On Sunday, June 16, 2002, at 12:52 PM, Jim Witte wrote:
> I've got a 400MHz iMac DV+ with 640 MB RAM, and 10.1.3 is okay. I had
> 10.1.5 installed yesterday (before I reinstalled) and it seemed a little
> slower (read probably more memory hungry). <sigh> I can *just barely*
> remember when the MacOS would fit on an 400K disk - with applications
> too! I can clearly remember when System 6 or 7 would only report system
> memory usage of under 6MB, and the system folder was under 70 MB.. I
> guess those days are just gone.. The NeXT cube only had 68030
> processors for God's sake, and under 64MB of RAM. How did we get from
> that (which was a snappy GUI as I recall) to this monstrosity that's
> MacOS X?
Eh? I've got a 250Mhz PowerBook G3 "Wallstreet", built in 1998, with
256MB of RAM, and it runs OS X just fine. Note that these are both
SIGNIFICANTLY less powerful than what you have. Other than window resize
being a bit pokey (I'm told it's pokey on current hardware too), I'm
quite happy with it. And I haven't even tried to optimize it much yet.
I rarely use a Classic app anymore, in fact, but it's nice to be able to
if I need to.
Not bad for a 4 year old machine with 1/4 the speed of currently sold
equipment! Most of my existing hardware works already. A few things don'
t, but as Apple upgrades OS X, they are ALSO adding support for older
machines and older hardware. And if they aren't others are, via Linux or
Unix drivers already available. My USB and FireWire PCMCIA adapter cards
are supported DIRECTLY by OS X. No extra drivers needed. So is my CF
card PCMCIA adapter. I'm running WiFi via a WaveLAN Silver card and will
shortly be running my drive-bay floppy drive via drivers created from
Linux source code by third parties. Ah, MacOS X. All the benefits of
Linux and Open Source, and it's a Mac too. The DEVELOPERS are loving it,
and that's vitally important in the long run. I've never been a big fan
of Unix, but I can see the advantages it brings.
No way you could do the kind of things we take for granted to day with the
old hardware you mention (believe me....I've tried. I have a boatload of
old 68K and early PowerPC Macs in my basement.) Running OS8 or 9 on a
PowerPC Duo is dog slow by comparison to OS X on my 4 year old Mac.
- Bill
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