5 ms·

Did anything bad happen?

grishka 5y ago
I haven't ever used classic Mac OS when it was current, and I don't know anyone who did, but I do remember Windows 9x crashing and locking up being an almost daily occurrence. PCs came with dedicated reset buttons for a reason!
- GhettoComputers 5y ago
  I did, it was all intranet, I mentioned this in another post, but they didn't have the same threats as we do today. >PCs came with dedicated reset buttons for a reason! They still do! Windows 9x did suck, Windows NT however was amazing, it is like the most Linux like of all the Windows. How could they release Windows ME...
  - eru 5y ago
    All modern Windows versions since XP have NT lineage.
    - GhettoComputers 5y ago
      They have other issues now, mostly performance, but not as many crashes at least. Its like saying all modern Intel CPUs are descended from Core M, but I don't know if it adds any relevant information, its mutated a lot and its very different, but at least it doesn't crash like 95, 98, 98 Plus! and ugh ME.
- wpearse 5y ago
  My memory of Mac OS 7.1 was that it was rock solid. When it did bomb it wasn’t a surprise — you knew it was coming because you’d been messing around in ResEdit or playing with the debugger.
  - Angostura 5y ago
    Or installing a hundred conflicting INITs
  - mattl 5y ago
    System 7.1 -- it didn't become Mac OS until sometime in the 7.5 era. EDIT: Correction, I said 8.5. Sleepy.
    - technothrasher 5y ago
      7.5/7.6 was the switch-over to the "Mac OS" name.
      - mattl 5y ago
        Yep, sorry. Sleepy :)
smilespray 5y ago
Macs running classic MacOS were famously unstable for professional work. I got used to restarting my Mac when getting a cup of coffee as preventative maintenance. The few viruses that were around were mostly annoyances.
- GeekyBear 5y ago
  Nah. Once you got creative users to stop installing scads of extensions, Macs were way more stable than Win95 boxes. The problem was that creative users had no concept of "some extensions just aren't compatible with others".
  - smilespray 5y ago
    It's not as simple as that. We ran a tight ship, extension-wise. There were plenty of bugs in QuarkXPress, Photoshop and Illustrator to make our Macs bomb, and the fundamental lack of memory protection, process isolation and preemptive multitasking in Mac OS meant that the whole system was wobbly from the bottom up. Also, my post wasn't meant as a comparision between Win95 and Mac OS. I just responded to a question about what Mac OS was like to work with on a daily basis in the decade of the 90s. Win95 wasn't around for half of it.
    - simondotau 5y ago
      It’s slightly weird and unnerving to realise that modern macOS is older today than classic MacOS was when it was obsoleted.
      - smilespray 5y ago
        Unnerving indeed. How time flies.
      - grishka 5y ago
        And it's been through 2 CPU architecture transitions.

I haven't ever used classic Mac OS when it was current, and I don't know anyone who did, but I do remember Windows 9x crashing and locking up being an almost daily occurrence. PCs came with dedicated reset buttons for a reason!

GhettoComputers 5y ago
I did, it was all intranet, I mentioned this in another post, but they didn't have the same threats as we do today. >PCs came with dedicated reset buttons for a reason! They still do! Windows 9x did suck, Windows NT however was amazing, it is like the most Linux like of all the Windows. How could they release Windows ME...
- eru 5y ago
  All modern Windows versions since XP have NT lineage.
  - GhettoComputers 5y ago
    They have other issues now, mostly performance, but not as many crashes at least. Its like saying all modern Intel CPUs are descended from Core M, but I don't know if it adds any relevant information, its mutated a lot and its very different, but at least it doesn't crash like 95, 98, 98 Plus! and ugh ME.
wpearse 5y ago
My memory of Mac OS 7.1 was that it was rock solid. When it did bomb it wasn’t a surprise — you knew it was coming because you’d been messing around in ResEdit or playing with the debugger.
- Angostura 5y ago
  Or installing a hundred conflicting INITs
- mattl 5y ago
  System 7.1 -- it didn't become Mac OS until sometime in the 7.5 era. EDIT: Correction, I said 8.5. Sleepy.
  - technothrasher 5y ago
    7.5/7.6 was the switch-over to the "Mac OS" name.
    - mattl 5y ago
      Yep, sorry. Sleepy :)

smilespray 5y ago

Macs running classic MacOS were famously unstable for professional work. I got used to restarting my Mac when getting a cup of coffee as preventative maintenance. The few viruses that were around were mostly annoyances.

GeekyBear 5y ago
Nah. Once you got creative users to stop installing scads of extensions, Macs were way more stable than Win95 boxes. The problem was that creative users had no concept of "some extensions just aren't compatible with others".
- smilespray 5y ago
  It's not as simple as that. We ran a tight ship, extension-wise. There were plenty of bugs in QuarkXPress, Photoshop and Illustrator to make our Macs bomb, and the fundamental lack of memory protection, process isolation and preemptive multitasking in Mac OS meant that the whole system was wobbly from the bottom up. Also, my post wasn't meant as a comparision between Win95 and Mac OS. I just responded to a question about what Mac OS was like to work with on a daily basis in the decade of the 90s. Win95 wasn't around for half of it.
  - simondotau 5y ago
    It’s slightly weird and unnerving to realise that modern macOS is older today than classic MacOS was when it was obsoleted.
    - smilespray 5y ago
      Unnerving indeed. How time flies.
    - grishka 5y ago
      And it's been through 2 CPU architecture transitions.