Software for Mac SE

[Punkyclown]

Hi All,
Now that I have my SE up and running like it should I need to load some software I can enjoy
using.  So can you SE owners out there tell me what software you are running, ones you enjoy
using that works well on the SE. I have upgraded to System 7.0 which is probably not the best
Idea since it uses just over one meg to load the system.  But it has so much more that 6.08.
I'm looking for desk accessories, a screen saver and something that lets me put the time in
the menu bar.

Thanks in advance and really appreciate all the support.
Brad Hansen

 

[Dog Cow]

Try SuperClock!, and Moire (newer version?) for a screensaver. You can find a bunch of Desk Accessories here. SetFile DA is pretty useful, and there are some other good ones in that collection too, like DiskInfo and UnStuffIt.

 

[tanaquil]

After Dark is fun even without the pretty colors (I used to run it on my Classic, I think). Macintosh Garden has several versions, check to see which one might be best for your processor and RAM.

Do I gather you only have 2 MB? I had a 2 MB Classic for years and never dared to run System 7 on it until I upgraded it to 4 MB, but I have heard that it is possible with 2 MB. Maybe not so bad if you're only using it for occasional fun and not as a daily driver.

I love the early system 7 days (my first Mac) and need to develop more of a "slate" of apps to deploy on my multiple computers of that vintage.

So many hours playing Crystal Quest on my System 6 Classic...

I also remember a software package called Now Fun! and a book called Customizing Your Mac for Fun/Productivity (there was a floppy disk for Fun and one for Productivity, guess which got the most use) but it's been so long that I don't remember if that was System 6 or 7, 2 MB or 4. 

 

[Dog Cow]

Here is After Dark 2.0 and After Dark 3.0. 

When I had an SE/30, I always liked running Aldus SuperPaint and ClarisWorks 2.1v3 on it. Space Adventure was fun to play.

 

[Punkyclown]

Hey Guys Thanks so much! This is great...I have a 4mg SE but programs like Photoshop 0.63 complain

that is what at least 4 mgs to correctly even though it does load and work fine.  I will check all these

out.

Brad Hansen

 

[tanaquil]

Nice! An SE with 4MB can run anything System 7.1 era fairly comfortably (granted I never used Photoshop back then so I don’t know about that - Netscape was another app I could never run until I got a Performa, I believe that was a processor speed issue). I believe the SE can do 7.5 but I always preferred 7.1 on my Classic. Have fun!

 

[davidg5678]

You may want to investigate installing the Connectix Ram Doubler system extension which allows you to create virtual memory and double your 4MB of ram to 8MB. I think the "RAM" is taken from a chunk of disk space, but it certainly makes my SE/30 better to use. I cannot remember if I used this on my SE before I switched out the motherboard for an SE30 one, but this would certainly help (assuming it is compatible). You can run System 7.5.5, but it is almost painfully slow to use.

 

[tanaquil]

You may want to investigate installing the Connectix Ram Doubler system extension which allows you to create virtual memory and double your 4MB of ram to 8MB. I think the "RAM" is taken from a chunk of disk space, but it certainly makes my SE/30 better to use. I cannot remember if I used this on my SE before I switched out the motherboard for an SE30 one, but this would certainly help (assuming it is compatible). You can run System 7.5.5, but it is almost painfully slow to use.

Agreed, I thought about recommending RAM Doubler too, but it had been too long since I used it and I wasn't sure I could describe properly how it works. I'm 95% sure I used it on the Classic (as well as my later Performa).

As I recall, it won't allow you to load any program whose RAM requirement is higher than the physical amount you have installed, but it will make multiple programs play much nicer with each other. If Photoshop loads for you but complains about being low on memory, RAM Doubler should help.

 

[MacFox]

I used Microsoft Word 5.1 on my SE the most.  If you're interested in word processing I recommend it.

 

[Punkyclown]

Gee, this is such great information, never had such a response on here, thanks so much.

Brad Hansen

 

[tanaquil]

Gee, this is such great information, never had such a response on here, thanks so much.

Brad Hansen

Another ditto for Word 5.1!

For a System 6 Mac with 2 MB, Word 4; for a System 7 Mac with 4 MB, Word 5.1. I did all my graduate work in those two versions of Word. Word 5.1 was a great program (by contrast, 6 was horrible bloatware).

I thought about suggesting Word earlier but figured ClarisWorks might be enough for casual word processing.

 

[just.in.time]

I have 7.1 on one SE, and 7.0.1 on another SE. System 7.1 seems to use more RAM and disk space without adding much to the experience. If you are on 7.0 I’d recommend upgrading to 7.0.1 as I believe it had several bug fixes and should’t use much more (if any) RAM.

As for SuperClock!, consider me another happy user.

AfterDark is very cool, but does use a noticeable amount of RAM. I use that on the 7.1 SE, and Moire on the 7.0.1 system. Moire is significantly lighter on resources. The only quirk is that SuperClock! continues to be displayed when Moire runs. Moire also has a built in (not as good as SuperClock) clock, but lays in the wrong spot on System 7. Kinda a catch22 in that situation.

I don’t use any desk accessories, so I can’t comment there.

How large is your hard drive? Looking for any other app/game suggestions?

 

[ArmorAlley]

Prince of Persia will run on your SE with 1MB RAM. You might want to take out any especially RAM-hungry INITs and CDEVs that you have in there.

If you want an idea of nostalgia, download Pagemaker 3.5. You can do a lot with it, once you get the relevant text-files and images onto your SE.

I used it to lay out my dissertations when I was in college.

We also used an early version of Excel (v2.0 or 2.1 maybe) to generate graphs from the readings we had gathered.