Thread
Mac II Shortage?
Why would you want to run 7.6 on it? I thought the whole novelty would be running 6 or earlier and getting "wicked wicked wicked" fast speeds from it. 
I have to agree. I run 7.6.1 on some of my machines, but nothing with less than a full 040. I'm not sure I'd stick a fast 030 with System 6, though. The IIfx has the power to go a little further, I think.Why would you want to run 7.6 on it? I thought the whole novelty would be running 6 or earlier and getting "wicked wicked wicked" fast speeds from it.
Nah, I've just never had a thing for running very old OSes that are far below what the machine can take. Also I imagine the IIfx can run 7.6 pretty wicked fast, and even 8.1 if you can be bothered with the hack - I always think of the IIfx as being soooo powerful, that it can do anything really fast, I guess it's just the way that review described it as "wicked fast" and also how much it cost when new. Then again, I think it has been said on here that the '040s smoke them, so maybe they're not as powerful as they are in my mind.
Actually didn't I hear a rumour that someone had installed the Leopard beta on one by using XPostFacto, and that it was actually pretty responsive? They had some rare powerful NuBus video card that they did some hack on to get Quartz Extreme to work, I think. NuBusExtreme, I think it was called. These things must be even more wicked than we thought
I would actually quite like to have a IIfx if I had the space, I reckon it would be an interesting machine to play around with, especially if you had some interesting cards for it. I would hate to get one with a small amount of Ram with no prospect of upgrading it though, as it would feel such a shame to have such a powerful machine but made almost useless by something like lack of Ram.
I've never been into System 6, and 7.0 feels just like 7.6 but kind of not-as-good, so I always go for 7.6 on a 32-bit 68k or 9.1 on a pre-G3 PPC.
Actually didn't I hear a rumour that someone had installed the Leopard beta on one by using XPostFacto, and that it was actually pretty responsive? They had some rare powerful NuBus video card that they did some hack on to get Quartz Extreme to work, I think. NuBusExtreme, I think it was called. These things must be even more wicked than we thought
I would actually quite like to have a IIfx if I had the space, I reckon it would be an interesting machine to play around with, especially if you had some interesting cards for it. I would hate to get one with a small amount of Ram with no prospect of upgrading it though, as it would feel such a shame to have such a powerful machine but made almost useless by something like lack of Ram.
I always go with 7.6.1, even on my LC II
I've never been into System 6, and 7.0 feels just like 7.6 but kind of not-as-good, so I always go for 7.6 on a 32-bit 68k or 9.1 on a pre-G3 PPC.Exactly! So run 7.6 on newer machines and make use of the IIfx's power by taking advantage of its ability to run old systems.
And what the...How could anyone run a Leopard beta on a 68k machine? Where the heck did you hear that?
You didn't notice the four wink-smilies then?
Every machine has a point beyond which a newer OS starts to degrade performance. 7.6 was the first system in Apple's strategy to introduce Copeland features on a 6 month schedule. Optimizations for PPC mean many features available in 7.6 won't work on 68k machines. MacOS 8 includes even more PPC optimizations until you get to 8.5 at which point the entire OS is PPC native and 68k machines get locked out. There are hacks to get 8.5 and even 8.6 to install on machines with a PPC upgrade card, but I wouldn't think there are a lot of those in service anymore. I got one (the only one I ever saw on ebay) and got the impression after I got it that the seller thought he was putting one over on me because it had a serious overheating issue. I cut a little piece of tin and placed it between the heatsink and the CPU as a conductor (which tightened up the fit of the heatsink considerably) and attached a cooling fan and haven't had a heat related issue with it since. Back to my point, though, there are a lot of components that you won't be able to use in 7.6 because you don't have a PPC and a lot of software that works with 7.6 but won't work without the missing components. You might be able to run the core of 7.6 or 8.1, but they would be crippled, so is it really worth it??Nah, I've just never had a thing for running very old OSes that are far below what the machine can take. Also I imagine the IIfx can run 7.6 pretty wicked fast, and even 8.1 if you can be bothered with the hack - I always think of the IIfx as being soooo powerful, that it can do anything really fast, I guess it's just the way that review described it as "wicked fast" and also how much it cost when new. Then again, I think it has been said on here that the '040s smoke them, so maybe they're not as powerful as they are in my mind.
Actually didn't I hear a rumour that someone had installed the Leopard beta on one by using XPostFacto, and that it was actually pretty responsive? They had some rare powerful NuBus video card that they did some hack on to get Quartz Extreme to work, I think. NuBusExtreme, I think it was called. These things must be even more wicked than we thought
I would actually quite like to have a IIfx if I had the space, I reckon it would be an interesting machine to play around with, especially if you had some interesting cards for it. I would hate to get one with a small amount of Ram with no prospect of upgrading it though, as it would feel such a shame to have such a powerful machine but made almost useless by something like lack of Ram.
I always go with 7.6.1, even on my LC II
No I didn't actually. I thought you'd gone crazy for a second.You didn't notice the four wink-smilies then?
What components of 7.6 don't work on 68ks? The only one I can think of off-hand is Graphing Calculator, at least that one is installed by default and produces a message saying it can't run - are there others that don't even get installed on a 68k so I've never seen?
Regarding PPC upgrade cards, are these the ones where the original 68k CPU remains inside the machine but the PPC does most (all?) of the processing? How exactly do they work, as I would have assumed if it has a PPC processor it can run any PPC-only OS, but presumably the 68k CPU is still doing something which is why it's difficult to run 8.5? (and 9 doesn't work at all?)
Regarding PPC upgrade cards, are these the ones where the original 68k CPU remains inside the machine but the PPC does most (all?) of the processing? How exactly do they work, as I would have assumed if it has a PPC processor it can run any PPC-only OS, but presumably the 68k CPU is still doing something which is why it's difficult to run 8.5? (and 9 doesn't work at all?)
7.6.1 is horribly slow on an LC II - I'd say unusably slow. An LC III can manage because of the additional memory, but still not a good choice. You can get most of the features from add-ons anyway - I'd recommend using 7.1 as the base. Have a look at TylerEss's website for a couple of articles about this.
Someone actually did get Panther to run under Pear PC on a Centris running Linux. It only took a week to boot up.No I didn't actually. I thought you'd gone crazy for a second.You didn't notice the four wink-smilies then?
(I am deadly serious about this)
http://mactalk.com.au/articles/68kpanther/
Not just someone; our very own Dana!
As for the wicked-fast IIfx: I think it would make a really great vintage science workstation. The 68882 is faster clock-for-clock than the '040 builtin FPU. Put heatsinks on the CPU and FPU and overclock your IIfx to 50MHz, and you'd have the fastest 68k Mathematica machine available. I bet you could even take it beyond 50MHz just by swapping in 50MHz rated 68030 and 68882 chips and overclocking more. I'd put a heatsink on the chipset and only use the brand-new RAM that somebody made, just to be sure.
I'd run System 7.5 or 7.6 on it, for sure. I'd run 8.1 if I wanted an 8.1 box. It would really smoke in 6.0.8. It'd be great no matter what, and I wouldn't hesitate to run anything on it!
As for the wicked-fast IIfx: I think it would make a really great vintage science workstation. The 68882 is faster clock-for-clock than the '040 builtin FPU. Put heatsinks on the CPU and FPU and overclock your IIfx to 50MHz, and you'd have the fastest 68k Mathematica machine available. I bet you could even take it beyond 50MHz just by swapping in 50MHz rated 68030 and 68882 chips and overclocking more. I'd put a heatsink on the chipset and only use the brand-new RAM that somebody made, just to be sure.
I'd run System 7.5 or 7.6 on it, for sure. I'd run 8.1 if I wanted an 8.1 box.
It would really smoke in 6.0.8. It'd be great no matter what, and I wouldn't hesitate to run anything on it!I run 7.6.1 on my IIfx, and I have thought about dropping a 50mhz 030 and 68882 in it and maybe overclocking to 60mhz. I'd also like to get some science equipment, some interesting cards and a bigger desk for it.Not just someone; our very own Dana!
As for the wicked-fast IIfx: I think it would make a really great vintage science workstation. The 68882 is faster clock-for-clock than the '040 builtin FPU. Put heatsinks on the CPU and FPU and overclock your IIfx to 50MHz, and you'd have the fastest 68k Mathematica machine available. I bet you could even take it beyond 50MHz just by swapping in 50MHz rated 68030 and 68882 chips and overclocking more. I'd put a heatsink on the chipset and only use the brand-new RAM that somebody made, just to be sure.
I'd run System 7.5 or 7.6 on it, for sure. I'd run 8.1 if I wanted an 8.1 box.
Fear not, gentle soldiers. Jeff Walther sells a new 4 x 16MB 64-pin set of RAM on eBay every week. That enterprise alone could rekindle/have rekindled renascence of interest in the IIfx.
de
On 7.6 you don't get OpenDoc, OD Essentials or Cyberdog (admittedly not a big deal with those considering how they turned out), you also don't get Quickdraw 3d or Quickdraw GX. There's about 25 install options on the checklist, and 68k users lose out on about 8 of them. That's a third of the OS. I did 2 7.6 installs recently so I remember being given error messages on about that many things. I'll be doing another install on a Quadra soon, so I'll be sure to take notes of what doesn't get installed.
I run OS 7.1 on my IIfx (and other 030's). Its usable and speedy at the same time (32MB of RAM). While I would like 128MB on a IIfx, it would take a while to boot and even at $50 a set its still too pricey.
I've gotten OpenDoc and OpenDoc Essentials with every 7.6 "easy install" on a 68k Mac that I've ever done. That, combined with the "7.6 custom installs do an easy install no matter what you choose" bug, is why I don't run 7.5.5 on 68k Macs that could take 7.6 anyway. I don't want to have to delete OpenDoc.
I'll check again, but I am fairly certain that OpenDoc wouldn't install on the last Quadra I did. I know it's not installed my 700. And what do you mean custom installs don't work?? I was able to pick and choose which options I wanted installed every time I installed it.I've gotten OpenDoc and OpenDoc Essentials with every 7.6 "easy install" on a 68k Mac that I've ever done. That, combined with the "7.6 custom installs do an easy install no matter what you choose" bug, is why I don't run 7.5.5 on 68k Macs that could take 7.6 anyway. I don't want to have to delete OpenDoc.
...Strange. I think my 7.6 CD is a Z-MultiCountry English one. Maybe it's different than the US English one?