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| Author | Mac OS 7.7 pre-release version surfaced (Read 32679 times) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Bolkonskij
Administrator 1024 MB  Posts: 2023 
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on: June 24, 2022, 08:55
Nobody posting about this yet? :-) A pre-release version of Mac OS 7.7 surfaced on the Mac Garden the other day. Apparently one individual found it on a prototype Macintosh and thankfully uploaded it for preservation. Read the whole story on the Mac Garden page. Anyone of you guys with emulators willing to give this a try and report back? How much 7.6 is still in it, how much 8.0 is already in? |
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galgot
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64 MB  Posts: 66
Reply #1 on: June 24, 2022, 17:42
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Booted it in SheepShaver, and it worked (the screenshot on MG is mine). Platinum is default appearance, so looks a lot like Mac OS8, though some icons are still Syst 7 like. The Desktop Pattern Ctrl Panel buttons are ... strange  There is lot of stuff on this image disk, some dev stuff that I have no idea what they are used for... And a folder with apparently the complete installer for 7.7 . So should be possible to make a clean install.Tried boot it in BasiliskII using different roms, without success. Got the MacOS splash screen, then extensions loading, but after that was going straight to debugger (MacBugs ?), but couldn't type anything. So mounted it as a spare drive in another BasiliskII system and moved MacBugs to the desktop. Still no joy, freezes after the extension loads.
Last Edit: June 24, 2022, 17:44 by galgot
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wove
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1024 MB Posts: 1363
Reply #2 on: June 24, 2022, 18:03
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I saw galgot's screenshot on the garden. I downloaded the .sit version, extracted it using unarchiver on OS X. I fiddled with SheepShaver and for a while it appeared as though it was not going to work. Then for whatever reason it booted only to crash immediately. But on the next try it booted and ran fine. It is something of an oddball mix of items many of which do not seem to be part of a typical system install. I looks as though it was clearly for a Performa machine. It includes Clarisworks 4 and Now Datebook(?) and Netscape 3.0. The appearance control panel has the fruity themes that are associated with the first iMacs and OS 8. There is a lot of items relating to OpenDoc which was to be big OS 8 thing. I was hoping I might find something related to USB, Firewire or maybe even Airport, but did not see anything. Of course if the image is for a 6360 none of those items would be of any use. So the image does seem to be geared toward a shipping Apple machine, more than a forward looking alpha OS. In the half hour I have played around it has been stable. I have not tripped across anything that would make it more compelling than what we have with 7.6.1, but there remains lots of digging to do.
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wove
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1024 MB Posts: 1363
Reply #3 on: June 25, 2022, 23:59
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I have spent a couple hours digging into the System 7.7a2. I am more than a little confused as to what this might be. This was said to come from a Performa 6360, which is something of an odd choice for a development machine, maybe it was used for testing? The 6360 shipped with System 7.5.1, and there is an older system folder on the image that is System 7.5.3. If you run the installer on the image, it is offering to install 7.6. I did not run it, and it might install 7.7a2 with only the dialog boxes not being updated yet. Beyond having extras that are perhaps part of a performa bundle. The readme file about 7.7a2, is actually a readme file concerning What is new in 7.5.3. Everything I have come across in the image are items that can be installed on 7.6.1 in non alpha or beta versions. Overall though the image runs very well in SheepShaver. It does not appear to me to offer anything not available to 7.6/7.6.1. I did not come accross any bits of interesting software that never made it into production.
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snes1423
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256 MB Posts: 458 A Man born of Mechina
Reply #4 on: June 26, 2022, 03:32
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Welp, just asked Jonathan Knowles on social media about this one since he was the head of quicktime? and since he also worked at apple possibly on 7.7? on quicktime 3.0 before it came out of beta (as noted on the archive.org page for quicktime 3.0 from 1996 that there was a beta)
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cballero
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1024 MB Posts: 1179 System 7, today and forever
Reply #5 on: June 26, 2022, 14:47
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Interesting indeed!  My (grantedly completely selfish) interests would include  - Is this unreleased version 68k-compatible (or were any ever built)? - Does it include HFS+ and/or spring loaded folders and the newer single-click tiled finder icon views? - Did it come with a contextual menu? In any event, could it run either PopUp Folder? (which is slightly more likely than FinderPop if it's surely an unreleased precursor of Mac OS 8 )  Again, these prelim questions are more for my ideal 68k Mac OS interests! 
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galgot
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64 MB Posts: 66
Reply #6 on: June 26, 2022, 15:03
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Seem It as been installed on 68k machines : https://68kmla.org/bb/index.php?threads/macos-7-7-prototype-drive-imaging.41271/page-5 this is the original thread on 68kmla. Looks like the original system on the imaged disk was installed on a PPC machine, so maybe that's why I can't boot it on BasiliskII. It must have installed PPC only stuff during install... Other than that, dunno sorry I've not played enough with it.
Last Edit: June 26, 2022, 15:05 by galgot
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wove
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1024 MB Posts: 1363
Reply #7 on: August 14, 2022, 18:09
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I have been running Mac OS 7.7 for a good while now in SheepShaver and have found it to be very good. It has been a while since I ran 7.6 full time, so I am not sure what differences it has over 7.6. It does include OpenDoc, which I do not think was a default part of the System 7.6 install. It has been very stable, in fact I do not recall it crashing at all, but then I am have not be trying to stress the OS, just using the items I used back in the day. It does take a long time to boot, but it does have more extensions and control panels than I ever used and I have not bothered to try and make it leaner. It is not real clear to me what 7.7 is meant to be. Beyond the inclusion of things like Open Doc, it does not seem to differ from 7.6. I wondered why it included OpenDoc, while not including Data Detectors. It almost strikes me as something of a pet OS created by some employee to setup a customized 7.6.1 install that simply suited their personal configuration. With that said though it is a very usable and stable system. For those looking for a one shot install of a stable configured mostly 7.6.1 in one shot, there does not appear to be any reason to not use this as a base. And for those working in emulation this is an excellent image to use for a solid working 7.6.1 like working system.
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Bolkonskij
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Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023
Reply #8 on: August 15, 2022, 07:23
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Interesting, thanks for sharing your experience! I'm tempted to install it onto a partition of my PowerMac 8600, just for the fun of tinkering with it. It'd be interesting to check the extensions and their versions. And yes OpenDoc on 7.6 was an optional install if I recall correctly. Does it run CarbonLib btw? There's a way to shoehorn CarbonLib onto 7.6.1 by manually extracting the file from the CarbonLib installer and placing it in your extensions folder. Works only with CarbonLib v1.0.4 (i think) but when testing, it allowed me to run some old-old Carbon stuff on 7.6.1 even.
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wove
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1024 MB Posts: 1363
Reply #9 on: August 15, 2022, 14:59
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Apple usually upgrades their OS to support new hardware. I have no way to check 7.7 in emulation, but I am curious if say did 7.7 introduce support for G3 processors, did it add support for USB or firewire. Would 7.7 say support G3 desktops, the Kanga Powerbook? These were machines that were on the near horizon. The version of Cyberdog that is installed is V2, which while working on 7.6 was definitely released for OS 8. I have not done any checking of version numbers for the extensions or control panels, because in honesty I do not have a 7.6 install to compare it to. So I do wonder what was Apple's reason for 7.7's creation. Of course at that point in Apple's history, it was never very clear what purpose or goals Apple had in mind, they were truly floundering.
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MTT
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256 MB Posts: 394 SSW7 Oldtimer
Reply #10 on: September 23, 2022, 01:24
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I've done a little digging into the origins of this build. It is a development build code named "Tempo". The info (currently) given on that Mac Garden page is erroneously reporting it as code-name "Speedy", which is an easy mistake to make. i.e.; development builds have their Macintosh "Special" menu renamed with a unique name beginning with an "S" to easily tell which development build they are currently working with. It is also from 1997, not 1995 as reported in that MG page. Nor is it a "Performa" build, it is a universal 68k/PPC development non-release build. The original is located on this MG page for Apple Developer CD's (1997) at download #19 in the "Mac_Tech_Seed_Mar_97.zip (381.26 MB)" archive, inside of the folder on that image, named "Tempo a2c5". This build is very alpha, it seems to run quite well for me on SheepShaver, but in Basilisk II, I get the same result as galgot reports, above. I've also added a screenshot of this Dev build running in SheepShaver on the MG page for Mac OS 7.7 preview. It introduces several of the Copland features into what was System 7.x, e.g; Contextual menus, Platinum Windows, Appearance Manager, Desktop pictures. The default System font is named "Truth", which is something that never made it into a finalized Mac OS 8.0. HFS+ ? as queried above. No, HFS+ originated only after Mac OS 8.0, with the introduction of Mac OS 8.1 This build's Finder is version 8.0a8, so there's a hint that there wasn't going to be a Mac OS 7.7 gold release. And this becomes evident with the following Tech Seed CD of April 1997, where the next Tempo build has the version "Mac OS 8a5c6", this one is located in download #20's archive on the Dev CD 1997 page. This build's "Special" menu is named "Spooky" Mac OS 8a5c6 does look much more like the Mac OS 8.0 we are familiar with and that build does run in Basilisk II OK too (and the System default font used in 8a5c6 and onward is "Charcoal").
Last Edit: September 23, 2022, 05:20 by MTT
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ovalking
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128 MB Posts: 199
Reply #11 on: October 19, 2022, 22:25
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I tried 7.7a2 on my 8500 G3. This is very much an 'OS8 Preview' rather than '7.6 revision', so it looks like 8 and includes things like spring loaded folders and pop-up windows. Unfortunately I found it too buggy to persist with, and I couldn't achieve any actual work! I had several crashes in the Finder... e.g. customsing a list view and configuring the menu bar clock. And it was also sluggish - seemed jerky just moving icons around. Also crashes when I open GraphicConverter or iCab. As the useful info from MTT advised, the Mac_Tech_Seed link is the one to try out (pity the zipped toast format makes it harder work though). This includes a proper installer. The original link was just someone's HD image confusingly containing lots of other stuff. There is some useful documentation supplied including a full component version list (lots of alpha & beta versions), and a list of noteable known issues. A couple of things I discovered but not included were: Keyboard Layout choice does not survive reboots, and Recent Servers doesn't work. Overall, curiosity value only IMO.m
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MTT
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256 MB Posts: 394 SSW7 Oldtimer
Reply #12 on: October 20, 2022, 07:46
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@ovalking: You ran it on actual Mac hardware? You are brave Good on you for taking the plunge. I agree, it is too flaky for general use for sure. Only interesting, historically speaking. The zipped Toast archive isn't so difficult. If you don't have Toast, you can unzip any of those Mac_Tech_Seeds or Apple Dev CD's from the Mac Garden on any OS. Then rename the suffix .toast to .iso (as that's what they really are), then use your fave burning tool to burn the .iso to a CD blank. If unzipped inside of a classic Mac system, that Mac Seed toast image desktop mounts OK as is, using the Virtual CD/DVD Utility (also available from the Mac Garden).
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Bolkonskij
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Administrator 1024 MB Posts: 2023
Reply #13 on: October 20, 2022, 08:41
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@ovalking - kudos for trying it out on a real Mac! Thanks for reporting your experience, this seems like alpha quality software then, at best. I still wonder if there's any Control Panels or Extensions to "salvage" from it for backporting to 7.6.
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ovalking
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128 MB Posts: 199
Reply #14 on: October 20, 2022, 15:44
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MTT - yes understood. I eventually resolved using Zipit and Virtual CD/DVD Utility. I don't ordinarily burn CDs, so not geared up for such. IMO the file format should be compatible with standard system software (like Disk Copy or Stuffit) and not require 3rd party solutions. Alternatively, a self-extracting archive would be even better! Bolkonskij - The file 'Tempo a2c5:Documentation/Interfaces/Libs:Tempo a2c5 Versions' on that Tech Seed image gives a full list of files and versions to browse through. It's a bit big to post here. Nothing much caught my eye, except the extension TSMTE 1.5a1. I've never heard of that, and not sure what it does. I'm not sure why it's called Tempo a2c5 as the Get Info boxes all say Tempo a2c4.รน
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