Best OS version for Mac IIci?

[Geoffrey William Rutledge]

I would like to upgrade my 10 year old daughter's MacIIci from system 6 to 7,
and add to it a third party CD ROM.

I have heard that 7.1 may be more stable than later releases, and that it was
previously distributed by apple at no charge.

Can someone tell me what the best Mac OS version for this machine should be,
and how I should get ahold of the OS on floppy disk?

Thanks!
-------------------------
Geoffrey William Rutledge, M.D., Ph.D.
Director, Section on Medical Informatics, Division of Emergency Medicine
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Harvard Medical School
<mailto:grut...@bidmc.harvard.edu><http://smi.bidmc.harvard.edu/GR.html>
office:(617)667-5398 | lab:667-1390 | voicemail:667-1385 | fax:667-8726

[David Lawson]

In article <5g9faj$g...@mufasa.harvard.edu>, grut...@bih.harvard.edu wrote:

> I would like to upgrade my 10 year old daughter's MacIIci from system 6
to 7,
> and add to it a third party CD ROM.
>
> I have heard that 7.1 may be more stable than later releases, and that
it was
> previously distributed by apple at no charge.

No and no. The last version of the OS that was released for free was
7.0.1, and 7.1 was (and is) a commercial product.

7.1 is not "more stable" than later releases, but it has less bells and
whistles that tend to cause problems. Strip all the gratuitous stuff out
of 7.5.x or 7.6, and they'll be just as stable as 7.1 if not more so.
After all, they fixed most of 7.1's bugs.

If you install 7.5.x on a IIci, I would especially suggest getting rid of
Apple Menu Options and Macintosh (or Mac OS) Easy Open.

> Can someone tell me what the best Mac OS version for this machine should be,
> and how I should get ahold of the OS on floppy disk?

The best OS for the machine would be 7.6, but you may not want to pay $129
for the floppy disk version. (Ouch!)

You should still be able to find 7.5.3 boxes around for $50 or so. 7.5.3
plus the free upgrade to 7.5.5 makes a good combination.

7.0.1 is free, but not much better than 6.0.x wrt compatibility with
today's software.

David
____________
David Lawson School of Music, University of Washington
d...@u.washington.edu http://weber.u.washington.edu/~dal

[Art Gorski]

In article <5g9faj$g...@mufasa.harvard.edu>, grut...@bih.harvard.edu wrote:

>I would like to upgrade my 10 year old daughter's MacIIci from system 6 to 7,
>and add to it a third party CD ROM.

I hope you've got 8mb of RAM. Less probably won't cut it!

>I have heard that 7.1 may be more stable than later releases, and that it was
>previously distributed by apple at no charge.

Actually, System 7.0.1 was the last free version. It'll work fine. Make
sure that whatever third party CD-ROM you're trying to connect doesn't
require a later version! (For example, you must have System 7.1 to use a
StyleWriter 1200 printer.)

>Can someone tell me what the best Mac OS version for this machine should be,
>and how I should get ahold of the OS on floppy disk?

You can download the disk images from the directory:

ftp://ftp3.info.apple.com/Apple.Support.Area/Apple_SW_Updates/US/Macintosh/System/Older_System/System_7.0.x/

If busy, try changing "ftp3" to "ftp4" or some other low digit. There's
more than one server. You will then need Disk Copy or ShrinkWrap to
'mount' the images on your desktop for installation, or to write the
images to physical floppy disks.

If all this is too much, go join your local Apple user group! ;-)
--
Art Gorski * Humanities Computing * Rice University * Houston, Texas