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Shameless Plug - My Mac OS 7 Web Site

dpaanlka

dpaanlka

macrumors 601
Original poster
Nov 16, 2004
4,869
34
Illinois
Here I am to shamelessly plug my Mac OS 7 website, System 7 Today, which I believe may already be the best resource for using Mac OS 7 today...

Have most available updates there, plus stuff you might never have thought of, like Internet Explorer 5 for Mac OS 7, Orinoco Wireless drivers, etc...

Forums too! (finally one dedicated to Mac OS 7)

Tell me what you think!
 
lilstewart92 said:
Nice site! :)

What's the old Apple font that you used?
Click to expand...

It's the official old Apple Garamond font. I have it on a developer CD from way back in the olden days. Perhaps 1993-ish. Pretty sweet looking isn't it. I hope nobody cares.
 
dops7107 said:
Nice. Got any screenshots of System 7? Might help purely for nostalgic reasons. I wanna see some action!
Click to expand...

Yup, there's plenty on my site. But for you, I'll post some here:

Here is Internet Explorer 5:

ie5.jpg


Dreamweaver 2:

dreamweaver.jpg


Standard Desktop View (with Desktop Picture):

desktoppictures.jpg


That should be enough to spark interest in your own possible Mac OS 7 adventures!
 
Notice on that third screen shot, there is a WaveLAN/IEEE card on my desktop. Mac OS 7 is fully 802.11b compliant (with a WaveLAN/Orinoco based card). Huzza!
 
Nice resource.

I might suggest for the software pages, to list the links for the other types of software along the bottom with the "Home" link so your visitors don't have to keep pressing "back" on their browsers
 
joker2 said:
Nice resource.

I might suggest for the software pages, to list the links for the other types of software along the bottom with the "Home" link so your visitors don't have to keep pressing "back" on their browsers
Click to expand...

Good idea, I just might do that.
 
Is that font downloadable? The one off your dev cd? and nice site, it's awesome to look at.
 
Wow, that brings back memories...
My very first computer shipped with System 7, a Performa 450 that I bought on credit from the local furniture store. Where do you find software for System 7 these days?
 
dpaanlka said:
Notice on that third screen shot, there is a WaveLAN/IEEE card on my desktop. Mac OS 7 is fully 802.11b compliant (with a WaveLAN/Orinoco based card). Huzza!
Click to expand...

Kudos. Now if you can somehow give it protected memory, I might switch back. I really didn't enjoy hourly crashes.
 
pseudobrit said:
Kudos. Now if you can somehow give it protected memory, I might switch back. I really didn't enjoy hourly crashes.
Click to expand...

Then you must be missing the point of my site. It's not saying replace OS X with OS 7 (which you can't do anyway since no machine that can run OS 7 can "officially" run OS X).

Since no version of the classic Mac OS featured protected memory, then you should try using Mac OS 7 on your older pre-G3 Macs instead of say OS 8.6 or 9.1 and see how you like it.
 
Great site. I've recently been trying to use System 7 again for fun and maybe a productive tool. I still have many of my old programs and games. However I am using 7.5.5 right now I think my 7.6 CD is at my parents house I will have to have them ship it to me. I do have a couple of questions.

1. Where can I find System 7 compliant icons?
2. How do I set a desktop picture? I can't remember how it is done in 7.1 and 7.5.
3. My 7.6 CD came with a Performa either 6218CD or 6400/180. Will it work on a Quadra 650?
 
velocityg4 said:
1. Where can I find System 7 compliant icons?
2. How do I set a desktop picture? I can't remember how it is done in 7.1 and 7.5.
3. My 7.6 CD came with a Performa either 6218CD or 6400/180. Will it work on a Quadra 650?
Click to expand...

1: I have a floppy disk set of System 7 icons. I'm not sure I really understand your question. Maybe I'll stuff them and put them on my site as a goodie.

2: You can't by default. Go to my site -> software -> graphics and download "DeskPict" - this will give you desktop pictures in any version of System 7.

3: It might not, but then again it might. "Performa" versions of original install/restore CDs tend not to work, while "Power Mac" ones seem to work more often.
 
dpaanlka said:
Since no version of the classic Mac OS featured protected memory, then you should try using Mac OS 7 on your older pre-G3 Macs instead of say OS 8.6 or 9.1 and see how you like it.
Click to expand...
Mac OS 8 introduced partial memory protection which could be extended beyond the normal system's abilities using Macsbug. The same can be done in System 7, but not to the same degree.

I have a ton of experience with System 7, but the only time I venture back into a System 7 environment on any of my Pre-G3 systems is when I'm working with A/UX (which uses System 7.0.1 for it's Mac environment). Otherwise it just isn't the environment for me.

That having been said, I salute you and your efforts. I can totally understand the passion of a task such as this as I started something similar for Rhapsody back in 2001 (started as a couple pages on my main site and later because it's own stand alone site) which I still spend a ton of time on today.

One comment... why the limiting of the site to 7.6.1? Why not explore all versions and aspects of System 7? And provide ways to make any version shine. I couldn't imagine limiting my site to just the very last version of Rhapsody Apple released (Rhapsody 5.6, which is what I use the most). As a site on Rhapsody I felt compelled to cover all the versions, I was just wondering why you wouldn't feel the same way about System 7?

Another example of looking at all versions of a given Apple operating system is this page on A/UX.

I noticed that the manuals page seemed a little sparse... this might be a helpful source for you in that area.

On the software side of things, this is a nice place for games for System 7.


:rolleyes:

Never thought of doing a Shameless Plug for my own sites... I figured having them in my signature was being pushy enough. ;)
 
Even back then, the Apple OS looked stunning!

dpaanlka said:
desktoppictures.jpg


That should be enough to spark interest in your own possible Mac OS 7 adventures!
Click to expand...

It looks better than ANY win32 machine i've EVER used!

Great work on the site - :)

F
 
aquajet said:
Not to be a prick or anything, but it's System 7, not Mac OS 7.
Click to expand...
Unless you are talking about 7.6.x... which was the first version of the Mac system software to use the term Mac OS.


A good example of this is on Apple's sites... just look at the directory names in this section of their downloads site.

The reason for changing from System to Mac OS was because of the clones.
 
RacerX said:
One comment... why the limiting of the site to 7.6.1? Why not explore all versions and aspects of System 7? And provide ways to make any version shine.
Click to expand...

Hmm... we'll I've been asked this alot. I think the best explanation is that, because all versions of System / Mac OS 7 7.5.5 and below are free, there are already a ton of sites out there that have plenty of info about those.

Few people today (in 2006) who have older Macs, and are using System 7, are using 7.6.1. If 7.5.5 is free from Apple, why pay $5 for 7.6.1 on eBay?

One point I'm trying to emphasize is that if you use 7.6.1 you can have a somewhat more modern computing experience than with 7.5.5... which is true. I personally believe that if anyone is using any version of System 7 on any PowerPC Mac, they should upgrade to Mac OS 7.6.1.

Basically, I'm arguing that the ideal "sweet spot" os wise on older PowerPC Macs is 7.6.1. 8.5 and higher are too slow, 8.1 doesn't really add anything stupendous over what can be accomplished in 7.6.1*, and 7.5.5 and below are a bit too old.j

*People like to point out desktop pictures, multitasking finder, and faster 68k emulation, but all of this can be added to Mac OS 7.6.1 with software you can find on my site.
 
dpaanlka said:
Basically, I'm arguing that the ideal "sweet spot" os wise on older PowerPC Macs is 7.6.1. 8.5 and higher are too slow, 8.1 doesn't really add anything stupendous over what can be accomplished in 7.6.1*, and 7.5.5 and below are a bit too old.j

*People like to point out desktop pictures, multitasking finder, and faster 68k emulation, but all of this can be added to Mac OS 7.6.1 with software you can find on my site.
Click to expand...
Well, the reason I advocate Mac OS 8.5-8.6 on those systems is that Mac OS 8.5 was the first version of the Mac OS to drop significant amounts of 680x0 code. Even in 7.6.1 you are using an OS that is largely running in emulation on PowerPC systems. After Mac OS 8.6 the classic OS starts eating up vast amounts of system resources without really adding to the user experience (at least from my perspective).

And it wasn't just a multitasking Finder that was added in Mac OS 8, the OS was given elements from the Copland project like partial protective memory and system wide cooperative multitasking. This put more of a burden on older 68040 based systems, but was (in my opinion) worth it (I've run Mac OS 8.1 on pretty much all my 68040 systems other than my Quadra 700 which has A/UX 3.0.1 on it).

I don't know about you, but the type of "sweet spot" your talking about strikes me as sort of sour. Any PowerPC system with at least 16 MB of RAM should be a perfect candidate for Mac OS 8.5.1. And as was discussed in another thread, if we are talking about PowerPC 603/603e systems without any additional cache... then it would be imperative to avoid running emulated code, specially within the operating system.


That is not to say that I don't think that there are good reasons to run Mac OS 7.6.1... I'm just not sure I would have any good reasons to do it. I'm running Mac OS 8.6 on many of my older PowerPC Macs (PowerBook Duo 2300c/100, PowerBook 3400c/200, Power Macintosh 8100av upgraded to a G3/500) that aren't running Rhapsody (Power Macintosh 8600/300 and Power Macintosh 7500 upgraded to a PowerPC 604e/210)... and even on the 8600 I'm running Mac OS 8.6 in a way (8.6 is the OS in Blue Box). The only systems I have with System 7 on them are 68030 based.
 
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