The ImageWriter II was a kick-ass printer back in the day. It supported both black cartridges and color cartridges. There was also a third-party scan head that could be installed. This turned the ImageWriter II into a monochrome paper scanner. It was very janky as it was early scanner technology, but it worked.
I don't have a lot of experience with Macs myself either but the design aesthetic of Apples machines from this era are it's most iconic in my opinion. Very nice Mac setup 👍
Another comment from me - Note Pad is a "desk accessory". Those also have an interesting history and, with System 7, they become more like real applications, but I'm pretty sure that desk accessories can't print.
As I've discovered embarrassingly haha. I thought about cutting the footage but was like - nope! Let's leave it in and suffer the wrath of the internet lol.
I'm definitely trying, haha! It's something that I find difficult to locate for some reason. This MAC Classic was a 'right place at the right time' moment :). I will definitely try to continue to add MAC content to the channel. Thanks for watching!!
That is super cool! Back in the late 1980s, my Dad got a Macintosh 512K, and an ImageWriter II. That computer taught me how to use a GUI, because at my elementary school, they had Apple IIe computers. And it had the same cpu that the Macintosh Classic has. I recommend Beyond Dark Castle, which I still think is an amazing action adventure game!
I just picked up a similar setup here a couple weeks back - Macintosh Classic II but with the HP DeskWriter. Was having the exact same issue with freezing up the system. Works like it should now after changing ports from AppleTalk. God bless!
The chain pattern on the back is where you install a Kensington lock so you lock the computer to a desk preventing someone from walking off with your computer they are still used today and you can buy them cheap but no one really uses them.
Man what a trip down memory lane!! I remember when i was young, my mom got the iMac G3 graphite, out first apple computer, i had a 386 laptop at that time with windows 3.11, my dad had a Pentium 2 laptop, we were both busy on our laptops, i was busy writing something for school, and i hear my dad yell, his laptop crashed, he was angry, and would you know, 5 minutes later, my panasonic laptop died, it just died for no reason, screen went black and never came on again! My dad putted the 2 broken laptops in the closet, and my mom was also on her computer, clicking away and doing mom stuff. My dad looked at me, i looked at him, he asked me 1 word. Apple? I said YESSSS!! He got himself a powerbook g3, and he got me a Macintosh Classic, exactly the same as this one! I LOVED this machine, i was on a boarding school, and in the weekends and hollidays i did go home, and this machine went everywhere with me, i had a special bag for it with wheels on it, it fitted snuggly in it with big padding. This machine survived all the train and car rides! I really, really miss my lil classic! I did everything on this machine, my dad wanted to buy me a better one, but i adored this lil thing so i refused, i didn't wanted to part ways! My entire youth was in this mac, sadly, my mom divorced, my lil mac was on the attic in its bag, and the new boyfriend of my mom sold my lil friend! I truly want one back but i don't have the money to purchase one. I banned windows in my life until i got interested in gaming, than i gave windows another shot, and it's ok, but my preference is still macos. But i really miss my lil happy buddy :(
I just love this trip down your memory lane! This is exactly what this channel is about. I'm glad this sparked your memory and I'm happy you were able to share it! Thanks again and thanks for watching!
The port at the back left is Apple Desktop Bus - you can read more about it, it was a clever thing engineered in a few days by Steve Wozniak himself in about 1985 (the first system using ADB was the Apple IIgs which I think came out in 1986, then it went to the Mac with SE/II in 1987). Also, I haven't made it all the way yet, so maybe you say something about that, but the yellow floppy things are a way to protect the 400/800K drives during shipping. The 1.4M drives, which is what the Classic has, I didn't think needed those. But... my family had a 2x800K SE which was moved without the yellow blanks and those drives were mildly messed up, they wouldn't format disks properly. Whoever packaged your Classic was erring on the side of caution though. Also, update the OS - 7.0 had bugs. You need 7.0.1 with System 7 Tune-Up (which shows up as a little bullet next to the version number).
@@TheRetroRecall I am still only halfway through the video, but one other cool thing you may want to explore in your next video - the Classic is the only Mac to have the OS in ROM. I've never seen it in action personally, but there's a secret keyboard shortcut... I want to say Cmd-Opt-X-O maybe... that will boot System 6.0.3 from the ROM. Also, if you can manage to get 400/800K floppies (that's going to be a challenge... 400/800K disks can ONLY be written by Apple GCR drives/controllers, unlike 1.4M disks), the Classic is most likely to boot any system version (random Mac tidbit - before, I think, 7.5, the OS was referred to as 'System Software', but then became Mac OS with the launch of the clone program) - officially the minimum is 6.0.7 but I am pretty sure you could boot 1984's first system versions just fine. They won't recognize the hard drive and its HFS format though. One other thing for now (I may have more comments after I watch the remaining 13 minutes) - you have the 'good' configuration of the Classic. They offered a 1/floppy and a 2/40 configuration, and, well... let's just say 1 meg of RAM and a single floppy drive may have been plenty in 1987, but by 1991-2, you really wanted at least 2 megs of RAM (you can't run System 7 in one) and a hard drive. (I still have the trauma from having a 1MB, 2x800K floppy Mac SE with an ImageWriter as the only family computer until early 1995, so... yeah. These bring back lots of memories... mostly bad, because by 1994 this was a wildly outdated setup.)
Ah, my childhood in a nutshell. I spent so much time in front of Macs such as this during high school and college. Good times. Actually owned this exact machine (the Mac Classic), that was my main machine while at college. Also had an ImageWriter, but the older model (yours is an ImageWriter II.) I've been looking to get a "classic Mac" lab set up here at home for nostalgia's sake. A few years ago I was lucky enough to score a Mac SE/30 (the most desirable of the classic Macs). I got it from a local university's surplus auction. This was before "retro" became "cool" so I got it at an incredible price (iirc I only paid something like $20 for it.) The thing needed a recapping (SE/30s are the WORST in terms of capacitor plague) but once I recapped it, it works like a charm. The hard drive on mine died of course... SCSI drives of this era are really living on borrowed time; I'm surprised yours still works. I replaced my machine's dead drive with a BlueSCSI. Great for longevity, but I really do miss the sounds that old-school hard drives make. Unfortunately I don't yet have an ImageWriter; I would love to get one one of these days, just to completely replicate the nostalgic "school computer lab" aesthetic. Two things to be careful of: 1) this machine was made right in the middle of the Great Capacitor Plague, and so probably has some nice leaky caps in it. Definitely something that you will need to fix at some point. The worst offenders are the (iirc) surface mount caps on the logic board, those definitely need to be changed out asap. The (through-hole) capacitors on the analog board are *probably* fine (both of the Macs I have now had analog board caps that were OK) but should be examined. 2) these machines also are famous for having a PRAM battery that loves to leak and thoroughly obliterate the traces on the logic board. Some have even been known to explode. You'll want to go in and pull that out right away. (It's mounted on the logic board, which is at the bottom of the case.) That long rectangular slot is for a security device. Basically a thing that you could use so that you could chain the computer to a desk. Good for schools, etc., places where you wouldn't want some random dude walking away with it. And your guesses were spot on regarding the other ports.
Another amazing reply. Seriously, thanks so much for taking the time to go through this for me and for sharing. I am really excited to have this as part of the collection. I definitely plan on tackling the inside of this system as I would like to inspect it for the battery and bad caps but also for a good cleaning. I would also be great to retrobrite this system but I don't want to damage any of the plastics. Thanks again for your help!!
HI, nice video My PC days started C64 , then XT Turbo clone, then Amiga, then the road 286/386 etc all the way up - and still going At work at the time, the office floor of approx 80 staff used terminals for daily tasks, however we had 2 NEC 286's - one had lotus 123 the other multiplan A few years later i transferred to head office, and they had a Mac classic or 512 mac - it was floppy only so 1 x early mac for every 12 people My first exposure to Excel was a real eye opener I still run some of these early programs in emulator as i still retain floppy data from late 80's, my first large data set was a mail merge for about 25,000 contacts , at the time, sorting and selecting data by criteria was much slower than a filter or pivot table today - the pressure was there as was the overtime
@@TheRetroRecall They weren't proprietary. PC Laptops of the era also often had them. We referred to them as "Kensington locks" as Kensington was the largest manufacturer of the lock and cable accessory.
Understood. This looked proprietary to Apple based on what I saw. I am very familiar with Kensington locks and the format. This looked different - did they change them over the years?
Looks like the memory on that machine can be expanded to a total of 4 MB, using a "memory expansion board". The latest operating system that can be installed is "System 7.5.5".
The "Chain Link" icon on the back is next to the Kensington Lock port. You attach a metal bar with a hole in that place. Then, you run a steel cable through the hole to lock it down to your desk.
@@TheRetroRecall basically, a "Battery Bombed" as we call them Macintosh is basically Game over, not only does it destroy the motherboard completely it also rots out the chassis like a F-150 from Iowa.... Or in England, the coastline Lol
Much appreciated!! Same, but Macs I find interesting to play around with. It seems this one has quite a bit of hidden issues that will need to be resolved before they become an larger problem.
@@TheRetroRecall Connecting to a computer using that was possible thirty years ago on what was narrowband connections right?Not many ISP's would've of been around, considering email wasn't even used at the time, William Clinton may of sent an email that year. And there were a few servers on the web, but few, and not many browsers, may be one for the new windows system just before windows 95 which made that easy. I guess. Before my time.
One other comment from me, re Excel 3.0 - if you booted up in System 6 without MultiFinder, you could likely run it just fine. (I don't think Excel 3.0 requires System 7, but someone else can confirm that.) The classic Mac OS's memory management challenges are well-known. Fundamentally, it was designed for a single application world where whatever you open gets all the memory. When they hacked together MultiFinder, they had to create a system where a fixed amount of memory is allocated before the program opens and that's what that program gets. You can increase/reduce that amount in the Get Info dialog box before running the program. Keep in mind, too, that these are systems without MMUs, no virtual memory, etc. In System 7 they made MultiFinder mandatory, but its ugliness remained... This is a 68000 Mac with a 9-inch CRT; in my opinion, you should really be playing with System 6.0.7/6.0.8 rather than 7 and with no MultiFinder on...
Holy, another great read, thanks again, I really appreciate it. As for what system - I'm assuming that based on your comment that system 7 didn't come with this system originally and would have been upgraded?
@@TheRetroRecall Well... the Classic came out in late 1990 along with the other two last System 6 Macs (LC/IIsi - okay the PB100 can run 6 too but that doesn't count) but was offered until September, 1992. System 7 came out in May 1991. My guess, based on the fact that this is 7.0, not 7.0.1, and that it's missing the System 7 Tune-Up, is that this was indeed the OS that came preloaded. I thought I saw a mid-1991 manufacture date somewhere too? What I would emphasize is this - the Classic is architecturally near-identical to 1984's 128K, 1986's Plus (which added SCSI) and 1987's SE (which added ADB). So, while 7 was clearly preloaded on the Classic starting in May or June 1991, and sure, it runs, even up to 7.5.5, that doesn't mean it is a good idea. 7 was clearly designed a lot more for a 68030 machine with a 640x480 colour screen and at least 4MB of RAM. If you want to see the earlier versions of System 7 (7.0/7.01/7.1) run in their intended habitat, go and pick up a IIci if there are any still surviving to this day. I would add that the Mac world was weird back then. Machines were really expensive and no one really wanted to obsolete a really expensive machine quickly. For example, you could run the legendary MS Word 5.1a on System 7.5 on a Classic... in theory, but you really wouldn't want to. Or you could run it on System 6 (probably a better idea)! Microsoft even shipped it on 800K floppies, IIRC, because they didn't want to drop the Plus/SE/II if you had a hard drive (4 was the last version to not require a hard drive). By 1992-1993, the 68000 machines were really, really past their prime, even if ostensibly third-party software like MS Word still ran (well, crawled) on them. And newer interface features like toolbars ate up a lot of space on the 9" monitors. But there were a lot of Pluses/SEs/Classics out there, including some only a year or two old, and third-party developers didn't want to abandon them just quite yet.
Thanks again for all of this. It's great having a resource like yourself - I've learned more through you and your comments than I have learned in my life. You rock!
I used to hate Apple products being a Windows user, now I am changing my views as I have an iMac G3 AIO, Powermac G5, 3 iBooks, Macbook Air, 2 iPad's, 2 iPhone's and multiple iPod's
For someone who used to hate it, you have definitely crossed the line over to Mac land haha! I am not a Mac fan, however I love to tinker with them for a change once in a while :)
Apple makes products that last. That’s the thing- yes you pay more for the initial investment but they last FOREVER. I have a 12 year-old MacBook Pro that I upgraded to an SSD and maxed out the RAM and it still works for an internet machine.
The ImageWriter II was a kick-ass printer back in the day. It supported both black cartridges and color cartridges. There was also a third-party scan head that could be installed. This turned the ImageWriter II into a monochrome paper scanner. It was very janky as it was early scanner technology, but it worked.
I had no idea!!! Color cartridges too??? Ok, I need to test that out!
i made quite a few printed circuit layouts on my imagewriter II, 4X , worked great, with PCB software from VAMP, pretty wild for 1985!
I don't have a lot of experience with Macs myself either but the design aesthetic of Apples machines from this era are it's most iconic in my opinion. Very nice Mac setup 👍
Thanks and agreed!
Another comment from me - Note Pad is a "desk accessory". Those also have an interesting history and, with System 7, they become more like real applications, but I'm pretty sure that desk accessories can't print.
As I've discovered embarrassingly haha. I thought about cutting the footage but was like - nope! Let's leave it in and suffer the wrath of the internet lol.
nice to see you started in mac stuff great job
I'm definitely trying, haha! It's something that I find difficult to locate for some reason. This MAC Classic was a 'right place at the right time' moment :). I will definitely try to continue to add MAC content to the channel. Thanks for watching!!
That is super cool! Back in the late 1980s, my Dad got a Macintosh 512K, and an ImageWriter II. That computer taught me how to use a GUI, because at my elementary school, they had Apple IIe computers. And it had the same cpu that the Macintosh Classic has. I recommend Beyond Dark Castle, which I still think is an amazing action adventure game!
Thanks, I was looking for some game recommendations!
I just picked up a similar setup here a couple weeks back - Macintosh Classic II but with the HP DeskWriter. Was having the exact same issue with freezing up the system. Works like it should now after changing ports from AppleTalk. God bless!
Thank you and glad you rescued a system!!!
The chain pattern on the back is where you install a Kensington lock so you lock the computer to a desk preventing someone from walking off with your computer they are still used today and you can buy them cheap but no one really uses them.
Thanks for this info! I'm so used to seeing the holes much smaller for Kensington.
Man what a trip down memory lane!! I remember when i was young, my mom got the iMac G3 graphite, out first apple computer, i had a 386 laptop at that time with windows 3.11, my dad had a Pentium 2 laptop, we were both busy on our laptops, i was busy writing something for school, and i hear my dad yell, his laptop crashed, he was angry, and would you know, 5 minutes later, my panasonic laptop died, it just died for no reason, screen went black and never came on again! My dad putted the 2 broken laptops in the closet, and my mom was also on her computer, clicking away and doing mom stuff. My dad looked at me, i looked at him, he asked me 1 word. Apple? I said YESSSS!! He got himself a powerbook g3, and he got me a Macintosh Classic, exactly the same as this one! I LOVED this machine, i was on a boarding school, and in the weekends and hollidays i did go home, and this machine went everywhere with me, i had a special bag for it with wheels on it, it fitted snuggly in it with big padding. This machine survived all the train and car rides! I really, really miss my lil classic! I did everything on this machine, my dad wanted to buy me a better one, but i adored this lil thing so i refused, i didn't wanted to part ways! My entire youth was in this mac, sadly, my mom divorced, my lil mac was on the attic in its bag, and the new boyfriend of my mom sold my lil friend! I truly want one back but i don't have the money to purchase one. I banned windows in my life until i got interested in gaming, than i gave windows another shot, and it's ok, but my preference is still macos. But i really miss my lil happy buddy :(
I just love this trip down your memory lane! This is exactly what this channel is about. I'm glad this sparked your memory and I'm happy you were able to share it! Thanks again and thanks for watching!
My dad had this setup in his office at work for what (seemed like) a decade. I’m sure it was only a few years, but this combo saw A LOT of use.
Awesome!! What sort of software did he have running on it?
The port at the back left is Apple Desktop Bus - you can read more about it, it was a clever thing engineered in a few days by Steve Wozniak himself in about 1985 (the first system using ADB was the Apple IIgs which I think came out in 1986, then it went to the Mac with SE/II in 1987).
Also, I haven't made it all the way yet, so maybe you say something about that, but the yellow floppy things are a way to protect the 400/800K drives during shipping. The 1.4M drives, which is what the Classic has, I didn't think needed those. But... my family had a 2x800K SE which was moved without the yellow blanks and those drives were mildly messed up, they wouldn't format disks properly. Whoever packaged your Classic was erring on the side of caution though.
Also, update the OS - 7.0 had bugs. You need 7.0.1 with System 7 Tune-Up (which shows up as a little bullet next to the version number).
Thanks for all of this amazing info! I love helpful comments like this - it really makes a difference. Again, thank you!
@@TheRetroRecall I am still only halfway through the video, but one other cool thing you may want to explore in your next video - the Classic is the only Mac to have the OS in ROM. I've never seen it in action personally, but there's a secret keyboard shortcut... I want to say Cmd-Opt-X-O maybe... that will boot System 6.0.3 from the ROM.
Also, if you can manage to get 400/800K floppies (that's going to be a challenge... 400/800K disks can ONLY be written by Apple GCR drives/controllers, unlike 1.4M disks), the Classic is most likely to boot any system version (random Mac tidbit - before, I think, 7.5, the OS was referred to as 'System Software', but then became Mac OS with the launch of the clone program) - officially the minimum is 6.0.7 but I am pretty sure you could boot 1984's first system versions just fine. They won't recognize the hard drive and its HFS format though.
One other thing for now (I may have more comments after I watch the remaining 13 minutes) - you have the 'good' configuration of the Classic. They offered a 1/floppy and a 2/40 configuration, and, well... let's just say 1 meg of RAM and a single floppy drive may have been plenty in 1987, but by 1991-2, you really wanted at least 2 megs of RAM (you can't run System 7 in one) and a hard drive.
(I still have the trauma from having a 1MB, 2x800K floppy Mac SE with an ImageWriter as the only family computer until early 1995, so... yeah. These bring back lots of memories... mostly bad, because by 1994 this was a wildly outdated setup.)
Ah, my childhood in a nutshell. I spent so much time in front of Macs such as this during high school and college. Good times. Actually owned this exact machine (the Mac Classic), that was my main machine while at college. Also had an ImageWriter, but the older model (yours is an ImageWriter II.) I've been looking to get a "classic Mac" lab set up here at home for nostalgia's sake. A few years ago I was lucky enough to score a Mac SE/30 (the most desirable of the classic Macs). I got it from a local university's surplus auction. This was before "retro" became "cool" so I got it at an incredible price (iirc I only paid something like $20 for it.) The thing needed a recapping (SE/30s are the WORST in terms of capacitor plague) but once I recapped it, it works like a charm. The hard drive on mine died of course... SCSI drives of this era are really living on borrowed time; I'm surprised yours still works. I replaced my machine's dead drive with a BlueSCSI. Great for longevity, but I really do miss the sounds that old-school hard drives make. Unfortunately I don't yet have an ImageWriter; I would love to get one one of these days, just to completely replicate the nostalgic "school computer lab" aesthetic.
Two things to be careful of:
1) this machine was made right in the middle of the Great Capacitor Plague, and so probably has some nice leaky caps in it. Definitely something that you will need to fix at some point. The worst offenders are the (iirc) surface mount caps on the logic board, those definitely need to be changed out asap. The (through-hole) capacitors on the analog board are *probably* fine (both of the Macs I have now had analog board caps that were OK) but should be examined.
2) these machines also are famous for having a PRAM battery that loves to leak and thoroughly obliterate the traces on the logic board. Some have even been known to explode. You'll want to go in and pull that out right away. (It's mounted on the logic board, which is at the bottom of the case.)
That long rectangular slot is for a security device. Basically a thing that you could use so that you could chain the computer to a desk. Good for schools, etc., places where you wouldn't want some random dude walking away with it. And your guesses were spot on regarding the other ports.
Another amazing reply. Seriously, thanks so much for taking the time to go through this for me and for sharing. I am really excited to have this as part of the collection. I definitely plan on tackling the inside of this system as I would like to inspect it for the battery and bad caps but also for a good cleaning. I would also be great to retrobrite this system but I don't want to damage any of the plastics. Thanks again for your help!!
HI, nice video
My PC days started C64 , then XT Turbo clone, then Amiga, then the road 286/386 etc all the way up - and still going
At work at the time, the office floor of approx 80 staff used terminals for daily tasks, however we had 2 NEC 286's - one had lotus 123 the other multiplan
A few years later i transferred to head office, and they had a Mac classic or 512 mac - it was floppy only so 1 x early mac for every 12 people
My first exposure to Excel was a real eye opener
I still run some of these early programs in emulator as i still retain floppy data from late 80's, my first large data set was a mail merge for about 25,000 contacts , at the time, sorting and selecting data by criteria was much slower than a filter or pivot table today - the pressure was there as was the overtime
Thanks for sharing this memory and for the compliment! Glad to have you as part of the channel!! This is what it's all about :)
The port you are not sure of was their proprietary space to add a lock and chain. Used for theft prevention.
Ohhhhh thanks for the info! I wanted to say that but just wasn't sure.. But the chain type symbol makes sense!
@@TheRetroRecall They weren't proprietary. PC Laptops of the era also often had them. We referred to them as "Kensington locks" as Kensington was the largest manufacturer of the lock and cable accessory.
Understood. This looked proprietary to Apple based on what I saw. I am very familiar with Kensington locks and the format. This looked different - did they change them over the years?
@Karataus there may have been some adapters or spacers included to let them fit some models, but overall no.
Ok, but you can clearly see this one is different then one on a notebook, or even a modern desktop (mini pc).
Very nice mac classic, I'm impressed!😁
It really is! It was so neat to get in this amazing condition.
I've been waiting for some mac content! Have fun.
Awesome, I hope you enjoyed!
They had something similar when I was in primary school, may of been that type. Twenty four years ago now.
Nice! They are pretty cool, and it seems like yesterday.
Looks like the memory on that machine can be expanded to a total of 4 MB, using a "memory expansion board". The latest operating system that can be installed is "System 7.5.5".
This is AWESOME info, thank you!!!
The "Chain Link" icon on the back is next to the Kensington Lock port. You attach a metal bar with a hole in that place. Then, you run a steel cable through the hole to lock it down to your desk.
Thanks for this info!
Be Mindful of the RIFA cap on that power supply!!
Thanks and good to know. I'm making a list as there seems to be quite a bit I need to look out for / replace :)
9:28 I guess it is a Kensington lock to attach it so it doesn't get stolen.
Yeah someone just mentioned that as well.. I wasn't sure! Thanks again!!
i would get the battery out immediately and recap it at some stage, two major killers for compact macintoshes!
Good to know! I wasn't aware of the battery, thanks!
@@TheRetroRecall basically, a "Battery Bombed" as we call them Macintosh is basically Game over, not only does it destroy the motherboard completely it also rots out the chassis like a F-150 from Iowa.... Or in England, the coastline Lol
Haha! Duly noted :).
At minimum, open up the computer and remove the old memory/RTC battery. Itll be overdue for a full recap of the analogue board and motherboard also
I did another video entitled 'you weren't wrong' where I removed the video. I'll have to go back in and check out the caps.
Links symbol is attachment point for security lock. So it would not be stolen.
Thanks for this info! I was confused as I didn't recognize it.
Compact Macs are quite interesting machines. Great machines that are sadly plagued with subpar capacitors.
I definitely have to do a deep dive and go over all of the components!
I don't really have any 'real' experience with Macs, I'm more or less here to comment for the algorithm! I pretty much grew up on Windows.
Much appreciated!! Same, but Macs I find interesting to play around with. It seems this one has quite a bit of hidden issues that will need to be resolved before they become an larger problem.
@@TheRetroRecall I tend to have more nostalgia for hardware I may have used back in the day. Hope you'll be able to work through the issues 🙂
Old macs are cool, new macs drool
Haha love this!
Looking back I guess only network crimes were possible. Looking at modern crime news relating to tech, then there wasn't too much, some disks.
True.
@@TheRetroRecall Connecting to a computer using that was possible thirty years ago on what was narrowband connections right?Not many ISP's would've of been around, considering email wasn't even used at the time, William Clinton may of sent an email that year. And there were a few servers on the web, but few, and not many browsers, may be one for the new windows system just before windows 95 which made that easy. I guess. Before my time.
One other comment from me, re Excel 3.0 - if you booted up in System 6 without MultiFinder, you could likely run it just fine. (I don't think Excel 3.0 requires System 7, but someone else can confirm that.)
The classic Mac OS's memory management challenges are well-known. Fundamentally, it was designed for a single application world where whatever you open gets all the memory. When they hacked together MultiFinder, they had to create a system where a fixed amount of memory is allocated before the program opens and that's what that program gets. You can increase/reduce that amount in the Get Info dialog box before running the program. Keep in mind, too, that these are systems without MMUs, no virtual memory, etc. In System 7 they made MultiFinder mandatory, but its ugliness remained...
This is a 68000 Mac with a 9-inch CRT; in my opinion, you should really be playing with System 6.0.7/6.0.8 rather than 7 and with no MultiFinder on...
Holy, another great read, thanks again, I really appreciate it. As for what system - I'm assuming that based on your comment that system 7 didn't come with this system originally and would have been upgraded?
@@TheRetroRecall Well... the Classic came out in late 1990 along with the other two last System 6 Macs (LC/IIsi - okay the PB100 can run 6 too but that doesn't count) but was offered until September, 1992.
System 7 came out in May 1991. My guess, based on the fact that this is 7.0, not 7.0.1, and that it's missing the System 7 Tune-Up, is that this was indeed the OS that came preloaded. I thought I saw a mid-1991 manufacture date somewhere too?
What I would emphasize is this - the Classic is architecturally near-identical to 1984's 128K, 1986's Plus (which added SCSI) and 1987's SE (which added ADB). So, while 7 was clearly preloaded on the Classic starting in May or June 1991, and sure, it runs, even up to 7.5.5, that doesn't mean it is a good idea. 7 was clearly designed a lot more for a 68030 machine with a 640x480 colour screen and at least 4MB of RAM.
If you want to see the earlier versions of System 7 (7.0/7.01/7.1) run in their intended habitat, go and pick up a IIci if there are any still surviving to this day.
I would add that the Mac world was weird back then. Machines were really expensive and no one really wanted to obsolete a really expensive machine quickly. For example, you could run the legendary MS Word 5.1a on System 7.5 on a Classic... in theory, but you really wouldn't want to. Or you could run it on System 6 (probably a better idea)! Microsoft even shipped it on 800K floppies, IIRC, because they didn't want to drop the Plus/SE/II if you had a hard drive (4 was the last version to not require a hard drive). By 1992-1993, the 68000 machines were really, really past their prime, even if ostensibly third-party software like MS Word still ran (well, crawled) on them. And newer interface features like toolbars ate up a lot of space on the 9" monitors. But there were a lot of Pluses/SEs/Classics out there, including some only a year or two old, and third-party developers didn't want to abandon them just quite yet.
Thanks again for all of this. It's great having a resource like yourself - I've learned more through you and your comments than I have learned in my life. You rock!
I used to hate Apple products being a Windows user, now I am changing my views as I have an iMac G3 AIO, Powermac G5, 3 iBooks, Macbook Air, 2 iPad's, 2 iPhone's and multiple iPod's
For someone who used to hate it, you have definitely crossed the line over to Mac land haha! I am not a Mac fan, however I love to tinker with them for a change once in a while :)
@@TheRetroRecall Only reason I have them is they were cheap, no way in hell I'd be able to afford anything Apple brand new.
Yrah, it's crazy how much they go for. I am happy with my Dell and Lenovo :)
Apple makes products that last. That’s the thing- yes you pay more for the initial investment but they last FOREVER. I have a 12 year-old MacBook Pro that I upgraded to an SSD and maxed out the RAM and it still works for an internet machine.
It seems that way. I know a lot of the older PC's tended to last as they were much better built than the systems today.
wolfenstein 3d on mac
Haha I highly doubt this would run it haha.
@@TheRetroRecall more ram
First ❤
Awesome!
doom2
Lol, everything can run doom right?? :)
@@TheRetroRecall yes lol