mac OS 8.0/8.1 (1997/1998)

Now, for which OS:

_________________________________________________

| | Speed | Modernity |Compromise|

|68000 (with HDD)| 6.0.8 | 7.5.5/7.5.4 | 7.1/7.0.1 |

| 68020 | 6.0.8 | 7.5.5/7.5.4 | 7.1.1 |

| 68030 | 6.0.8 | 7.5.5/7.5.4/8.1| 7.1.1 |

| 68(LC)040 | 7.0.1 | 8.1 | 7.5.5/7.5.4 |

_____________________________________________________________________________________

I recommend the "Compromise" option for most systems.

System 7.5.4 was released for anywhere between a few hours and a week, and was pulled by Apple due to the fact it causes (some?) PowerPC machines to crash.

It's just fine for 68k, and is my recommendation for all 68040 systems. An updater going from 7.5.3 to 7.5.4 may be found on Max1zzz's server (Google "max1zzz"), and 7.5.3 is free from Apple. Apple also released 6.0.8 and 7.0.1. 7.1 and 7.1.1 can be found on the Internet pretty easily.

If you have any practical experience, go ahead and reply.

What’s the advantage of 7.5.4 over 7.5.5 for a 68k Mac? Why not just use 7.5.5?

 

[Cory5412]

There's no advantage to 7.5.4 or 7.5.2 other than to say you have them. 7.5.5 is the good/best version of 7.5.

7.5.x itself is mostly similar to 7.1 but with all the "batteries" included. You can add most of what's in 7.5 to 7.1, selectively if you prefer, to get a slightly slimmer overall system.

Most systems that run 7.5 well enough also run 7.6.1 well enough and I recommend that when possible for the stability and quality of life boosts, including support for bigger volumes.

And, most '040s with like 16 megs of RAM or more run 8.1 fine, and that gets you HFS+ on data volumes and some other nice things like the ability to set finder windows aside as tabs.

 

[croissantking]

There's no advantage to 7.5.4 or 7.5.2 other than to say you have them. 7.5.5 is the good/best version of 7.5.

7.5.x itself is mostly similar to 7.1 but with all the "batteries" included. You can add most of what's in 7.5 to 7.1, selectively if you prefer, to get a slightly slimmer overall system.

Most systems that run 7.5 well enough also run 7.6.1 well enough and I recommend that when possible for the stability and quality of life boosts, including support for bigger volumes.

And, most '040s with like 16 megs of RAM or more run 8.1 fine, and that gets you HFS+ on data volumes and some other nice things like the ability to set finder windows aside as tabs.

But tanuki says that 7.5.4 is the best version of 7.5.x to run on a 68040 and I just wondered why is that.

 

[Cory5412]

Ah. I also wonder that.

There's no good practical reason to run 7.5.4, so it may well be the aesthetics, similar to people who use exclusively old beta releases of things.

 

[MrFahrenheit]

On a 68040 or early PowerPC Mac, I prefer to use 7.6.1.

For earlier Macs, I generally prefer 7.5.5 or 7.1 (depending upon the speed of the machine, specifically).

 

[oldmacuser]

Would 7.1.2 be better than 7.1.1 for 68030 like se/30? I know 7.1.2 meant for PowerPC processors but wondering if it’s stable or less stable. Etc. for 68k like 68030.

 

[volvo242gt]

Would 7.1.2 be better than 7.1.1 for 68030 like se/30? I know 7.1.2 meant for PowerPC processors but wondering if it’s stable or less stable. Etc. for 68k like 68030.

Probably not... If you have enough RAM in said SE/30, I'd run 7.5.5. It's basically 7.1.1 (aka 7 Pro) with a bunch of bug fixes, more modern networking on the install media, and some Performa stuff added in, which you can actually strip out. Otherwise, I'd run regular 7.1, but with the System Update 3.0 patches applied.

 

[CC_333]

There are a few relatively minor aesthetic differences between 7.1.x and 7.5.x that might also be worth consideration.

The most obvious of which being that 7.1.x is the last to have the classic "Welcome to Macintosh" startup screen. 7.5.0 and I think 7.5.1 have it too, but with a progress bar; 7.5.2 and up have the new "Mac OS" display that existed mostly unaltered through the last releases of Mac OS 9. In 7.5.3, it's possible to reverse it I think, but it's tricky. It can be done in later SSWs too, if you're good at using ResEdit (I did this by taking an image of the original that I took a screenshot of and pasting it in place of the stock image. Lining it up so the modern progress bar doesn't look weird is tricky, but doable with some patience).

c

 

[volvo242gt]

7.5 has the classic Welcome To Macintosh startup screen, but with the progress bar. 7.5.1 was when the Mac OS screen appeared.

 

[CC_333]

7.5 has the classic Welcome To Macintosh startup screen, but with the progress bar. 7.5.1 was when the Mac OS screen appeared.

Right. I thought it was 7.5.2, oh well. I was close?

Anyway, if one prefers this style screen over the newer Mac OS variant, they can run 7.1 and backport any desired 7.5+ features, save perhaps for some bugfixes and stability improvements that were introduced in 7.5.3 and 7.5.5, but since those were mainly meant for Power Macs, I don't think they're terribly relevant here.

Or just stick with 7.5.0, but I think that was a fairly buggy release, wasn't it?

c

 

[oldmacuser]

Thank you both. I am going with 7.1.1 (aka 7 Pro) but will try 7.5.5 as well. I can switch back and forth.

 

[JustG]

I am very glad this thread got bumped. I've been meaning to post asking about the sweet spot OS as far as speed and features for a processor generation. Such as, don't run OS 9 on anything lower than a 603, OS 8 on anything less than a PPC 601 otherwise you're looking at poor performance.

 

[olePigeon]

7.1.1 is my favorite.

 

[Cory5412]

Hmm. I didn't see 9 in particular, but here goes. This is long, because I personally think there's a lot of caveats:

For 9, I'd kind of say "it depends". 9's biggest deal is that it really likes having about 128-256 megs of RAM, which is easiest and cheapest on G3 era hardware and on fairly high end machines, such as 7000/8000/9000-series PCI PowerMacs (and the attendant clones.)

So, like, even though a 6300/120 (or, say, a 1400/166) is probably fast enough to run 9 and a fair amount of 9-era software basically comfortably, that 64-meg (72-meg?) RAM ceiling will do more to the experience than the slow CPU and bus.

But, on something like an 8100 or 7200 with a 256-meg RAM ceiling, 9 should be basically fine.

It's important to remember that 601/603 and then 604/603e are contemporaries, 603 isn't before 604, it's just lower end. But, that does extend to RAM ceilings. So, while a 7200/120 (with 256 megs of RAM) should run 9 and most ~8-9 era desktop software (anything that didn't need a G3) basically fine, a 6360/160 or 6400/180 (with 136 megs of RAM) or a 6300/120 or 1400/166 (with 64 megs of RAM) may not be such a great experience.

Though, from a practical perspective 7.6.1 or 8.1 may well still be the best overall balance, getting you fairly new AppleShare, good memory management, paving over most of the problems with 7.1/7.5 on PowerPC, you get HFS+ on 8.1, and they (and software for them) is significantly slimmer.

I'd say to give a few different versions a try and see what you like best, in terms of speed, software compatibility, and any other logistical concerns. E.g. you may want to run 9.1 on a 5400/120 or 6360/120 because you have a PCI USB card, even though you won't really be able to heavily
multi-task with 9-era software.

Other than "Specific Nostalgia" or "You don't want to pull a crumbling 20+ y/o iMac apart to add RAM" I mostly can't think of any reason to run 8.x on a G3 these days. They're all fast enough for 9. ("exceedingly specific legacy industrial software" is the other extant reason.)

G3-upgraded machines will basically fall under everything else. Strapping a G3 to a 6100 or 1400 doesn't get rid of that RAM limit, and software that specifically needs a G3 really does want more RAM.

This is all, of course, just my experience and thought process - This is one of those scenarios where there's really not a single correct answer.

 

[Mu0n]

I lived through the hard disk-less era of the Mac Plus and while System 6 wasn't available back then, I would still not have used it anyway. We had an external disk drive and we squeezed every bit of space we could on our 2 possible 800kb disks that we could use at any one time. System 4.2 was a neat compromise between feature count and space taken, but seldom mini-finder was used to allow for programs (mostly games, sharewares) to squeeze in more freely.

System 3.3 had its uses
System 4.2 had its uses
System 6.0.1 was sometimes preferable to System 6.0.8 when you needed a few useful small tools alongside your disk OS.

Even when we had our external Hyperdrive FX/20 (20 mb), we would just leave it unpowered to favor much faster diskette based booting, it was just awfully too slow as it was loaded up with System 7.1 (System 7 broke compatibility with a lot of early stuff as you know) and it became pure agony when my dad installed Disk Doubler and we had to wait for files to unpack/repack all day long.

 

[Phipli]

I am very glad this thread got bumped. I've been meaning to post asking about the sweet spot OS as far as speed and features for a processor generation. Such as, don't run OS 9 on anything lower than a 603, OS 8 on anything less than a PPC 601 otherwise you're looking at poor performance.

Need to remember that the 601 is better than the 603, clock for clock. So a 117MHz 603 is less good than a 100MHz, perhaps even 80MHz or lower, 601.