Is System 7 available for free from Apple?

[dpaanlka]

As previous posters have said, it's not a need many folks have. But based on my experiences with a WallStreet, which can boot both OS X and OS 8.1, I can tell you that you would not do it in one step.

Sure you can. Just backup your important files to a CD, and do a reformat and clean install of OS X.

Old-world Macs don't let you select which "classic" operating systems to use as startup systems, although they give the appearance of giving you that option

Sure they do: http://www.vintagebox.de/download/SystemPicker.sit

All in all, though, most people running 9600s or whatever should probably stick to classic. G3 iMacs and G4 towers are so cheap these days.

 

[ahunter3]

Originally Posted by ahunter3
As previous posters have said, it's not a need many folks have. But based on my experiences with a WallStreet, which can boot both OS X and OS 8.1, I can tell you that you would not do it in one step.

Sure you can. Just backup your important files to a CD, and do a reformat and clean install of OS X.

I was interpreting the question I was answering as "how easy is it to switch back and forth between OS 9 and OS X. What you're describing is the process of ditching OS 9, installing OS X, and never looking back. Different interpretation of question, different answer.

And SystemPicker does not work within OS X to select which of multiple OS 9/8/7 partitions you want to boot from. Or at least did not on my WallStreet. (Might work if you had all of your different OS 9/8/7 systems installed on the same partition, though).

(And, PS, the process you're describing also seems to consist of at least two discrete steps anyhow )

 

[madmax_2069]

I was interpreting the question I was answering as "how easy is it to switch back and forth between OS 9 and OS X. What you're describing is the process of ditching OS 9, installing OS X, and never looking back. Different interpretation of question, different answer.

And SystemPicker does not work within OS X to select which of multiple OS 9/8/7 partitions you want to boot from. Or at least did not on my WallStreet. (Might work if you had all of your different OS 9/8/7 systems installed on the same partition, though).

(And, PS, the process you're describing also seems to consist of at least two discrete steps anyhow )

i just hold option on power up and it loads OS 9.2.2 if i want OS X i power up not holding anything

 

[dpaanlka]

i just hold option on power up and it loads OS 9.2.2 if i want OS X i power up not holding anything

...great but the original question, or discussion rather, was about using OS X and OS 7 on the same disk...

 

[madmax_2069]

i was pointing my post toward ahunter3 with my other post about switching between OS'es. i should have quoted his post but i didnt

i would not see why you cant. when you install OS X it is what takes command to boot up. so you can hold option on power up yo boot on Mac OS, and not hold anything to boot OS X. see you cant have it the ither way, to have Mac OS boot normaly and hold option on power up to boot OS X all it would do is boot OS on both attempts.

but if you have OS X as the main OS that loads on powerup then you should ba able to hold option to switch to the other OS. ive herd that some version of OS X dont play well with having a bootable OS on the same partition. i my self have 3 partition's. one for OS X, one for OS 9.2.2 and one to put app's and downloads on for both system's

 

[ahunter3]

i was pointing my post toward ahunter3 with my other post about switching between OS'es

My post, in turn, was in response to someone asking on the previous page how easy it was to switch from System 7 to MacOS X.

Machines old enough to run System 7 (or even MacOS 8) aren't gonna do diddly squat as a consequence of holding down option at boot time. (As far as I know: doesn't make a bit of difference when booting my WallStreet at any rate). I'm pretty sure that trapping for option or the letter "x" at boot time came along later, with new-world machines. It could be the difference between having both operating systems on the same partition, too (mine were all on separate partitions from each other).

I didn't improve clarity any by speaking of MacOS 9 higher up on this page, sorry about that, I meant (and should have said) System 7.

 

[wmmk]

All in all, though, most people running 9600s or whatever should probably stick to classic. G3 iMacs and G4 towers are so cheap these days.

i've actually seen PM G4's on ebay for 500-900 dollars

 

[dpaanlka]

i've actually seen PM G4's on ebay for 500-900 dollars

Geez I thought they were lower than that! My PM G4 AGP was only $112.

 

[madmax_2069]

my yikes was only $40-$50 from some one on applefritter

my friend has a 6500 running both OS 9.2.2 and OS X he can use the option key to switch between the os'es. no it dont have that icon looking thing to really switch to what OS you want to boot. this is a 2 OS salution only that i know of. my Beige can do it as i say again its not the same as the switcher that the new world Mac's have. this will boot directly into OS 9.2.2 if i hold the option key that is if OS X is the one to normaly boot on power up with no key's held. if OS 9.2.2 or other classic version is the one to boot up normaly with no key's held then it wont work. it must be set to where OS X loads as the primary booting OS. then you should be able to hold option on power up to boot into Mac OS insted of booting into OS X.

 

[wmmk]

Geez I thought they were lower than that! My PM G4 AGP was only $112.

somebody needs to hook me up with a cheap PM G4 then! dang, that'd be nice!

 

[Maxwell Smart]

A quick eBay check finds a 400Mhz Sawtooth at 129.99 shipped, a good basis for upgrades:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=230007312736

Then again, if you scout mac forums you can probably easily find a much better deal other places.

 

[livingfortoday]

Hey everybody, I have one last question. I finally got my old Duo 210 out of the closet and booted it up and everything works great. I wanted to update System 7 (it has 7.1 now) and get some of the great apps suggested here, but I don't know how to get online with it. It has no internal modem, and I don't have a Dock for it yet. Is there an ethernet adapter for the 210 series anywhere? Or is my best bet to find someone else with a Mac with a floppy drive and copy things back and forth that way?

Thanks!

 

[RacerX]

You could get a localtalk to ethernet adapter. While it is slow, you can then connect to other Macs via ethernet and AppleTalk.

That is what I do with my 2300c. I installed most of the software with a dock, but after it was setup I moved the dock back into storage and have been using a localtalk connection for everything else since then.

 

[dpaanlka]

Hey everybody, I have one last question. I finally got my old Duo 210 out of the closet and booted it up and everything works great. I wanted to update System 7 (it has 7.1 now) and get some of the great apps suggested here, but I don't know how to get online with it. It has no internal modem, and I don't have a Dock for it yet. Is there an ethernet adapter for the 210 series anywhere? Or is my best bet to find someone else with a Mac with a floppy drive and copy things back and forth that way?

Thanks!

As much as I love classic Macs (being the webmaster of this site and all)... you're going to be sorely dissapointed in the Internet performance of a Duo 210. Not only does it not have a PowerPC processor, but it doesn't even have a *good* 68k processor (it has a 68030 as opposed to say a 68040).

In fact, not only does it not have a 68040, but it doesn't even have a *good* 68030 (it's only 25mhz as opposed to say 33mhz).

 

[benthewraith]

As much as I love classic Macs (being the webmaster of this site and all)... you're going to be sorely dissapointed in the Internet performance of a Duo 210. Not only does it not have a PowerPC processor, but it doesn't even have a *good* 68k processor (it has a 68030 as opposed to say a 68040).

In fact, not only does it not have a 68040, but it doesn't even have a *good* 68030 (it's only 25mhz as opposed to say 33mhz).

Hey, I'm sure the 68030 any model can outbeat the Pentium I Processor.

 

[livingfortoday]

You could get a localtalk to ethernet adapter. While it is slow, you can then connect to other Macs via ethernet and AppleTalk.

Cool, that sounds like a plan, then. I'll have to check around in case we have anything like that hidden away anywhere then! Thanks.

 

[RacerX]

In fact, not only does it not have a 68040, but it doesn't even have a *good* 68030 (it's only 25mhz as opposed to say 33mhz).

I wouldn't think that a 68030 at 25 MHz would be too limiting. In the same way that Apple used to say that the 280s were like getting a Quadra in a 4 lb laptop, the 210 is like getting a Macintosh IIci in a 4 lb laptop.

The IIci was one of the most sought after Macs and considered quite a powerful system. By comparison the 210 should actually be faster than a IIci (except in certain math tasks as it doesn't have an FPU) because part of the IIci's memory and processor are used for displaying color (640x480 at 8 bit color). The 210 has a smaller task when it comes to what it has to display on screen (640x400 at 4 bit grayscale).

And that system is faster than the system I used from 1991 to 1997 (a Macintosh SE/30) and I was able to do tons of stuff on my system (including page layout, illustrations/drafting and sound editing).

 

[dpaanlka]

Hey, I'm sure the 68030 any model can outbeat the Pentium I Processor.

Your thinking of a 68040. A 68030 definetely would not.

And that system is faster than the system I used from 1991 to 1997 (a Macintosh SE/30) and I was able to do tons of stuff on my system (including page layout, illustrations/drafting and sound editing).

I didn't say it couldn't do page layout, illustrations/drafting and sound editing. It would be perfectly capable of doing all those things, because the software written around that period will still operate exactly the same as it did 13 years ago.

The problem is the internet has changed so much, that it will be pretty much impossible to do web browsing on it. And it's not even a matter of simply displaying pages incorrectly. The browsers that can run on a 25mhz 68030 (Internet Explorer 3, Netscape 3) won't even be able to establish connections to half the pages on the internet, and will run so slowly on the other half that page load times will be measured in tens of minutes, even on fast connections. That's if those browsers don't crash from all the unsupported code they don't know how to handle, which they most certainly will time and time again.

Email is also not an option, as I don't know of a single POP3 email provider these days who does not require SMTP authentication, which no client that can run on that machine is compatible with.

Over at S7T, we have a hard enough time getting IE 5 to work the way we want on early PowerPC machines. Going back to IE 3 on a 68030, well that wouldn't be "geeky cool" - that's just plain silly.

 

[ahunter3]

The browsers that can run on a 25mhz 68030 (Internet Explorer 3, Netscape 3) won't even be able to establish connections to half the pages on the internet

iCab. Much more modern and compatible than the above-two. They were still developing and compiling it for 68K platform until just a couple years ago, astonishingly enough.

and will run so slowly on the other half that page load times will be measured in tens of minutes, even on fast connections

The age of dialup isn't entirely behind us — broadband still isn't accessible everywhere. You should be able to hook up an external 56K modem to that thing. But yeah, lots of sites will be painfully slow.

Email is also not an option, as I don't know of a single POP3 email provider these days who does not require SMTP authentication, which no client that can run on that machine is compatible with.

I had no trouble whatsoever fetching my work email and my personal earthlink email using Eudora 1.5.x on a System 6 original LC.

 

[dpaanlka]

iCab. Much more modern and compatible than the above-two. They were still developing and compiling it for 68K platform until just a couple years ago, astonishingly enough.

iCab is a dog on a 50mhz 68040. I can't imagine what it would be on a 25mhz 68030. The 68k build is also unstable.

The age of dialup isn't entirely behind us — broadband still isn't accessible everywhere. You should be able to hook up an external 56K modem to that thing. But yeah, lots of sites will be painfully slow.

An external 56k modem wouldn't run at full speed, due to severe limitations of the serial printer/modem port on said machine. Your best bet would be to find an internal 14.4 or 19.2 modem made specifically for the Duo.

I had no trouble whatsoever fetching my work email and my personal earthlink email using Eudora 1.5.x on a System 6 original LC.

Try sending some email from that setup today. I would be totally blown away if you somehow managed to bypass Earthlink's need for SMTP authentication.