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System 6 was pretty much the pinnacle point for combining ease of use with space for tinkering. Something like that (which is what the author seems to be longin

System 6 was pretty much the pinnacle point for combining ease of use with space for tinkering. Something like that (which is what the author seems to be longing for) combined with solid, multitasking underpinnings, would be a welcome player in the current landscape.

II2II 6y ago
You reminded me of an interesting feature in System 6: it was possible to turn multitasking off. I found the feature useful when it came down to crunch time in my university studies. Just as people today talk about disconnecting from the Internet when they need a distraction free work environment, I disabled multitasking. As for System 6 being the pinnacle, I have a hard time deciding between System 6 and System 7.1. The early versions of System 7 added a few quality-of-life improvements while maintaining most of the simplicity of System 6. System 7.5 (or maybe System 7.1 Pro) is when the Macintosh System Software went off the rails in my opinion.
- temporallobe 6y ago
  Fascinating...how did the system behave with multitasking off? I’ve never encountered an OS with such a feature. Closest I can imagine is something like iOS.
  - II2II 6y ago
    From the end user perspective: you could only use one application at a time. In most cases, switching between programs meant quitting the current program and launching another program from the Finder. There were a couple of exceptions to this: * Some programs let you launch another program without quitting. If I recall correctly, those programs would remain in memory but would not run in the background. If you wanted to return to the original program, you would have to exit the program it launched. This was typically available in development tools. * Desk accessories were device drivers that looked like programs. This allowed the end user to run small programs, like a calculator or clipboard manager, while continuing to use another piece of software. The more interesting question is how did the system behave with multitasking turned on, since the original system software did not support multitasking. For a while multitasking support could be added with a separate piece of software. System 6 was the first version of the Macintosh system software to incorporate multitasking and it was turned off by default (if I recall correctly). System 7 was the first version where multitasking could not be disabled. I suspect that multitasking could be added in a relatively seamless fashion to the system software since developers were supposed to use the Macintosh Toolbox (API), so things like memory management were always mediated by the operating system. The main user-visible quirk was the ability to partition memory, which ensured that properly written software would not overwrite the memory of other applications. (Granted, there was no memory protection, so it could happen.)
- flenserboy 6y ago
  System 6 stays with me as much better, mainly because System 7 randomly crashed unless I had just the right set of extensions, while System 6 only went down for me when an application (usually predictably) misbehaved. 7.5(.5) was truly terrible, though 7.6.1 ended up being remarkably stable.

II2II 6y ago

You reminded me of an interesting feature in System 6: it was possible to turn multitasking off. I found the feature useful when it came down to crunch time in my university studies. Just as people today talk about disconnecting from the Internet when they need a distraction free work environment, I disabled multitasking. As for System 6 being the pinnacle, I have a hard time deciding between System 6 and System 7.1. The early versions of System 7 added a few quality-of-life improvements while maintaining most of the simplicity of System 6. System 7.5 (or maybe System 7.1 Pro) is when the Macintosh System Software went off the rails in my opinion.

temporallobe 6y ago
Fascinating...how did the system behave with multitasking off? I’ve never encountered an OS with such a feature. Closest I can imagine is something like iOS.
- II2II 6y ago
  From the end user perspective: you could only use one application at a time. In most cases, switching between programs meant quitting the current program and launching another program from the Finder. There were a couple of exceptions to this: * Some programs let you launch another program without quitting. If I recall correctly, those programs would remain in memory but would not run in the background. If you wanted to return to the original program, you would have to exit the program it launched. This was typically available in development tools. * Desk accessories were device drivers that looked like programs. This allowed the end user to run small programs, like a calculator or clipboard manager, while continuing to use another piece of software. The more interesting question is how did the system behave with multitasking turned on, since the original system software did not support multitasking. For a while multitasking support could be added with a separate piece of software. System 6 was the first version of the Macintosh system software to incorporate multitasking and it was turned off by default (if I recall correctly). System 7 was the first version where multitasking could not be disabled. I suspect that multitasking could be added in a relatively seamless fashion to the system software since developers were supposed to use the Macintosh Toolbox (API), so things like memory management were always mediated by the operating system. The main user-visible quirk was the ability to partition memory, which ensured that properly written software would not overwrite the memory of other applications. (Granted, there was no memory protection, so it could happen.)
flenserboy 6y ago
System 6 stays with me as much better, mainly because System 7 randomly crashed unless I had just the right set of extensions, while System 6 only went down for me when an application (usually predictably) misbehaved. 7.5(.5) was truly terrible, though 7.6.1 ended up being remarkably stable.