6 Nov
2012
6 Nov
'12
1:20 p.m.
On 6 November 2012 13:41, Schindler Patrik <poc at pocnet.net> wrote:
I didn't find it so, actually. The Classic II maxes out at 10MB of
RAM; 7.6.1 recommends a minimum of 12MB. I did not expect it to work.
It did, very well.
Then I turned off virtual memory and added RAMdoubler. ;?)
OK, worth knowing. Thanks.
There are still interesting Gopher sites and FTP Mirrors with old Mac stuff
to use. And there's stil use of NewsWatcher. But, see above, downloading
from old machines is painfully slow. If you want to have some kind of
hardware-QoS to not saturate your internet connection, it's the fun way to
go. :-) Even in 2012, there's more than just http in the Internet.
:?)
Definitely, yes. But probably more work than I would bother to do. I
am very impressed, though!
No problem. I am in much the same position. I just started a new job
-- indeed, a whole new career -- and it's very tiring.
DHCP is not a must-have. I'm running DNS on my Linux-Box in my LAN, so I
don't want to have dynamic IP addresses. There's only a small DHCP-Range,
just for "guest boxes", for netbooting XTerminals or my G5 when I need to
run Disk First Aid, for a fast installation of Debian on friend's boxes. Any
static (in terms of will-not-be-moved) machine has static IP-Adresses
configured. I don't get the point why machines, which don't change networks
(like a notebook, taken from place to place), need DHCP. Avoiding IP
collisions? Is a matter of documentation. For me, my documentation is the
DNS zone files.
No, it's not a must-have, but it makes life a /lot/ easier. I like an easy life.
Hi,
first, please apoplogize. I didn't and don't want to offend! It's just the
way I feel from years of practice.
Oh no, not at all. I am enjoying the debate!
Am 06.11.2012 um 01:02 schrieb Liam Proven:
The definition of a "pleasant and productive environment" heavily depends on
personal taste. :-) I'm running only a few extensions on the SE and LC. With
the addidional 192K RAM Cache, this adds up to a 800KB System in RAM, with
MultiFinder, without Finder.
Well, yes, that is true.
But I started out on Macs in the very late days of System 6 & moved to
System 7 within months. I am used to a clock in the menu bar, a
hierarchical Apple menu, a modular control panel, a screen-saver,
things like that. It is perfectly possible to add all this to Sys6
with some INITs and CDEVs - although it was tricky to find them when I
did it, and that was 5-6y ago now.
But once you have, I found it took as long to boot as 7.6.1 on my
Classic II and was only very slightly more responsive in use.
I must admit, I don't use any Macs slower than that. I have an LC2 but
I mean just to fix it up & try to sell it. 68030 is as low as I want
to go these days, I think. :)
Certainly, I would run the lowest system version that did what I
needed if I was on a 68000, so I agree with you there.
I'd
disagree. It eats a LOT of RAM and CPU-Resources. And it takes WAY
longer to boot. 7.5.5 would be my choice on 040-machines. Even on my
IIfx,
I'm "only" running 7.1.
I disagree in turn. Until it died of capacitor failure, I had my
Classic II with 10MB of RAM and a 16MHz 68030 on a 16-bit bus running
6.0.8, 7.0.1, 7.5.5 and 7.6.1.
With enough addons to make it a pleasant and productive environment,
System 6 was not really significantly smaller or faster than 7.x, but
it was a lot more limited. I ran 7.6.1
from preference. Its performance was just fine, even on a
machine below the official lowest spec the OS will support. By modern
OS standards it is tiny and very simple and quick.
Maybe it's reasonably quick when it's running but booting is painfully slow
on low end machines. Especially *with* extensions to provide a "pleasant and
productive environment". ;-) Btw, modern standards: Are we talking of
retrocomputing or are we talking to
squeeze the last bits out of old machines so they can be used like new ones?
Well, not the latter, no. But I want to get stuff on and off the Mac
as easily as possible, so I want it to be able to read and write PC
floppies, maybe even PC Zip disks; I want it to at least be able to
FTP stuff on and off my server, and once I have it running, so I want
the best web browser it can run, even if it is not going to be used to
surf.
I think our attitudes differ on this.
The 2 goals that I was trying to optimise my setup advice for were:
#1 run the most modern software the machine can
#2 run the software which will be easiest to get working
If you instead are optimising for performance, or for an "authentic"
1980s Mac experience, then you will want something else, yes.
This also applies to your opinion about AppleTalk. AT
is running fine in my
LAN. Several printers get their data via AppleTalk, many old machines
exchange data with AppleTalk. Broad Cast depends on AT. Program Linking
depends on AT (which I'm experimenting with the aid of the MPW shell).
My Linux Box runs Debian 6 with a Debian-supplied Netatalk 2, so exchange of
data is like a charm between all generations of Mac OS, from 6.0.7 up to
10.5.8.
Oh! Well that's good to know. I thought recent versions of Netatalk
dropped Appletalk support and only ran AFS over TCP.
If if comes down to machines not equipped with
Ethernet or Token Ring,
there's no other choice than running AppleTalk over LocalTalk. One may use
MacTCP or Open Transport to encap IP into AppleTalk packets, so still IP is
possible (with a maximum MTU of 576 Bytes).
Aha! I use an Asant? EtherSCSI. If I can't have Ethernet and TCP/IP, I
regard it as not being networked, these days.
I have a LaserJet 4ML which is network capable via
LocalTalk *only*. How can
I print from my DOS-machine on this? Running Netware 3.12 in a VM, the print
job gets to a Netware queue, rerouted via capture-command. From there, ATPS
(Apple Talk Print Server) on Netware takes the job out of the queue and
forwards it to the printer via AppleTalk. Works like a charm!
I have a LaserJet 5100, equipped with a Token Ring network card. How can I
print from my IIfx on this? HP Token Ring equipment doesn't talk AppleTalk.
I'm printing into a Netware queue via AppleTalk. From there, the pserver.nlm
takes the job and feeds it to the printer via IPX.
Cunning!
But probably more work than I would go to, I fear.
AppleTalk may be obsolete but not unusable in
retro-environments. It's still
usable and is still a lot more easy than trying to make Sys 6 talk to an
AFP-Server via TCP/IP Port 548. Many protocols can co-exist on a LAN. :-)
I'm even running IPv6 on Token Ring. Recent Linux kernels can encap the
packets the right way.
Wow!
Yes, 6 does
Appletalk, but Appletalk is really almost no use today and
is no help in trying to get a classic Mac talking to modern machines
for file transfer or anything. You *need* TCP/IP and the latest web
browser you can find, just to have a chance of downloading anything -
I used Netscape Navigator 4.0.4 or Communicator 4.6 or thereabouts.
Debian 6 is the current stable Deb-distro, I'm running on an AMD box. Not
outdated - and still AT capable. When it comes do download from the web, I'm either
using telnet to use wget
on the linux box, or my G5 with Safari or Firefox which is way faster than a
slow CPU overloaded with IP and slow browser code. From there I can transfer
the stuff to the destination box. Via AppleTalk.
OK. I like to see my old retro machines on the Web - it pleases me,
and is reason enough to wait for slow downloads. :?)
You see, the extent of "you need TCP/IP"
statement depends heavily on usage
scenarios.
Well, true. I was thinking only of my own use, I confess.
There also
basic client apps for some services. Eudora, Fetch, Newswatcher, Ircle,
MacX...
Again, not worth the bother in 2012. Effectively, Sys6 cannot do
anything at all on the C21 Internet. I want to
/use/ my Macs. E.g. to write on them and then send the
result over to my modern Linux PC for cleaning up, format conversion
and submission to my editor or posting on one of my blogs or
something.
Me either. So we're basically talkin' 'bout the same. Let alone, the way of
usage seems to be different. Example: On my IIfx, I'm running Ircle, for
chatting on an internal IRC-Network with a lot of friends. I'm running
telnet to tail -f the system log of my linux box. I'm running MacX to see
what XLoad tells about the usage of my Linux box. I'm running Newswatcher to
read and answer interesting discussions in Mac centric usenet groups. I'm
running Peter Lewis' talk(d) applications for copypasting Web-URLs from and
to IRC or news articles, to watch on the G5. This is a very IP-centric
usage. You may tell this usage as "mostly passive",
which is true for most apps.
But if I need it, I'm also running PageMaker 5 or FreeHand 3.1 for
documentation use or drawing cirquit diagrams. But I use them preferred on
my 7500 with a "G3"-Card @400MHz. This box still has 7.6.1 and 0,5GB of RAM
- it runs like hell and the mentioned apps are really fun to use, because
there's seldom wasted waiting-for-the-computer-to-catch-up-time.
[Nod]
So you
contradict me and then quote the line that agrees with your
contradiction? Huh?
Sorry. I should not try to make a senseful discussion when being tired.
Please apologize. System 7.5 upwards had OpenTransport. It's really
bloat but if you own a
fast machine, it's worth the effort.
This is exactly what I meant. OT is not bloat and it works more easily
and usefully than MacTCP, which IIRC doesn't even understand DHCP. In
other words, it too is rather useless today. From CPU usage, OT *is* bloat, but as stated, on
faster machines you win
throughput. On slower ones (< 040) you lose throughput *and* RAM. The only
win would be DHCP-capabilities and a more friendly config interface. Which
is not worth the effort *for me*.
To conclude, I try to use most of my old machines as old machines, with
software which was more or less up to date when they were manufactured
and/or mostly used. Most of these are unmodified in terms of "no accelerator
boards". Just to get the real retro flash. ;-) This doesn't prevent them to
be useful or productive. As stated on top, it's a matter of taste what one
calls "being productive". So, please don't forcibly kill AppleTalk for
everyone by stating it's not useful (to you). It is but it's a question of
usage scenario. Don't tell OT is a general must-have. It just makes no sense
on slow machines.
OK.
--
Liam Proven ? Profile: http://lproven.livejournal.com/profile
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