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| Author | System 7 Forever! (Read 56425 times) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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cballeron
16 MB  Posts: 16 
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on: October 01, 2016, 06:01
System 7 will gone down in history as one of the best classic systems ever.. it was leagues ahead of it's time back in the day! |
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Syntho
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64 MB Posts: 103 System 7 Newcomer!
Reply #1 on: February 15, 2021, 20:56
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System 7 was the best Classic Mac OS. It was far enough along that you can do some pretty advanced stuff with it, but not to the point where the OS became bloated like OS8.6, OS9 and above.º
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Knezzen
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Administrator 512 MB  Posts: 608 Village idiot
Reply #2 on: February 15, 2021, 22:32
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Agreed! 
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Jatoba
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256 MB Posts: 270 System 9 Newcomer!
Reply #3 on: February 19, 2021, 01:12
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It was IMO the most memorable Mac OS. Not best, just really memorable, perhaps because it remained as the latest Mac OS for the longest time, and so much evolved within System 7. Not much was changed with 8 or 9. Wouldn't call 8 or 9 bloated, though. Certainly no more bloated than 7 is compared to 6, for instance. The extra baggage comes with huge returns (HFS+, Carbon, Altivec etc.). Although that's just stock configuration: one of the biggest strengths of Mac OS as a whole is its modularity, so you can strip away, or include, anything you want, by simply moving system files around, which is beautiful. So with a "trimmed" Mac OS, differences between Systems 6, 7, 8 and 9 tend to disappear in terms of bloat. Each of those systems (and earlier!) have their place.
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cballero
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1024 MB Posts: 1176 System 7, today and forever
Reply #4 on: February 20, 2021, 02:27
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I agree that each version excelled within its hardware range. Mac OS 7.1.x pro (back then not-free) versions were amazing for the early Macs, as Gamba and the Pickle exemplified. Mac OS 7.6.1 was the next (again, not-free back then) OS update that gave Dan the inspiration for the S7T website we're on now and that offered some solid speed to non G3 Macs. Mac OS 8.1 did introduce some nice new extras for early G3s Macs, but the most significant yet totally under-the-hood was HFS+, the beginning of contextual menus some clever desktop-level enhancements like additional menubar menu commands keys, button icon view and desktop folder tabs. Mac OS 8.6 was also an optimized PPC OS for faster G3s and G4 Macs and Mac OS 9.1 was the most stable version of OS 9 on many fast G4s. Lastly, Mac OS 9.2.2 made the Classic Environment possible on G4s and G5s that can't run anything below Mac OS X.
Last Edit: February 20, 2021, 13:56 by cballero
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snes1423
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256 MB Posts: 458 A Man born of Mechina
Reply #5 on: February 20, 2021, 06:00
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i would say my favorite two versions of the classic mac os are system 7.6.1 and 9.2.2 how about you @cballero (guessing that's Italian very beautiful country if so  ) what is your favorite version of the classic macos
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Bolkonskij
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Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023
Reply #6 on: February 20, 2021, 09:26
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This post got a bit longer but I felt I had to write this since it perfectly fits the tone of this thread. Anyone else noticing how companies stopped talking about “Personal Computing” years ago? Here’s what got me thinking: When you read in old issues of MacUser, MacWorld or really any computer mag, one notices that the whole hoopla over the Mac was that it offered average Joe a “Personal Computing” experience. Think about the whole GUI vs. CLI thing. The idea was that suddenly John Doe could setup a computer to fit his needs and his preferences. Now, from the very beginning Apple was all-in on personal computing. You could personalize just about every detail. Heck, you could even create your individual OS boot disk for your 512k. Kick out the puzzle DA, add your favorite app to avoid having to change floppy disks. MacroMaker allowed us users to create their own macros - really not something common on Home computers of the mid 80’s. FEdit (and later ResEdit) opened up a myriad of options for personalizing your Mac. Now clearly Apple and the computer world moved away from that. I think it already started when Pepsi-Sculley took over Apple and suddenly "being creative" became something dangerous. (there’s a lot of things to hold against Steve Jobs, but he was always supporting creativity / creatives!). Heck, Apple even started to pronounce SCSI like the suit and tie IBM consultants ("Scuzzy") did. (who here remembers how it was originally pronounced? ;-) ) So bottom line - I love my System 7. In a world where corporations want to force you to follow their paradigm, this OS offers great features but it’s all open and allows me to fit it to my needs. I don’t need to jailbreak it. If I want to change something, I can! A new key shortcut? No problem. Individual icons? Sure. Individualize menus? Of course. Sure, in order to achieve that you need to learn stuff and invest time. Understand how the components work together and come up with workarounds. But that’s exactly the part that keeps making System 7 such a great and fascinating OS to tinker with today. Ending my love declaration for personal computing and System 7 here with a little anecdote about my 8600 - it’s name is “Norm”. (named after that character from the 80’s sitcom Cheers) If you think it’s strange to give your Mac a name - no, it is not. Because it’s not nameless x86 junk. In the early days of the Macintosh it was very common that users would give their Macs names. After all, this is personal computing, right? So your Macintosh doesn’t have a name yet? Well, I think it’s about time for a christening ... :-))
Last Edit: February 20, 2021, 09:38 by Bolkonskij
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lilliputian
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64 MB Posts: 68 A Good Apple!
Reply #7 on: February 20, 2021, 12:35
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Our first family computer, its hard drive was named Hal, and its icon colored red. It's one of the most memorable things about that computer that I can remember.
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ovalking
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128 MB Posts: 199
Reply #8 on: February 20, 2021, 14:48
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Tough call to pick out one OS as a favourite, because there are so many ways to measure it. But in the looks department, system 7.x wins easy! It's so neat and tidy, gives you exactly what you need, no more, no less. I think OS8.1 has a few extra features worth having without being too bloated. I find it a bit more stable than 7.5.5. but those 3D folder icons really annoy me! After that it went a bit awry. Slower, greedier, and changes that only added confusion, not value. The only reason to use 8.6+ is if your s/w or h/w requires it.
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cballero
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1024 MB Posts: 1176 System 7, today and forever
Reply #9 on: February 20, 2021, 14:57
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Well SNES, it's hard to cherry pick favorites among the Classic OSes simply because each one brought something special to the Macs they can run under. But funny enough, Mac OS 7.6.1 flew under the radar for me pretty much until I used it to do some serious work with it. For me, the speed and simplicity of System 7.1.x made it a pretty special and powerful OS in my opinion back in the day. And as Bolkonskij rightly said, computing was a very personal experience back then. The Quadras really came into their own with fast processors and those that came with System 7 Pro felt untouchable. That System truly was pretty memorable to me, not to knock the System 7.5 series of course, it just had less of an impact personally. Like the adage, "if it ain't broke.." The other OS that had a similar effect on me with its introduction was Mac OS 8.5. 8.5 was the bees knees when it first hit the scene in late '98 with the introduction of the third iMac followed by the famous 'five flavor iMacs right in time for Christmas that year. It came with a nice upgrade to the file search utility renamed Sherlock to search both within the OS and the Internet as well, along with revamped 32-bit icons, the introduction of system-level themes and sound sets, which were definitely nods to Kaleidoscope and shareware sound utilities. This was the very first iteration of the new Mac OS exclusively for PPC Macs, bustling with energy and improvements and adding far more fine-tuned enhancements than the ones Mac OS 8.1 introduced. Of course, the better version of any OS version is its last, so Mac OS 8.5.1 will still hold the title of favorite G3 and up Mac OS, but its desktop is sure pretty even on the very first PowerMacs. I updated all my PowerPC Macs and Powerbooks to OS 8.5 simply because of its coolness factor and kept my 68k Macs at either System 7 Pro or Mac OS 7.6.1, depending on the vintage of the hardware. I have a love-hate relationship with Mac OS 8.1, especially on 68k Macs and pre-G3 PowerMacs. If I'm honest with myself, it's really suited for the first G3 Powerbook 'Kanga' and the G3 Beige, Tower and All-In-One models when Apple stopped shipping Macs with Mac OS 7. Mac OS 8.1 is really a power-user OS on anything below the first G3 Macs, which is why I enjoy running it on Basilisk II as well as the fastest 68k Macs and my pre-G3 PowerMacs. And Mac OS 8.5 is a whole other story as far as power-users go, as follows. As much as I absolutely love Mac OS 8.6, it really felt like the final update to Mac OS 8.5.x, which many consider it was starting with the first G3 Macs that were designed for. And granted, 8.5 and 8.6 offered some speed improvements, 8.1 still felt nimbler somehow on the first G3 Macs, it had a smaller system folder and definitely freed up more RAM memory for actual computing. Speed, RAM and hard drive space were all premium commodities on any Mac, so choosing between 8.1 and 8.5-6 was a hard-toss for many people back then.
Last Edit: February 20, 2021, 18:42 by cballero
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snes1423
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256 MB Posts: 458 A Man born of Mechina
Reply #10 on: February 20, 2021, 16:37
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Interesting you talk about the imac i remember my grandma had a emachines eone when i found out it was a ripoff of the original iMac i just stopped using it but that was the closest experience to using a real og imac
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Jatoba
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256 MB Posts: 270 System 9 Newcomer!
Reply #11 on: February 21, 2021, 12:33
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Not to be too pedantic, but just for emphasis and clarification, Mac OS 9.2.x offered not only better Classic support (as per Apple's changelogs), but also brings back performance to 8.6 levels, combining it with 9.1's stability and reliability (more PPC-native code, mandatory MMU usage). A key Mac OS kernel developer of the time also revealed 8.6 is unsuitable for any G4 Mac. I wrote a post that gives the full details of all that, and more, with links and due references, here: http://macintoshgarden.org/forum/am-so-over-disk-warrior#comment-67410 (post #14) Of course, as for which subversion of 9.2.x is better, 9.2.2 has a slight edge due to software compatibility, if not also for technical reasons. On the topic of System 7, I must say I have huge preference for 7.5.5 over either 7.6 or 7.6.1, because 7.6 accidentally reintroduces a bug that was already fixed in 7.5.5, and although it was re-fixed in 7.6.1, 7.6.1 drops MFS write support (!). Mac OS 8.0 then went and also removed MFS read support. So for me, between 7.5.5 and 9.2.2, there is a huge gap of system versions that I cannot justify, especially with 68k hardware, since 7.5.5 was the final version to support 24-bit mode (AFAIK), required for greater software support (i.e. game "Gauntlet"). Though I understand 7.6 and especially 7.6.1 offered important improvements (only under PPC) versus 7.5.5, while being lighter than 8.0 and later (at least in terms of default install items - the systems can still be manually-trimmed to suit needs). About looks, I'm more fond of the platinum look, but the System 7 looks can be reinstated by Kaleidoscope and the like in later systems, including 9, if the user desires. G4s can easily take the theme overhead and still come out on top, too, compared to humbler hardware Macs running under 7. But yeah, on humbler Macs (pre-G3), System 7 seems practical, especially if the RAM constraints of the machine are too much. Though it's not like I ever benchmarked a trimmed OS 9 under a, say, 601 Mac to say whether or not it's all that different... And I don't intend to ever test that, because if I ever got any pre-G4, it had better be so I can use what my G4s can't: System 7 (and Copland alpha, BeOS, Rhapsody and very early Mac OS X versions). So I would have little reason to bother with anything later (8, 9). Likewise, I only use OS X on G5s, and only OS 9 on G4s. On the topic of giving Macs names... I have seen people do that a lot. Cameron Kaiser (of Classilla and TenFourFox fame) does that to his countless machines, and so do many others. I never did that, though I certainly nickname all of them: 1.5 GHz Mac minis I call just "Super mini", 2.7GHz G5s I call "edG5" (as a pun over the rather-pointless clock speed edge it has over the 2.5GHz Quad Core G5, which can be overstated just as how an edgy teenager might over something). I also had 2 Mac minis sold by a guy who smoked so much, the minis were nothing, but ashes, made everything around me stink, and when trying to clean it, my towels would smell of smoke after I washed my hands (and I never succeeded in removing the stench from the towels). So those minis I dubbed "Smoker minis". They also taught me the value and importance of ALWAYS double-checking with the vendor before buying any computer or part if anyone smoked in the household or office, or if the machines smell of smoke etc.. Not to mention smoke kills hardware (more corrosion, for instance), and surely enough one of the minis had a damaged GPU, and the other mini "died" soon enough by being only able to boot into OpenFirmware, but crashes ANYTHING else I tried because of some hardware fault with the part onto which drives are attached. I never had ANY hardware failure on a Mac mini EVER, otherwise (5 good-condition minis vs. 2 smoker minis). I never gave names to the rest yet... I call my MDDs just "MDD", and my Quad G5 just "Quad G5". PowerBooks and iBooks by their screen size. And that's it. Not sure what names I would baptize my Macs with. Surely sounds like a "very personal" idea! I will consider it. And of course, I fully agree that mainstream tech companies nowadays barely offer anything of interest, from phones to consoles to personal computers. Although I would love to see Mac OSes native-booting on a POWER9 Talos II one day. A Talos II is the ultimate machine ever invented in terms of ownership, literally, on top of it being a PowerPC beauty. True ownership allows for ultimate personal computing! Apologies for the long-winded post.  Very usual when I start talking...
Last Edit: February 21, 2021, 12:40 by Jatoba
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cballero
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1024 MB Posts: 1176 System 7, today and forever
Reply #12 on: February 21, 2021, 14:38
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I always find your posts insightful and didactic if anything, Jatoba When we love something, we take the time to not only express our feelings on the subject, but also share our discoveries, as it should be. And when our perception comes from personal experience, well, anything goes since it'll instinctively dip into a more subjective place since affection does that naturally. I do recall doing some testing with my fastest 3400c Powerbooks with Mac OS 8.6 on up. With OS 9, as long as the RAM was bumped up to 80MB, even turning off virtual RAM didn't seem to be too detrimental. The desktop responsiveness was telling between System 7.6.1 and 9.2.2 however, so I chose the flexibility that having both System 7.6.1 and Mac 9.1 together gave: the responsiveness of System 7 to get work done quickly and great compatibility, especially with carbonized programs using OS 9, either maximizing efficiency or compatibility depending on my desired activities or goals. I can't say that I went beyond nodding to the developer Code names, even though naming a Powerbook after a developer's dog shows both the fun and the love they had for their 'Arbeit'. I think it's both Job's love for a simple design that prompted him to employ design-focused minds like Hartmut Esslinger to help introduce some soul into Apple's DNA like the design of the Apple IIc, giving it some "Hollywood and music, a bit of rebellion and natural sex appeal", which conformed perfectly to Job's 'form follows emotion' principle.
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snes1423
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256 MB Posts: 458 A Man born of Mechina
Reply #13 on: February 21, 2021, 22:12
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i always wondered if a g4 chip would work if we wrote custom drivers for it
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