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Messages - eelco
1 Operating System / Re: Finally! 7.6.1 in my native language on my 8600.
February 28, 2026, 21:07 		I'm not sure how the Macintosh faired in the eighties and nineties in the Netherlands. My interest in them came later, around 2007. Backtracking, I am finding some software.
Major titles like Microsoft Office, WordPerfect and Internet Explorer are available in Dutch (as in: you can find them on abandonware sites in the present), but trying to find things like StuffIt, Fetch, QuarkExpress or Pagemaker in Dutch is really hard.

I guess the problem is that I can only find today what people found worth preserving. The situation is the same for educational software for the PC. There was lots, I used some myself, but hardly any has been preserved.
I am in the process of introducing my children to (old) computers and to do it in any meaningful way, the software has to be in Dutch, otherwise they're not going to use it.
2 Operating System / Re: Finally! 7.6.1 in my native language on my 8600.
February 05, 2026, 20:25 		The 8600 was on the market for just over a year. The original one came with a PowerPC 604e. Halfway through its lifespan they speedbumped it and fitted a 604ev.
I believe the speedbumped one got released just after Mac OS 7.6 but before 8.0 came out.

I can understand why Apple wouldn't support the 8600 and 9600 under Mac OS X. The pace of progress in hardware was still frantic at that time and, even though the 8600 was only three years old when OS X was released, it was obsolete.
It's easy to forget how much of an improvement in speed the G3 brought to the table, especially when the bus clock was doubled from 50 MHz in the beige G3 to 100 MHz in the B&W G3.

Quote from: wove
... the IIfx, the Quadra840, the PM5500...
Those'd be worth a fortune today, probably weren't when you were selling them. I adore the IIfx. Was the Power Macintosh 5500 a black one?
3 Operating System / Re: Finally! 7.6.1 in my native language on my 8600.
February 05, 2026, 07:26
Quote from: ShinobiKenobi
...that would make MacGuyver proud.

I sure hope my jumping through hoops made MacGyver proud, because if it didn't, I don't know what will. :D

I was looking in the System Folder just now, but I did not find an Enabler of any kind. If there was one, it should be in the root of the System Folder, right?
4 Off Topic Discussion / Just my curiousity
February 04, 2026, 21:33 		Just my curiousity, but...

In his parting post on 20 August 2016, founder Dan Palka goes over how he modified the code base of the forum software to achieve a certain look and feel, and how this was a nightmare to upgrade to newer versions of the forum software.
At the time, it was one of his reasons to close the S7T forums.

The forums are obviously still here and they still look very much the same, so I wonder, and indirectly directing the question at Knezzen and Bolkonskij:
how this was tackled after Dan handed over S7T to its new owners/admins/caretakers?

P.S.: If you think it not my place to know, or being too nosey, do tell.
5 Operating System / Finally! 7.6.1 in my native language on my 8600.
February 04, 2026, 21:10 		And what a journey it has been. Some context:

I have been searching for Mac OS 7.6.1 in my native language for years, probably over a decade now.
It is easy to find Mac OS 7.6 in Dutch, MG has it, among others. But the update to 7.6.1 is language-specific and impossible to find.
There are some installers to be found for 7.6 and 7.6.1 that are marked WW (worldwide, I presume?), but these never contain anything Dutch.
The Apple System Restore CD I has only the English language version and so (I believe) does the Mac OS Anthology.
In the past, this was never really an issue. Most machines would run fine with 7.6 or did not explicitly require 7.6.1.

Until today.

I have, in my collection, a Power Macintosh 8600 (the OG 200 MHz version). According to everymac.com it originally shipped with System 7.5.5.
A quick search will drum up several places where one can download the 8600-specific version of 7.5.5. In fact, my 8600 was running exactly such a version, in English.
Now, call me mad, but I have a thing for running my OS and software in my native language. It is not for a lack of fluency in English, strictly a preference.
And I made the assumption, silly me, that if the 8600 required a specially prepared version of 7.5.5, surely a retail 7.6 would work, right?

Wrong.

But it took some trial and error to find out. With hindsight, the fact that both the Legacy Restore CD and the System Software Restore CD I wouldn't boot while a retail 8.1 would, should have been a sign.
The 7.6.1 Disk Tools disk, also wouldn't boot, but at least it had the decency to tell me it was not compatible with the Macintosh it was tasked to boot. How thoughtful!
Not to be outdone, I booted from the 8.1 retail disc and took to Appleshare and the Chooser, to mount my Windows 2000 Services for Macintosh share. This has the 7.6 files on it. Booted the installer and what do you know: this Macintosh isn't compatible with 7.6!
Now, some more Googling led me to the Macintosh Repository, which, allegedly, had a Dutch Mac OS 7.6 installer specific for the 8600. Excellent!

So I fire up my 2011 iMac (running up-to-date Linux, sorry), download the image and burn it. I place it in the drive of the 8600 and power it on.

No joy.

It finds the disc and spins it up, it just doesn't recognize it as bootable. So, I exchange it for the 8.1 retail disc and boot off that.
But you can't eject the startup disk when the startup disk is not a floppy disk. I dearly wanted to see the contents of the 8600-specific 7.6 disc, so what do I do?

Well, the answer was as follows: I got a floppy disk and the 8.1 retail disc, booted of the 8.1 retail disc, used Disc Copy to create the 8.1 PPC Disk Tools floppy, booted off said floppy with the 8.1 retail disc still in the drive, waited for the boot to complete, eject the 8.1 retail disc and insert the 8600-specific 7.6 disc.
*sigh*
Finally, it mounts to the desktop, and I can see its glorious contents. And indeed, it contains the installation files for 7.6. I execute the install script and lo-and-behold, it sees the 8600 as compatible!
Not only that, but the custom setup options show there is a Mac OS 7.6.1 update included... IN THE SAME LANGUAGE!

It was a hassle, but I got there in the end. Makes me wonder though, if sysadmins of a bygone era were forced to jump these same hoops everytime they had to reinstall a system.

I, for one, love this hobby we have...
6 Software / Re: Help with TurboGopher
February 04, 2026, 17:37
Quote from: ShinobiKenobi
@eelco, Thank you for solving this case. If I may ask, how did you find out the answer?

I am not one for blowing my own trumpet, but I'd put it down to knowledge gained in over 15 years of being an allround sysadmin.
Downloading TurboGopher and trying a few different things confirmed my hunch.
7 Hardware / Re: Trying to get ethernet working on the LC III
February 04, 2026, 17:33
Quote from: ShinobiKEnobi
I also tried MacTCP Ping, but it instantly pops up with an error saying "Cannot Open Resolver", and it closes after I click OK.

After researching it, I found that it's talking about domain name resolver. I researched that, found out it's MacTCP DNR, which is supposed to be in the System Folder. It's there.

When using MacTCP Ping, was pinging an IP address succesful? Something like 8.8.8.8?
If so, name resolution is indeed probably an issue.
The thing about Ethertalk/Appletalk is that is does not need TCP/IP to communicatie. Since you can share files between the two machines, the network link is indeed fine.

Since you are using MacTCP you're probably not using OpenTransport, am I right?
8 Software / Re: Help with TurboGopher
January 31, 2026, 12:25 		I just went and researched this. The short answer: it is not possible.

The long answer: the field in the preferences window only accepts FQDNs (Fully Qualified Domain Names).
FQDNs are always structured as hostname dot domain dot suffix (i.e. gopher.system7today.com).
As soon as you add anything after, or include gopher://, you turn the FQDN into a URL/URI. TurboGopher then tries to resolve the URL/URI using DNS and this will fail.

Quote from: Bolkonskij
I just put all my stuff into the "Bookmark Worksheet" which opens up on application startup for easy access of my favorite Gopher pages.

The reason this works is that the bookmarks are not limited to FQDNs and are actually stored URLs/URIs.
9 Hardware / Re: Trying to get ethernet working on the LC III
January 31, 2026, 07:48 		Is the ethernet card in the LCIII connected directly to a router? Or does it connect to a switch first?
If the former is the case, then you are probably running into auto-sensing issues.

When connecting a host (a computer) to another host (another computer, but routers also fall into this category) you should be using an ethernet crossover cable.
More modern network cards (most 100 Mbit cards, any 1 Gbit cards) can auto-sense whether they are connected to a switch (straight-through) or a host (crossover).
These older network cards do not.

Since you can't tell whether a cable is a crossover or straight-through variety just by looking at it, you should connect your older network cards to a switch first and connect the switch to a router.

Or, in my case, when connecting to one of those Ethernet-over-powerline adapters, I had to switch ends (stick the end that was in the old network card in the powerline adapter and vice versa).
10 Hardware / Re: Latest retro hardware acquisitions
January 31, 2026, 07:38
Quote from: ShinobiKenobi
I also bought a CD-ROM for my spare 7200. Eventually I'd like to get another SCSI hard disk for
it and my Macintosh SE.

Have you considered a BlueSCSI? Or are you going for the full auditive experience of spinning disks?
11 Software / Re: Uploading a picture to my site corrupts it
January 25, 2026, 11:39
Quote from: ShinobiKenobi
Update: The only thing I can think of is that while I was toggling ASCII mode, I may have toggled it a second time accidentally.

It is highly likely that this is the cause. I get caught out by this all the time with the built-in FTP client in Windows 9.x, which always defaults to ASCII, while Fetch and the FTP client from the DOS MTCP-stack always default to binary.
Binary works for every possible file type you could place on an FTP server and it is not like we have to worry about conserving bandwith to reduce the phone bill.
12 New Member Welcome / Re: Hello from across the pond!
January 25, 2026, 11:29 		Very much! Although I must say (and I may be swearing in church) I sometimes prefer the more polished look and feel of OS8 over System 7, other times I feel the opposite way.
Thankfully I have options to choose from. :-D

Once I get my Macintosh IIfx up and running, I will be firmly locked in to the System 7 world.
13 New Member Welcome / Re: Hello from across the pond!
January 24, 2026, 07:41
Quote from: eelco
...(which is running MacOS 8, but I shall soon deal with this discrepancy).

I have since fixed said discrepancy. Furthermore, I have proof! (HTTPS required, sadly).
It's all in Dutch, but should you scroll to the photos and videos section, you will find screenshots and a video of startup of my Powermac 8600 running System 7!
14 Software / Re: Active newsgroups on usenet to check out
January 24, 2026, 07:28 		If you want to have a laugh, or lose faith in humanity (depending on how you look at it) take a look at comp.sys.mac.advocacy.

I found a group called nl.eeuwig.september (eeuwig being Dutch for eternal ) referencing Eternal September.
This group is most obviously made for posting nonsense (all in Dutch) but it is fun to read every once in a while.

Personally, in addition to the ones Knezzen mentioned, I also follow these groups:
comp.sys.dec
comp.sys.ibm.ps2.hardware
comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc
nl.internet.usenet

These, however, don't see frequent posting.
One thing you have to be aware of: when using Eternal September (like I do), you often find your newsreader tells you there are no items in a group.
I believe this is down to retention, since they can't possibly sync everything from every source. Can't remember how long the retention is, put they publish it on their website.
15 Feedback & Ideas / Re: Twenty years of System 7 Today
January 17, 2026, 11:13 		He was last active somewhere in 2023, according to his profile. Well, his account was, but I have seen situations where an update to the forum resets the last activity date to the date the update took place, so anything is possible.
But if he started System 7 Today in the fall of 2005 as a student, and we assume he was 18 years old when he did, he would be in his late thirties. I sincerely hope he hasn't yet joined Steve Jobs!

It is indeed quite an achievement. Handing S7T over to a new crew was indeed a very good decision, but the best decision was opening up the forums in the first place. Since, if it hadn't been for the forums, this place would have ceased to exist many, many years ago.
I quite like this little hangout. And so does my Quadra 700, because it doesn't choke whilst browsing it!
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