When to use OS 7 and when to use OS 8 on my Centris 650?

[1200XL M.U.L.E.]

My ZuluSCSI Mini is scheduled to arrive tomorrow. I understand I can run OS 7 and OS 8 on my Centris 650. Is there a guide or consensus on when to use each OS version? I was thinking of having an image of OS 7 and image for OS 8 and just toggling between them.

Or, should I go with OS 8 since it's the latest and greatest and forget about it?

Thanks!

 

[ArmorAlley]

I use OS 8.1 on my 68040 machines so that I can access HFS+.
There is a member doing work on enabling HFS+ in earlier versions of the Mac OS (it's back to Mac OS 7.6 at the moment).
In this case, I'm planning to replace OS 8.1 with OS 7.6 once I get it working.

Backporting HFS+ to Mac OS 8.0 and earlier

Hi all, I have had some success with adding HFS+ support to previously unsupported System versions. Briefly, Mac OS 7.6 and 8.0 on PowerPC work well, and I have managed to get 68k versions working with a rather inelegant hack. Here is a longer writeup...

68kmla.org

 

[Phipli]

It's usual to have several OS versions installed and switch between them. Note that "System 7" is a very broad term - a collection of quite different things. The 650 will boot from 7.1.2 to 8.1. 7.1.2 is quite different to 7.6.1.

I have 7.1.2, .7.5.3, 7.6.1 and 8.1 installed on multiple partitions on my 650.

There is a member doing work on enabling HFS+ in earlier versions of the Mac OS (it's back to Mac OS 7.6 at the moment).

I would not casually recommend this bodge hack that only partially works to a new member of the community. I don't believe anybody is actively working on ironing out the issues atm!

 

[cheesestraws]

I have a boot drive for each and switch between them.

 

[Phipli]

Is there a guide or consensus on when to use each OS version?

I forgot to answer your actual question.

Not really... I tend to use as old as I can because older versions have a smaller memory footprint and tend to be more responsive. So I boot progressively newer versions as required by software I'm using.

OS 8 since it's the latest and greatest and forget about it?

Heh. Not sure I agree - more features and compatibility, vs. Speeeeeed. I'm a huge fan of 7.1.2. It runs in about 1MB of RAM leaving the rest for applications.

 

[ArmorAlley]

It's usual to have several OS versions installed and switch between them. Note that "System 7" is a very broad term - a collection of quite different things. The 650 will boot from 7.1.2 to 8.1. 7.1.2 is quite different to 7.6.1.

I have 7.1.2, .7.5.3, 7.6.1 and 8.1 installed on multiple partitions on my 650.


I would not casually recommend this bodge hack that only partially works to a new member of the community. I don't believe anybody is actively working on ironing out the issues atm!

Point taken. I am not as critical of it as you but your point is valid.

 

[Phipli]

Point taken. I am not as critical of it as you but your point is valid.

The issue is that we're copying entire blocks of code from one OS version to another with no concern for what else has changed. It is extremely likely to cause something, somewhere, to crash. That hook they added to do with a new finder view? That extra flexibility in turning icons upside down? Or where they removed the System 6 compatibility code? All made up, but my point is we're changing way more than just toggling a feature on and off and it is extremely likely to break something, somewhere.

Sorry I was more blunt than I meant to be, I'd only just woken up. Thank you for not being overly offended my by inappropriate tone.

 

[ArmorAlley]

Sorry I was more blunt than I meant to be, I'd only just woken up. Thank you for not being overly offended my by inappropriate tone.

No worries. I take an experimental attitude towards installations on my old macs. The system software isn't all that stable anyway especially when newer hardware is thrown into the mix. And so trying something new that brings promise is worth giving a go.

 

[1200XL M.U.L.E.]

Neat! So, having one of everything is not out of the ordinary. Good to know!

Good point on the memory footprint, @Phipli. I didn't think OS 8 could be a bit more bloated than OS 7 due to extra features and functionality. Sometimes we just want to boot up and go, right?

Does OS 8 noticeably drag down system performance? Is there a way to verify with a benchmarking program?

 

[Phipli]

Does OS 8 noticeably drag down system performance? Is there a way to verify with a benchmarking program?

Depends on the machine question, anything between "hell yes" and "no".

On a 33mhz machine, it is perfectly usable, but 7.x, especially 7.5.x and earlier is a lot more snappy, and boots faster.

 

[Paralel]

The issue is that we're copying entire blocks of code from one OS version to another with no concern for what else has changed. It is extremely likely to cause something, somewhere, to crash. That hook they added to do with a new finder view? That extra flexibility in turning icons upside down? Or where they removed the System 6 compatibility code? All made up, but my point is we're changing way more than just toggling a feature on and off and it is extremely likely to break something, somewhere.

Sorry I was more blunt than I meant to be, I'd only just woken up. Thank you for not being overly offended my by inappropriate tone.

Eh, I'm not sure it is such a concern. My base OS is 7.1.2 on my Blackbird, but the OS overall is composed of pieces from 7.1.1 to 8.1, covering code written from 1994 to 1999. Different versions of control panels, extensions, scripts, libs, etc... and it all works quite well together. I've been running it this way for years without a bomb or a crash, unless I try to do something very unusual to start with which could cause a problem anyway. The big benefit is that programs that need certain things from higher OSes will run on 7.1.2, as long as they can access what they need, but it retains the speed of 7.1.2 overall.

I think OpenTransport 1.3/1.3.1 is a good example of that. Normally it is locked to 8.1, but I've seen it work on System 7.1 on an SE/30 without any problem. All we needed was the unlocked installer. The code is far more flexible than we give it credit for.

 

[Phipli]

versions of control panels, extensions, scripts, libs, etc...

This isn't the same, modular software <> swapping parts that weren't intended to be swapped.

OpenTransport isn't part of the OS specifically, but was also provided as a separate installer. Some with AppleShare, Sound Manager, Drag and Drop, Appearance Manager, Thread Manager etc etc.

But I don't have issues with people doing it, just with people advising someone who is just starting out to do it.

 

[volvo242gt]

BTW: the 650 boots 7.1 with the correct enabler file. It came with 7.1, not 7.1.2. I've usually settled on some form of 7.5.x or 7.6.x on my 650s. Didn't really start running 8.0 or 8.1 until I picked up a 7100. My current machine is running 7.6.1. That does mean that I can't run programs that require 24 bit addressing to be enabled, but that's ok.

Performance with 8.1 is adequate on a 25 MHz 68040 - ran it on a 660av I owned for a couple years. A lot better than on a 20 MHz 68030, which is possible with the Born Again patch. Ran it on a IIsi with 65MB of RAM. That was slow.

 

[1200XL M.U.L.E.]

Last night I installed OS 8.1 onto my ZuluSCSI. I didn't know what to install or not so I installed everything. Since this is all on SD card I can backup what I did and reinstall.

Anyways, without having anything proper to compare to, the system feels kind of laggy. Maybe a better way to say is the system doesn't feel snappy.

The whole installation, which used about 120MB of space on my drive image, needs about 19MB of memory. It must be all those extensions.

In the next day or two I will try System 7.5.

 

[Phipli]

The whole installation, which used about 120MB of space on my drive image, needs about 19MB of memory. It must be all those extensions.

Yikes, that's huge for 8.1.

 

[Byrd]

Turn on virtual memory for OS 8.1; your memory allocated to the OS will significantly reduce.

 

[Nixontheknight]

My ZuluSCSI Mini is scheduled to arrive tomorrow. I understand I can run OS 7 and OS 8 on my Centris 650. Is there a guide or consensus on when to use each OS version? I was thinking of having an image of OS 7 and image for OS 8 and just toggling between them.

Or, should I go with OS 8 since it's the latest and greatest and forget about it?

Thanks!

I'd say just use 8.1 because most, if not, all 68k apps should work on it regardless

 

[Cory5412]

Mirroring what everyone else said: "it depends".

I use 8.x on my 040 Macs, because access to bigger disks and network volumes is more convenient on it. Though, OpenTransport and AppleShare upgrades can, as has been mentioned, be added to 7.x, so that's less of an imperative today than it was, say, 20 years ago.

My recommendation would be to start at 7.6.1 and see what you do or don't like about it. Each version of 7 is (correctly) descriped as [the previous version] with batteries included and 7.6.1 has the most batteries, as well as stability and quality of life improvements. It can address 2TB volumes, although for disks much bigger than ~40 gigs you start running into "this text file claims it's a whole megabyte" issues, because there's a maximum number of file allocation units. There's a few ways to avoid that, including partitioning and using disk images rather than storing files right on the volumes.

8.1 will be a little bit slower but it fixes that, includes newer networking bits, and the Finder can do some multi-tasking, particularly useful if you end up using LocalTalk and want to, say, continue working in another application as a file transfer happens, which stock system 7 can't do. (There's some other ways to get some of that stuff though.)

Honestly, I'd burn CDs of the original 7.1, 7.5.5, 7.6.1, and 8.1 and try 'em all - you're here to experience and learn the platform, right? That's a great way to do it.

 

[1200XL M.U.L.E.]

@Byrd What percentage of my overall memory should I set to be virtual, in general?

@Cory5412 Good suggestion on trying them all! Do you mean to burn CDs of the installed operating system or of the installation sources?

 

[Nixontheknight]

@Byrd What percentage of my overall memory should I set to be virtual, in general?

@Cory5412 Good suggestion on trying them all! Do you mean to burn CDs of the installed operating system or of the installation sources?

just use ram doubler instead of virtual memory