From Newsgroup: uk.comp.sys.mac

I see from MacWorld that today is the 35th anniversary of the release of
System 7. MacWorld says
"35 years ago, the Mac got an era-defining upgrade
System 7 is mostly forgotten today, but we're all still using many of its innovations".

Maybe, but I remember it well. I had been using Macs since 1985, and System 7 was a massive leap forward. Back in those days I was a power user and (sort
of) understood what went on "under the hood". That all went with the demise of the Classic OS.

Life was simpler in those days.
--
God made the integers. All else is the work of man.
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From Newsgroup: uk.comp.sys.mac

On 2026-05-14, Old John <watcombeman@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

I see from MacWorld that today is the 35th anniversary of the release of System 7. MacWorld says
"35 years ago, the Mac got an era-defining upgrade
System 7 is mostly forgotten today, but we're all still using many of its innovations".

Maybe, but I remember it well. I had been using Macs since 1985, and System 7 was a massive leap forward. Back in those days I was a power user and (sort of) understood what went on "under the hood". That all went with the demise of
the Classic OS.

I can't go back that far. I first used a Mac in 1994 - Performa 475
with a Motorola 68LC040 within, 4MB RAM, 80MB (I think?) Hard Drive,
Floppy Superdrive and SCSI port. A big improvement on the BBC B and
Atari STe I was still using when it was purchased.

Life was simpler in those days.

Undoubtedly :)
--
Cheers, Alan
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From Newsgroup: uk.comp.sys.mac

On 14 May 2026 at 5:28:57rC>pm BST, "Old John" <watcombeman@yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

I see from MacWorld that today is the 35th anniversary of the release of System 7. MacWorld says
"35 years ago, the Mac got an era-defining upgrade
System 7 is mostly forgotten today, but we're all still using many of its innovations".

Maybe, but I remember it well. I had been using Macs since 1985, and System 7 was a massive leap forward. Back in those days I was a power user and (sort of) understood what went on "under the hood". That all went with the demise of
the Classic OS.

Life was simpler in those days.

My first Mac must have been just after the System 7 intro - 1992 I think.
7.0.1 maybe?

Yes, it was elegant and so well thought-through. Easy to forget how the whole thing would occasionally freeze unrecoverably, of course :)

Oh, and definitely not OT!
--
TimH
pull tooth to reply by email
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From Newsgroup: uk.comp.sys.mac

On 14/05/2026 17:28, Old John wrote:

I see from MacWorld that today is the 35th anniversary of the release of System 7. MacWorld says
"35 years ago, the Mac got an era-defining upgrade
System 7 is mostly forgotten today, but we're all still using many of its innovations".

Maybe, but I remember it well. I had been using Macs since 1985, and System 7 was a massive leap forward. Back in those days I was a power user and (sort of) understood what went on "under the hood". That all went with the demise of
the Classic OS.

Life was simpler in those days.

Not when you had to constantly restart and re-install everything. I know that OS x was glacially slow on release but worth it for the stability.
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: uk.comp.sys.mac

In article <n6mhehFfarrU1@mid.individual.net>,
TimH <thnews@poboxmolar.com.invalid> wrote:

Yes, it was elegant and so well thought-through. Easy to forget how
the whole thing would occasionally freeze unrecoverably, of course :)

I didn't use a Mac until they ran unix, but I shared an office with
somewone who did, and I remember the regular BONGs as it rebooted.

And the wobbling of my screen as his, 5 or 6 feet away, degaussed
itself.

-- Richard
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From Newsgroup: uk.comp.sys.mac

On 14 May 2026 at 20:18:28 GMT+1, "David Kennedy" <davidkennedygm@gmail.com> wrote:

On 14/05/2026 17:28, Old John wrote:

I see from MacWorld that today is the 35th anniversary of the release of
System 7. MacWorld says
"35 years ago, the Mac got an era-defining upgrade
System 7 is mostly forgotten today, but we're all still using many of its
innovations".

Maybe, but I remember it well. I had been using Macs since 1985, and System 7
was a massive leap forward. Back in those days I was a power user and (sort >> of) understood what went on "under the hood". That all went with the demise of
the Classic OS.

Life was simpler in those days.

Not when you had to constantly restart and re-install everything. I know that OS x was glacially slow on release but worth it for the stability.

I had to borrow dozens of floppies from a work colleague once when mine
crashed and wouldn't restart. Macs in those days did not usually come with any recovery disks - fortunately my colleagie who owned a similar Mac model
running 7.5 had backed up his system to floppies.
--
Cheers, Alan
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: uk.comp.sys.mac

On 14 May 2026, Old John wrote
(in article <10u4t89$hch3$1@dont-email.me>):

I see from MacWorld that today is the 35th anniversary of the release of System 7. MacWorld says
"35 years ago, the Mac got an era-defining upgrade
System 7 is mostly forgotten today, but we're all still using many of its innovations".

Maybe, but I remember it well. I had been using Macs since 1985, and System 7 was a massive leap forward. Back in those days I was a power user and (sort of) understood what went on "under the hood". That all went with the demise of
the Classic OS.

Life was simpler in those days.

Which roughly means IrCOve been using Macs for 35 years then. I bought an original LC which came with 6.0.8 but very swiftly upgraded to 7. Well, I -used- a Mac in around 1985 or 6 I think at school, much to the suspicion of one teacher I remember, but my own path was Spectrum -> C64 -> Atari ST -> Mac LC.

Must admit I then went the PC path when Doom and Win95 was around. DidnrCOt come back to owning my own Macs until OS X, but I worked with them for quite
a while too. Classic System 8 and 9 have no nostalgia for me because I didnrCOt really use them, but Systems 6 and 7 were definitely my era. And
then there was 7.5 - rCLthe shareware editionrCY we used to call it, as so many bits of shareware like Stickies and alt-tab etc. got added to it.

For my PC route post-LC it was Windows 95 -> 98 -> NT4 then everyonerCOs normal 2000, XP, 7...we do not speak of 8...then 10. IrCOve never really used 11, though I have an install on a dual-boot. Because in parallel to the Windows world there was also Linux-before-it-was-a-distro, Slackware 0.9a,
Red Hat something or other, Corel Linux, Debian...now Bazzite, Debian on a cloud image server and a Synology NAS with both its own Linux and a Debian docker image.

I donrCOt see myself easily.moving off the Mac, though ApplerCOs subscription pushing stuff is grating. Must admit am enjoying the return to simplicity of the KDE environment - not that KDE itself is any more simple, just that it nicely stays out of the way. The apps donrCOt have the same level of sophistication, syncing and phone integration etc., plus the Mac laptop hardware currently blows away the PC universe. Happy with my Mac for work, Bazzite for play setup right now. Win11 I keep around in case of some odd firmware updating requirement, but thererCOs less and less of that and I havenrCOt booted into it for months.

Ian


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From Newsgroup: uk.comp.sys.mac

On 16/05/2026 00:05, Ian McCall wrote:

On 14 May 2026, Old John wrote
(in article <10u4t89$hch3$1@dont-email.me>):

I see from MacWorld that today is the 35th anniversary of the release of
System 7. MacWorld says
"35 years ago, the Mac got an era-defining upgrade
System 7 is mostly forgotten today, but we're all still using many of its
innovations".

Maybe, but I remember it well. I had been using Macs since 1985, and System 7
was a massive leap forward. Back in those days I was a power user and (sort >> of) understood what went on "under the hood". That all went with the demise of
the Classic OS.

Life was simpler in those days.

Which roughly means IrCOve been using Macs for 35 years then. I bought an original LC which came with 6.0.8 but very swiftly upgraded to 7. Well, I -used- a Mac in around 1985 or 6 I think at school, much to the suspicion of one teacher I remember, but my own path was Spectrum -> C64 -> Atari ST -> Mac LC.

I started off with Atari 800XL, Atari STFM, then Mac Performa 5200 in 1994.

Must admit I then went the PC path when Doom and Win95 was around. DidnrCOt come back to owning my own Macs until OS X, but I worked with them for quite a while too. Classic System 8 and 9 have no nostalgia for me because I didnrCOt really use them, but Systems 6 and 7 were definitely my era. And then there was 7.5 - rCLthe shareware editionrCY we used to call it, as so many bits of shareware like Stickies and alt-tab etc. got added to it.

I started with System 7.5 on the Performa. It wasn't the greatest intro
to Macs I think. I remember rebooting all the time, and trying to manage
the memory settings.

ISTR that System 8.1 was the best at that time for stability. It really
could go months without a crash.

For my PC route post-LC it was Windows 95 -> 98 -> NT4 then everyonerCOs normal 2000, XP, 7...we do not speak of 8...then 10. IrCOve never really used 11, though I have an install on a dual-boot. Because in parallel to the Windows world there was also Linux-before-it-was-a-distro, Slackware 0.9a, Red Hat something or other, Corel Linux, Debian...now Bazzite, Debian on a cloud image server and a Synology NAS with both its own Linux and a Debian docker image.

I donrCOt see myself easily.moving off the Mac, though ApplerCOs subscription pushing stuff is grating. Must admit am enjoying the return to simplicity of the KDE environment - not that KDE itself is any more simple, just that it nicely stays out of the way. The apps donrCOt have the same level of sophistication, syncing and phone integration etc., plus the Mac laptop hardware currently blows away the PC universe. Happy with my Mac for work, Bazzite for play setup right now. Win11 I keep around in case of some odd firmware updating requirement, but thererCOs less and less of that and I havenrCOt booted into it for months.

Yeah, I'm kind of stuck with it now for a similar reasons. The Apple One subscription, although a little bit of a burden, is actually quite good
value. I make good use of the 2TB storage, with about half of it used by
my photos, we use Music as a family extensively, and we do watch quite a
few things on TV. News is also reasonably useful, and some magazines I
read occasionally are included. I also use Hide My Email, and all my
stuff is synced across devices.

I have tried to open up options for moving to a different platform
(Linux would be my preference), but in reality nothing else exists that
works so seamlessly across all my devices and apps - even with paid
options in Windows or Android with many privacy and security concerns,
it would be desperation to go with either). Even when I can get near, it
costs just as much, or even more, than just sticking with the One
account. Not to mention the workload of moving a non-destructively
edited photo collection to a new setup.

Of course FOSS is often mentioned, but nothing exists that'll share
65,000 photos across multiple devices, allow family sharing, and allow
me to edit them on any device. And most FOSS software doesn't exist on iOS/ipadOS.
--
Andy H

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From Newsgroup: uk.comp.sys.mac

On 2026-05-16, Andrew Hewitt <thewildrover@icloud.com> wrote:

I started off with Atari 800XL, Atari STFM, then Mac Performa 5200 in 1994.

BBC B and Atari STe in the early 90's as previously mentioned.

I started with System 7.5 on the Performa. It wasn't the greatest intro
to Macs I think. I remember rebooting all the time, and trying to manage
the memory settings.

Ah yes, the crashes! After one such incident, my 1994 Performa 475
would not boot up and it came with no installation disks. Very
fortunately a work colleague had a 475 and had the installation set
of floppies which he kindly lent me. As for memory, it came with 4MB
RAM which I soon upgraded to 12. I had some success with a utility
called RAM Doubler which I think made use of compression techniques
and maybe better use of VM? The HD was a stonking 80MB device (0.08GB).
The 475 had a SCSI port to which I eventually attached a CD-ROM drive.
I still occasionally use a Sys 7.5.5 emulator courtesy of Basilisk II
with MacSOUP 2.4.6.

ISTR that System 8.1 was the best at that time for stability. It really could go months without a crash.

Yes indeed.
--
Cheers, Alan
--- Synchronet 3.22a-Linux NewsLink 1.2

From Newsgroup: uk.comp.sys.mac

On 16/05/2026 08:46, Alan B wrote:

On 2026-05-16, Andrew Hewitt <thewildrover@icloud.com> wrote:

I started off with Atari 800XL, Atari STFM, then Mac Performa 5200 in 1994.

BBC B and Atari STe in the early 90's as previously mentioned.

I started with System 7.5 on the Performa. It wasn't the greatest intro
to Macs I think. I remember rebooting all the time, and trying to manage
the memory settings.

Ah yes, the crashes! After one such incident, my 1994 Performa 475
would not boot up and it came with no installation disks. Very
fortunately a work colleague had a 475 and had the installation set
of floppies which he kindly lent me. As for memory, it came with 4MB
RAM which I soon upgraded to 12. I had some success with a utility
called RAM Doubler which I think made use of compression techniques
and maybe better use of VM? The HD was a stonking 80MB device (0.08GB).
The 475 had a SCSI port to which I eventually attached a CD-ROM drive.
I still occasionally use a Sys 7.5.5 emulator courtesy of Basilisk II
with MacSOUP 2.4.6.

My 5200 had 8MB of RAM, and a 500MB HDD. ISTR I did get the OS CD
installer with it though. It was needed often.

I too had RamDoubler, and some similar apps too - one that improved the toolstrip thing that popped out the bottom of the screen (can't remember
what it was called now).

I also had the original Norton tools, back when they were actually useful.

ISTR that System 8.1 was the best at that time for stability. It really
could go months without a crash.

Yes indeed.

Yeah, but, I got the Indigo iMac after that (the DV400), which came with
OS 9.0.4. That was truly awful on another level, even worse than 7.5.

I was one of those that really liked OSX when it first arrived, it was actually an improvement on 9.0.4 (I never managed to get 9.2, as it was charged for back then, so skipped it).
--
Andy H

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From Newsgroup: uk.comp.sys.mac

On 2026-05-16, Andrew Hewitt <thewildrover@icloud.com> wrote:

On 16/05/2026 08:46, Alan B wrote:

On 2026-05-16, Andrew Hewitt <thewildrover@icloud.com> wrote:

I started off with Atari 800XL, Atari STFM, then Mac Performa 5200 in 1994. >>

BBC B and Atari STe in the early 90's as previously mentioned.

I started with System 7.5 on the Performa. It wasn't the greatest intro
to Macs I think. I remember rebooting all the time, and trying to manage >>> the memory settings.

Ah yes, the crashes! After one such incident, my 1994 Performa 475
would not boot up and it came with no installation disks. Very
fortunately a work colleague had a 475 and had the installation set
of floppies which he kindly lent me. As for memory, it came with 4MB
RAM which I soon upgraded to 12. I had some success with a utility
called RAM Doubler which I think made use of compression techniques
and maybe better use of VM? The HD was a stonking 80MB device (0.08GB).
The 475 had a SCSI port to which I eventually attached a CD-ROM drive.
I still occasionally use a Sys 7.5.5 emulator courtesy of Basilisk II
with MacSOUP 2.4.6.

My 5200 had 8MB of RAM, and a 500MB HDD. ISTR I did get the OS CD
installer with it though. It was needed often.

I too had RamDoubler, and some similar apps too - one that improved the toolstrip thing that popped out the bottom of the screen (can't remember what it was called now).

I also had the original Norton tools, back when they were actually useful.

ISTR that System 8.1 was the best at that time for stability. It really
could go months without a crash.

Yes indeed.

Yeah, but, I got the Indigo iMac after that (the DV400), which came with
OS 9.0.4. That was truly awful on another level, even worse than 7.5.

I was one of those that really liked OSX when it first arrived, it was actually an improvement on 9.0.4 (I never managed to get 9.2, as it was charged for back then, so skipped it).

I moved on to an original PowerPC iMac but although 9.2.2 wasn't so
bad, early OS X ran rather slowly. I've forgotten how much RAM it had
but I ended up installing a Linux distro on it and donated it to a
charity in the early 2000's.
--
Cheers, Alan
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