Mac OS upgrades for old macs

Neutron · Post by **Neutron** » Wed Nov 13, 2002 11:12 pm

So i got an old mac 9600 from someone for free. I am going to put my OASYS card in there once i have made some modifications to silece the beast. this will allow me to finally upgrade my creamware machine from winME to XP. (and i can make OASYS synths as well with a mac)

anyways any mac people here know what i have to do to get mac OS 9.1? it is the last one that will work on this machine. right now it has 7.6 something.

Aplles web site is extremely unhelpful. you can not even buy OS9 from them. let alone upgrade across major version numbers with downloadable updates.

it is quite frustrating. does anyone know what i should do?

samplaire · Post by **samplaire** » Thu Nov 14, 2002 4:06 am

I've got 9600, too. I run 8.6 on it. I'll try my best to answer your question. Just wait a moment. . . . . . . . . . . .

_________________
Sir SamPlaire

[ This Message was edited by: samplaire on 2002-11-14 04:06 ]

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Thu Nov 14, 2002 6:18 am

Neutron, stick with the lowest OS version your software or installed devices allow. Performance only decreases whith increasing numbers and there's no real difference of operation between Mac OS 7-9.
Feel free to pm me if you need a version on disk.

cheers, Tom

samplaire · Post by **samplaire** » Thu Nov 14, 2002 6:24 am

Try OS 9 helper found at: http://www.versiontracker.com/moreinfo. ... 906&db=mac . I'm also curious if it works. I can't try it now because at work we have QuickSilver G4s only.

samplaire · Post by **samplaire** » Thu Nov 14, 2002 6:28 am

On 2002-11-14 06:18, astroman wrote:
Neutron, stick with the lowest OS version your software or installed devices allow. Performance only decreases whith increasing numbers and there's no real difference of operation between Mac OS 7-9.

I don't agree with you - OS 8-9 is multitask while 7.x is not... Besides - 9600 is a quite fast computer to manage 9.x and the Oasys drivers require 9.1 I'm afraid...

astroman · Post by **astroman** » Thu Nov 14, 2002 8:51 am

On 2002-11-14 06:28, samplaire wrote:
OS 8-9 is multitask while 7.x is not... and the Oasys drivers require 9.1 I'm afraid...

It's really 8.5.1 that's required

http://www.korg.com/oasys_pci_faq_html/ ... ements.htm

That rule of thumb holds nevertheless, all past 8 versions of Apple's OS are huge patchworks with no real improvements - unless you have a machine that requires it to boot.
Mac OS was never 'multitasking' in a serious way as a lot of system stuff frequently acclaims all priority - and Mac programming means calling system stuff for 75% of the time.
The 'no improvements...' statement may be misleading. There's a lot of networking stuff, USB support, accelerated graphic and the CarbonLib stuff for future software and a lot of M$ crap etc included.
But most of that doesn't affect you if you're using the machine for a specific app, like audio or publishing.
A PM 9600 running QuarkXPress 3 under system 7 will do it's job today as it did some years ago. But it wouldn't run IE 5.x or outlook.

cheers, Tom

[ This Message was edited by: astroman on 2002-11-14 09:07 ]

samplaire · Post by **samplaire** » Thu Nov 14, 2002 9:14 am

Now I agree with you (about multitasking etc.). With one modification, though (

) - 8.6 is the answer!

I've got a USB printer (now connected to my PC) - the drivers take about 75% of CPU ticks (while the printer isn't even connected!!!).

My opinion: 8.6. In my experience I found it's the most stabile system since 7.6.1!

_________________
Sir SamPlaire

[ This Message was edited by: samplaire on 2002-11-14 09:17 ]

Neutron · Post by **Neutron** » Fri Nov 29, 2002 11:15 pm

well i managed to get 9.0 and upgrade it. and lucky i found a cheap IDE card that works (the SCSI was NOISY!) its just a box to put my OASYS in while i upgrade my pulsar/scope to a new XP machine

Neutron · Post by **Neutron** » Wed Dec 04, 2002 1:31 pm

bah the 9.0 disk i got will not work..argh. its made for g4s i think.

wouldnt it be even harder to find an OS 8 disc than an os 9 one?

9 booted up fast enough when it booted up from CD. it just wont let me run anything.

[ This Message was edited by: Neutron on 2002-12-04 13:33 ]

samplaire · Post by **samplaire** » Wed Dec 04, 2002 6:37 pm

On my 9600 I installed OS 8.0 first (from the 9600's original cd) then I tried to install 8.1 from G3 install disk - unsuccesfuly. Then I found a 8.6 cd and it worked! I tried to install 9.0 from my G4's install disk - unsuccesfuly, too.

You have to ask such question on the official Apple site (forum) or try to find a Mac geek on e-bay - I belive there are many of them trading old Macs and knowing much about OSes and about installing them. If not on e-bay then there are many Mac sites like http://www.atpm.com/links/ to find more info

If you are not forced to use OS 9 then use 8.6 - it's more stabile in my opinion (and not only mine)

[ This Message was edited by: samplaire on 2002-12-04 18:38 ]