Low End Mac Reader Specials

TypeStyler For Mac OS X is Now Shipping! Download The Free Fully Functional 60 Day Tryout at www.typestyler.com

OWC: Get the Right Memory / Ram for your Mac. Top Quality, Competitive Prices, Lifetime Warranty. Expert Support and Video Installation Guidies too! 4.0GB Matched Sets from $87.99, Options up to 32GB. Click here

Poker Mac Don't install Parallels to play poker online! Poker Mac will show you how to download and install a native Mac poker application such as Full Tilt Poker Mac.

Laptop Hardware Provided by TechRestore - Overnight Mac & iPod Repairs.

Compare products like desktop computers, apple laptops, apple macs, and LCD Monitors side by side! All the information and reviews to make the best purchasing decision for new mobile phones, sat nav systems, or MP3 players. The Ciao online shopping community makes searching products easy for you.

That Old Mac Magic

System 7.6.1 Is Perfect for Many Older Macs

- 2006.03.24

Shortly after I wrote my first article for Low End Mac (Macs, Computers with Panache), I received an email from a fellow old Mac lover. It seems we are both the proud owners of souped-up PowerBook 1400s. I'll admit that his is a bit more souped up than mine, but mine works for me and his works for him.

That's one of the tenets of "old Mac magic" - it's old, but old is cool when it still works so well.

This is true not only of my trusty 1400 (which I'm writing this article on ), but also of a certain operating system that we all know as System 7. My fellow 1400 user, a 20-year-old wild and crazy college student from Illinois named Dan Palka, has spent considerable time using and advocating for System 7. After hearing from him and checking out his website, System 7 Today, I decided to find out a little more about him and why he's such a big fan of System 7.

Dan got started with Macs early on - a school lab full of 7200s and a $30 IIsi setup that he bought from a friend in high school did the trick. He fondly remembers installing all 19 floppies worth of System 7.5.3 on his IIsi.

Despite owning a few top-end Macs in the past few years, he still keeps a stable of older Macs in very useful service. In addition to his hot-rodded G4 tower, he still uses the aforementioned 1400 everyday, along with a Power Mac 8600 and an indigo iMac G3/350.

Why Use System 7.6.1?

Dan uses System 7.6.1 on his PowerBook 1400, his workhorse Mac for schoolwork. For him there is no better choice of operating system. "It runs very fast on older hardware. It takes up less RAM and hard drive space," he says of System 7.

Dan finds that Speed Doubler 8 (available for download on his website) is an essential tool for squeezing speed out of System 7 on older hardware. In his experience, it levels the playing field between System 7 and OS 8 or OS 9. "Either way," Dan says, "System 7 still feels faster than 8.6 and 9." And that feeling of speed is critical for users of older Macs.

But, can you actually do anything with that faster-feeling Mac?

Dan's answer is an emphatic, "Yes!"

"Basic tasks haven't changed," Dan says, "Office 98 still opens documents created with the latest versions of Office for both PC and Mac, Opera 5 displays information on most websites presentably, AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) still connects perfectly to the current AIM network."

The Proxim Orinoco Gold card that he uses with his PowerBook 1400 for wireless networking also plays very nicely with System 7.

"System 7 is surprisingly very, very useful," Dan says, "I'm not making an ridiculous claims, like System 7 can replace OS X, but I do find it to be a perfect compliment if you have some older hardware lying around that you thought was 'too slow'."

System 7 Today

Dan has spent a good amount of time creating a website to help those of us with older hardware make the most of it by using System 7.x. "Users will be able to find a wealth of information, software downloads, and how-to-guides all on one site, so they can easily set up an up-to-date and workable System 7 machine," Dan says.

And that's the key, isn't it? Getting things done?

Using old Macs isn't just an exercise in being countercultural or being different for the sake of being different. As I've alluded to in previous columns, things like personal taste, simplicity, efficiency, and, lest we forget, frugality are big parts of why someone decides to keep an old Mac running.

However, in the absence of manufacturer support, the only way to keep an old Mac viable is to do things with them and then let others know what you did, how you did it, and how easy it was to do. That is why sites like Low End Mac and Dan Palka's System 7 Today. Be sure to visit System 7 Today and say hello. LEM

Link: System 7 Today

Recent That Old Mac Magic articles

Links for the Day

Recent Content on Low End Mac

Recent Deals

About LEM | Support | Usage | Privacy | Contacts

That Old Mac Magic articles copyright ©2005-06 by John Martorana. Entire Low End Mac website copyright ©1997-2009 by Cobweb Publishing, Inc., unless otherwise noted. All rights reserved. Advice presented in good faith, but what works for one may not work for all. Please report errors to .
  LINKS: We allow and encourage links to any public page as long as the linked page does not appear within a frame that prevents bookmarking it.
  Access our RSS news feed at http://lowendmac.com/feed.xml.
  Email may be published at our discretion; email addresses will not be published without permission, and we will encrypt them in hopes of avoiding spammers. If you prefer your message not be published, mark it "not for publication." Letters may be edited for length, context, and to match house style.
  PRIVACY: We don't collect personal information unless you explicitly provide it. For more details, see our Terms of Use.
  Low End Mac is an independent publication and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Apple Inc. Apple, the Apple logo, Macintosh, iBook, iMac, eMac, iPod, iPhone, PowerBook, MacBook, MagSafe, Mac Pro, Apple TV, and AirPort are registered trademarks of Apple Inc. Additional company and product names may be trademarks or registered trademarks and are hereby acknowledged.

Custom Search

Amazon.com

Navigation

Used Mac Dealers
Apple History
Video Cards
Email Lists

Favorite Sites

MacSurfer
MacMinute
MacInTouch
MyAppleMenu
InfoMac
Macs Only!
The Mac Observer
Accelerate Your Mac
RetroMacCast
PB Central
MacWindows
The Vintage Mac
   Museum
DealMac
DealsOnTheWeb
Mac2Sell
ramseeker
Mac Driver Museum
JAG's House
System 6 Heaven
System 7 Today
the pickle's Low-End
   Mac FAQ
Abandonware
   Petition
Mac vs. PC Info

Affiliates

The Apple Store
Mac Connection
B&H
MacMall
TechRestore
ExperCom
Crucial Memory
batteries.com

Advertise

All of our advertising is handled by BackBeat Media. For price quotes and advertising information, please contact at BackBeat Media (646-546-5194). This number is for advertising only.

Open Link

Problems viewing this page with Internet Explorer 5.5 or 6? It works fine in other browsers, including IE 7. We recommend Firefox for those using Windows, as it is standards based and more secure than IE 6 (and earlier). More LEM visitors use Firefox than any other browser.