4Mb RAM on SE Superdrive and System 7.0.1

[Snial]

I think "clunkier" is fairly reasonable - there are lots of things that are less polished in 6 than 7. But polishing is one of those 80/20 things where 20 percent of the effect requires 80 percent of the work and other resources. So by that same token it is less resource hungry.

OK, clunky it is then, sorry @Brett B. ;-) ! System 6 is probably the most unique Mac OS for its legendary status, longevity, performance and being written in 68000 code (with a bit of 680x0). But it was also the version I missed out mostly on, because I left Uni while our Mac IIs were still running System 5 (despite System 6 being out) and didn't have much access to Macs until I bought my LC II in 1993.

Earlier Systems were out for only a year between the next major version, but 6 had to survive for 3 years, with minor updates (apart from 32-bit Color Quickdraw), because of the whole reimplementation for System 7. OK, so earlier Systems didn't even have a formal naming convention ! And I'd conclude that part of the reason for rewriting System 7 in 'C' was because they already knew they were going to move to a RISC CPU, so 68K was already a dead-end.

Yet.. that transition too was awfully painful. System 7 lasted from October 1991 to July 1997! Yet, System 7.5 should probably have been called System 8 given the changes between it and System 7.1. Or maybe they should have just made the whole thing more incremental from 7.2 to 7.6. And yet, even though I think System 7 is comfortable for a Mac Plus, I don't think System 7.5.3 is comfortable for my PB1400. For that, I use 8.1 (I know, they say I should switch to 8.6). It's almost like it's a completely subjective experience !

 

[Brett B.]

Assuming there is no memory limitation (RAM in many cases is soooo cheap these days, no reason not to max out everything...) this was my go-to for operating systems:

68000/020/LC/LCII - System 6.0.8, 6.0.8L is my preference, 7.1 if I had a good reason
Slow 030's - Usually 7.1
Faster 030's, slow 040's - 7.6.1
Fast 040's and slow PPC's - Almost always 8.1. Excellent on a 40MHz '040
Fast pre-G3 PPC: always 9.1

I don't know how hard RAM is to find for pre-G3 PowerMacs these days but it used to be very easy. That made it to where there was really no reason not to run the latest supported OS on those unless there was a software reason not to. Kind of funny though, that was not the case back in the day, the IT thought process at the school I worked at was that everything needed to sort of match... so the LCII's got 7.5.5...as did the 5400's... the performance hit was seen as worthwhile for some reason that I can't remember.

It is also kind of funny to bring new machines into my collection that have not been upgraded. Seeing 7.5.3 (or 8.0, or 7.0.1, or 8.5...etc) on something just makes me wonder... was the previous owner just happy with it all those years? I remember that release being really buggy and the 7.5.5 update was installed as soon as it came out.

I also remember some others wanting to go backwards to 7.5.5 after doing an upgrade to 7.6.1.