Soooo, what do you think? What is the best classic version?

I'd say 8.6 because it is the only other mac os I've ever used (on my trusty old power pc g3)!!! But of course it's not compareable with os x on my DELL.

I would say OS 9 as it was built on top of the others with added features also it was the one that came with my powerbook.

jrsdead

Mac OS 8.6 all the way, baby!

w00t!



Guru

Let's hear it for 1.0!



I still voted for OS 9 though

There were so many changes with just point releases that it's hard to just pin it down to one Classic system. For right now, I'm going with OS 9 with some huge props to either System 6 or 7.

I think that the best Classic version is MacOS 8. It has a lot of improovments over System 7 and it's still very light. But MacOS 9, which I'm testing now, is a bit slower, plus it's enslaved by MacOS X - you know the 2 applications folders.

9 is a hack, 8 is bloated, leaving 7 to take the position at the top. Seriously, 8 and 9 are part of the reason Apple almost died.

system 7.5 was rock solid, after taht, the OS deteriorated until OSX

Actually it was caused by a lot of factors not at all related to the Mac OS:

1. Clone makers actually siphoned off sales from Apple instead of attracting new customers

2. Mega glut of cheap Performa models made for very little profit from Apple

3. Byzantine product names made it super hard to evaluate what system came out when/where/how and it ultimately confused customers.

OS 8 came out around the same time as the iMac G3, which was the super-de-duper hit that Apple wanted since the original Macintosh. It had nothing to do with the Mac OS as it had to do with the big three reasons.

I voted for OS 8. It was a major difference from 7 to me. I remember I even d/led the beta on my 14.4 modem.

I would say System 6. The most stable of the family

8.6 comes in first, with 7.6.1 being close second

Are you guys kidding? 9 Sucked! I didn't use 8 much, but I LOVED System 7. P.S. There was no System 5, although there was a System Software 5, Finder Software 4, but it was considered System 4 I think. Or something like that.

EDIT: No wait I'm completely wrong about that. Go look it up for yourselves, it may be System 4.

EDIT 2: OK, I got this. There was a System 5, but the old Mac OS Versions were combinations of the System File and the Finder. System 5 was System File 4 and Finder File 6. Therefore, there was no System File 5.

That is sort of an odd position to take considering that Apple's return to profitability started with the release of Mac OS 8 and the G3 systems. And that the dark days at Apple were all during the System 7 era (including the seven consecutive quarters of losses).

Also Mac OS 8 introduced a number of important features that System 7 was sorely lacking (like system wide multitasking and partial protected memory). Any one who actually had to use System 7 noticed the change with Mac OS 8... you could still work while other applications were working on a process (in 7 you were left waiting for the process in most apps to finish).

As for stability, Mac OS 8.6 is the high point of the classic Mac OS. Mac OS 9.1 approached that level of stability, but never quite reached it. The rest of the Mac OS 9 releases were significantly less stable than Mac OS 8 on the whole.

Of course most of the reason for Mac OS 9's relative instability was that it wasn't being aimed at running a computer by itself... Mac OS 9 was being tailored to be a good Classic environment for Mac OS X. Also Mac OS 9 was an incredible resource hog... 9.0.x required at least 32 MB of RAM for the system itself (which meant that new Apple hardware with 32 MB of RAM running Mac OS 9 were already forced into using virtual memory right out of the box), with later versions of 9 surpassing 64 MB of memory just for the system. Mac OS 8 used between 6 MB to 16 MB (for 8.6) of memory for the system. And considering that the latest version of the Carbon libraries can be used in 8.6, you really didn't get much out of running Mac OS 9 that you couldn't get from 8.6.

...which is why you won't see any of my non-Mac OS X (or non-Rhapsody) systems running any version of Mac OS 9.

Voted MacOS 8, though nostalgia allmost made me vote MacOS 7. because of trusty old MacOS 7.5.3, which came preinstalled on my old Performa 5260. It was as unstable at a roboat with holes in it, but it was the first thing i saw, on the first computer i bought with my own money:-)

I BRAKE FOR 8!

Dude... I would have to say Mac OS 8.6 was the best ever! Mac OS 9.1.2 was bloated as hell when I used it a couple years ago.

Mac OS 8.6, I like it alot, even if only in emulation. I do like OS9's software update feature, wish it was in OS 8 .

Edit: Woot my 20th post, only 980 to go .

I voted System 7. My Mac LC 475 has 7.6 and it works fine. I also like Mac OS 9 (as my school uses it on their iMacs and eMacs) as it runs fast.

congrats and 8 ftw (idk, i am proud to say i have never kept an apple os on any of my boxes)

I am for 8.6. When I went to somewhere in Arnold, the place that I stayed had a very old Mac. It had system 7 on it. It worked with color and everything, but I restarted it and it broke So that is why I go for Mac OS 8.6

8.1 was where it was at for me back in the day. It was the best os for my pb1400. 8.5/6 were waaaay too slow with only 32mb of ram.

My first system was 8.1, the one that came with my iMac G3 233. 8.5 & 8.6 were much better than that and I voted for Mac OS 9. In fact, I resisted switching to Mac OS X until it felt more complete kind of an OS with Jaguar.

9 works quite fast in iMac 233, with 160 MB ram, btw.

doesn't it rather depend on which mac you want to run the os on?

after 1.0 or so i think they lost the guided tours. can we x86 classic???

Classic cannot be X86-ed, at least not without a nasty port job. USe SheepShaver

Not merely System 6, but System 6.08L, specifically!

Some hooks to the features soon to come in System 7, but w/ all the insanely ugly & stupid desktop patterns stripped out, & other unnecessary system resources as well. Small footprint, as fast as it comes. Load it up in a Powerbook 100, even w/ the base 2MB of memory, you can still allocate enough space for 6.08L to a ram disk [no need for a disk cache; trim that to zero! System 6' disk cach mgmt. sucked anyway...] and have enough ram left over to run MacWrite II.

Best of the System 6, & so unknown that it's still mostly a rumour after a decade & 1/2. But I was there, I used it, & still miss the rockin' performance that running completely out of ram gave to the otherwise sedate PB100. Of course, by today's standards that was still dog slow, but at the time it was the best bang for the buck available for mobile production [no internet to distract you from getting things done is still sometimes a valuable feature!
;-)

I choose...

I've never used a mac os before os x



/Needs to try

System 7 was fun...when I used it in kindergarden/Grade 1. It totally made my Windows 3.11 on a 486 look like crap.

I would say Mac OS 8. It ran quite well on the iMacs and other Macs of the time. However Windows NT 4.0 came out a year before Mac OS 8. I always liked NT better than Mac OS. Windows 2000 came out around 5 months after Mac OS 9 was released, and then I really just lost interest in the Macintosh... Until OS X

The first Mac OS I ever used was 7.5.3 on the Power Macintosh 7200's at college, and everything else has just built on it (until the Return of Jobs ensured that OS X felt more like NeXT STEP rather than the classic Mac OS). I really still like 7.x, sticking to 7.6.1 on my Powerbook. I have 9.2.2 on my blue G3 because it came with 8.6 and won't run 7.x at all, so I might as well go with the latest.

You could get the appearance manager for system 7 and give it the os8 look.

OS 9. The best obviously unless you are a vintage geek.

No rly, is this thread even neccessary?

The best OS's were 8.6 and 9.

They both ran PERFECTLY on a G3 with 64 mb ram. Under emulation it is shitty but it gives you a look. Anyway, I voted 9, because by me it worked best and wasn't kind-a "Abandonwarez"

Wow. Seems Apple actually gets better with every new release. Contrary to another company we all know...

Anyway, asking what version of window you like best is kind of weird too, isn't it? But I'd have to say Win2000 (NT6, IIRC).

Actually, that was NT 5.0, not 6 (Vista is 6 )

Windows 2000 isn't that bad, provided you slipstream it and get rid of all the junk.

http://www.vorck.com/remove-ie.html

OS 9!!
why? os 7 was totally not compatible with windows (i have an old performa and when i insert a diskette with a mac os classic program, but it's written with a pc to that diskette, os 7 can't work good with it)
i never used mac os 8
and i used os 9 for more than 5 years and it was the best mac os system i had (and i had various macs: mac classic II, powerbook duo 250, powerbook 130, performa 5300, performa 7x00) and my imac dv worked with os 9. (now it runs panther) but the very best mac os operating system is leopard!! (it's soooo good (i have it on my alu imac))