I'm calling shenanigans.

Elfen said:

The problem is this - if you want anything greater than System 7.1.2 to run fast on your 68K machine, you need to remove the PowerPC Fat from the file's coding. It's simple math - if your system is 10MB (like on an LC-Like system) and your System 7.X.Y uses 7.5MB of that, how much is left for programs and data files?

Click to expand...

This makes literally no sense to me. So little sense that there was just no way I could finish out the evening without pulling out my PowerBook 180 to look at the memory usage on my 7.6.1 install.

I've made no specific optimization efforts except for disabling extensions and on boot-up, with Quicktime 4 installed, it's using 4 megs. (Specifically, 3861 kilobytes.)

I don't have VM on, but if I did, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see the system operate more efficiently.

That said...

eraser said:

I've found that for me personally I get more enjoyment out of my vintage Macs if I stick as close as possible to the "shipping OS" as I can.  That way the machine always performs like it did when it was brand new.  Pushing an old Mac to the latest supported OS often just makes the machine feel slow and clumsy.

Click to expand...

The main reason I'm using 7.6.1 is because OpenTransport and support for AFP-over-IP (I have a Micro EN/SC somewhere) works really well in this release, and tbh, with just one or two productivity-type apps open at once, it's fast enough.

Back in The Olden Days™ when I was using my 840av as a daily driver alongside a blue-and-white G3@450 (with a Yikes! board) and a TiBook@1000, I ran the original 7.1 release on that 840, in part because I wanted to try to do video capture with it. With some time and effort, I could probably make this PB180 do what I need with 7.1, but I might just properly configure Netatalk with AppleShare-over-AppleTalk next time I go to set it up.