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| Author | OS-7.5.5 or 7.6.1 vs. 8.6 (on a 8600) (Read 15721 times) | ||||||||||||||
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williemac
1 MB  Posts: 1 
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on: March 02, 2010, 02:46
Hello everyone, I'm a new member with a question about os-7 vs. os-8.6. Love this site, by the way! Does 7.5.5 or 7.6.1 perform better than 8.6 in regards to emulating older applications written for 680x0 machines? If yes, does 7.5.5 perform better than 7.6.1, since 7.5.5 has more 680x0 native code? For my situation, I have a lot of old applications that I used to run on a 68030 mac IIci running os-6, a computer which appears to have died after a very lengthy time in storage. I am looking at acquiring a PPC 8600/200 using 8.6 that a friend has offered to me, but I have concerns about any shortcomings 8.6 may have in running some of my old software. I spent so many years with my IIci and this software when I was in college that (I confess) it would really be fun to be able to run those apps again. It comes down to the emulation capabilities of 8.6 vs 7.6.1, or 7.5.5 (the minimum the 8600 will run with, I believe). If 7.6.1 or 7.5.5 has a better chance of running my old apps than 8.6 does, I recall reading that the 8600 had to have "dedicated" os-7 installation software for the 8600/9600 series machines. Does this apply to ALL 8600's, or just the 8600/250 and 8600/300 "MachV" machines? I also read that the MachV machines are of significantly different design than that of the 8600/200, so it wouldn't surprise me if the "general" 7.6.1 installation software would be ok on this 8600/200 unit I'm looking at. Regardless of the answers I get about the emulation capabilities of old applications, I still will probably want to move the 8600/200 to os-7 for all the reasons pointed out by this site. |
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dpaanlka
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1024 MB Posts: 1646
Reply #1 on: March 02, 2010, 05:02
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PowerPC Macs run 68k applications by use of a 68k processor emulator built into the operating system that activates itself transparently so that in most cases the user wouldn't even notice aside from slightly slower performance, which itself was quickly overshadowed by the rapidly increasing power of PowerPC chips in the mid-90s so that PowerPC Macs soon ran 68k code faster than real 68k Macs. More 680x0 native code in the operating system doesn't make 68k processor emulation any faster. In fact, it actually has the opposite overall effect as more 680x0 code in the parts of the operating system unrelated to 68k emulation slow the overall performance down. All versions of classic Mac OS emulate 68k processors roughly equivalently. SpeedDoubler 8, which you can download from this site, actually replaces Apple's 68k emulator with a significantly faster one developed by Connectix, so that is a mute point. Mac OS 7.6.1 is the most PowerPC-optimized of the System 7 series, but Mac OS 8 and especially 8.6+ are even more PowerPC native. Then, the question becomes bloating of the software. Most everyone here prefers System 7 (and Mac OS 7.6.1 specifically) because we find it to be the perfect balance of PowerPC optimization and bloat-free operation. While Mac OS 8+ are indeed more PowerPC optimized, they contain so many additional features, utilities, extensions and resource-hogging elements that they often are actually slower in real-life perceptible use. See these benchmarks: http://main.system7today.com/articles/til/benchmarks.html So the final decision is yours to make. My own 8600/200 installs Mac OS 7.6.1 from Apple's retail CD just fine.
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JoAT
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32 MB Posts: 58 
Reply #2 on: March 02, 2010, 16:14
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Dan's right. The period where 68K machines were speedier than PPC ones in running 68K code was a very short one. (Think 40MHz '040 machines beating 66MHz 601PPCs with 68K optimised code.) By shear MHz, that 8600 should run your old programs much faster than you used to on the IIci, regardless of which OS. As for which OS to use, if the 8600 has 64mb of RAM or more, I would go with 8.6 if it were me. Less than 64mb, I would stick with 7.6 for bloat reasons...
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ovalking
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128 MB Posts: 199
Reply #3 on: March 03, 2010, 16:49
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I had an 8600 for a short while ... but disposed of because it was just too big. 7.5.5 was impressive on that. On my 8500/G3 I have 7.5.5, 8.1 and 8.6 to choose from. I only resort to using 8.6 when forced by software (some games, Classilla) or hardware (USB) requirements. Otherwise I steer clear because it is so awfully slow. Its advantages over 8.1 are very limited in my view. I suggest you try them all out if possible, but 7.6.1 would be my first choice... it's great... if you can find it!
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