I loved System 7. To me it felt like an advanced, very usable OS that could still be "understood" by the laymen.
Most crashes and bugs originated in so-called Extensions. Bugs could often be fixed by simply moving some Extensions out of the Extension folder and restarting the Mac until the buggy extension was found. Additionally it was possible to restart the Mac with all Extensions turned off by pressing the SHIFT-key on start-up.
Most of the OS could be managed by simply moving files in and out of certain System Folder directories.
This shows a Macintosh Plus running System 7.0.1. The computer could actually run versions up to 7.5.5 – an OS that came out in 1996. That’s quite amazing, given the Plus was released in 1986. Try running Windows 8 or OS X Mavericks on a 10 year old computer.
Well, Mavericks, fine. But I'm able to run Windows 8 on my old as hell Toshiba laptop, and it's blazing fast. I have completely regained my respect for Microsoft's engineers after Windows 8. They've proven, time and time again, that with the right management, they're able to produce stunning work.
You run Windows 8 on a 10 year old notebook?
According to Microsoft, you need a CPU with NX, which weren’t around until 2005, and you’d need a at least Pentium 4 (Prescott). Other system requirements are 1Ghz clock rate and 2GB RAM.
This shows a Macintosh Plus running System 7.0.1. The computer could actually run versions up to 7.5.5 – an OS that came out in 1996. That’s quite amazing, given the Plus was released in 1986. Try running Windows 8 or OS X Mavericks on a 10 year old computer.
That's insane to me. While people were using Win95 in 1996, full color, 3D games (Duke Nukem 3D), etc Macs were still in the dark ages with 7.5 and 8. This was around the time I was in college. I went to a big ugly state school and a close friend went to a fancy private school. In my school, we only had PCs available for general student use. At his school, it was Mac-only with everyone got their own Mac in their dorm…
Sounds like you're talking about old hardware though. I grew up in a Mac household and used Macs in school. We had a 128k in the 80s, but moved to the IIsi, IIci, Performa 520, PowerBooks, and PowerMacs, using various LCs in school. The PowerBooks were always black-and-white in the 68k days due to the state of LCDs at the time, but everything else I used from the 1990 IIsi on was in full color.
Well, Mavericks, fine. But I'm able to run Windows 8 on my old as hell Toshiba laptop, and it's blazing fast. I have completely regained my respect for Microsoft's engineers after Windows 8. They've proven, time and time again, that with the right management, they're able to produce stunning work.
You run Windows 8 on a 10 year old notebook? According to Microsoft, you need a CPU with NX, which weren’t around until 2005, and you’d need a at least Pentium 4 (Prescott). Other system requirements are 1Ghz clock rate and 2GB RAM.
Windows 8 runs fine on a ThinkPad X41 Tablet from 2005. That's not 10 years, but it's pretty close. It has a Pentium M and 512 MiB of RAM. The only real issue is that you need to use the generic Microsoft video driver, which isn't quite acceptable for the video playback performance we're used to today (though it does support Aero). For all the other basics, it works great.
That's insane to me. While people were using Win95 in 1996, full color, 3D games (Duke Nukem 3D), etc Macs were still in the dark ages with 7.5 and 8. This was around the time I was in college. I went to a big ugly state school and a close friend went to a fancy private school. In my school, we only had PCs available for general student use. At his school, it was Mac-only with everyone got their own Mac in their dorm…
Contrary to what you seem to be suggesting, in 1996 Macs ran full color 3D games, could use large screens, and they were known for its graphics – remember that MYST was made on Macs. System 7.5 was a great OS, it just didn’t have the modern features that Win95 had (protected memory, preemptive multitasking.) Also, let’s not forget that before the release of Windows95, the Mac’s OS was way more advanced. We’re talking…
I don't believe that Windows 95 have protected memory or preemptive multitasking. That came in with the NT versions of Windows. I switched to Windows in 97 when NT 4 came out. The Mac OS was definitely lagging behind NT around that time period.
Hi, I hacked this together, though most of the credit should go to Hampa Hug's very nice emulator[0]. I'm posting this now as I saw the neat Windows emulator project and figured today was a good day to talk about emulation :) My reasoning for putting this together is that I think it's really important for people to learn from what's come before, and the web is the most accessible place to do that. I've written a post…
Awesome. I'd really love to see a JS alpha emulator so we can run OpenGenera in the browser.
That's insane to me. While people were using Win95 in 1996, full color, 3D games (Duke Nukem 3D), etc Macs were still in the dark ages with 7.5 and 8. This was around the time I was in college. I went to a big ugly state school and a close friend went to a fancy private school. In my school, we only had PCs available for general student use. At his school, it was Mac-only with everyone got their own Mac in their dorm…
Contrary to what you seem to be suggesting, in 1996 Macs ran full color 3D games, could use large screens, and they were known for its graphics – remember that MYST was made on Macs. System 7.5 was a great OS, it just didn’t have the modern features that Win95 had (protected memory, preemptive multitasking.) Also, let’s not forget that before the release of Windows95, the Mac’s OS was way more advanced. We’re talking…
>We’re talking about a rough patch of 3 years.
Which is an eternity in the computer game.
Also, we're ignoring the price difference. A PC that could play Duke Nuke'em in 1996 cost less than the Mac you'd need for same performance.
Anyone knows of any Lisp Machine emulator anywhere? The later generation ones with high res graphics and stuff preferably. That's an experience I'd like to try...
There are several but none of them will run in a browser.
I've tried to get an Alpha Emulator working on OS X so I can try OpenGenera, but there really isn't anything that really works out there except for one paid piece of software. I believe the freeware emulator was the origin of the paid one and the freeware one is no longer maintained AFAICT.