Only 4MB of RAM? Yet another strong reason to choose System 6.
Keep in mind that System 7 was written in a different language than System 6. System 6 is largely assembly code, whereas System 7 is a higher level language OS. What that means is, it took a heck of a lot more effort to program System 6, but that hard work paid off. System 6 requires much less RAM and is much faster than any flavor of System 7. Heck, I've booted System 6 floppies faster than some System 7 hard drives!
Honestly, I use classic Macs every day. System 7 has its place, and I use it for software that simply is incompatible with 6. But there is a lot more software compatible with 6 than you may think.
The ideal case, of course, is to have multiple System folders. I do this on my SE/30. You then use a little app called "System Picker" to select which OS you wish to boot from. It works beautifully to allow me to switch between System 6 and various flavors of 7. I would suggest you try that.
Keep in mind that System 7 was written in a different language than System 6. System 6 is largely assembly code, whereas System 7 is a higher level language OS. What that means is, it took a heck of a lot more effort to program System 6, but that hard work paid off. System 6 requires much less RAM and is much faster than any flavor of System 7. Heck, I've booted System 6 floppies faster than some System 7 hard drives!
Honestly, I use classic Macs every day. System 7 has its place, and I use it for software that simply is incompatible with 6. But there is a lot more software compatible with 6 than you may think.
The ideal case, of course, is to have multiple System folders. I do this on my SE/30. You then use a little app called "System Picker" to select which OS you wish to boot from. It works beautifully to allow me to switch between System 6 and various flavors of 7. I would suggest you try that.