Several years ago, I decided I wanted a desktop computer, so I
purchased a used Power Macintosh
6100/60. This particular 6100 still had it's original 16 MB of
RAM, 700 MB hard disk, and System 7.5.
Shortly after I bought it, Mac OS 8.5 came out. That is when I
made a big mistake. I wanted to use the new OS, so installed Mac OS
8.5 on my 6100 with 16 MB of RAM.
Now, I know 8.5 is bad on a 6100 - but with only 16 MB of RAM it
was terrible! It would give me "out of memory" messages and
sometimes just halt for a moment to catch up with itself. The only
thing I liked is that it was very stable. I figured more memory
would fix some of the problems, so I went out and bought some. I
increased the memory to 24 MB. That was the time Mac OS 8.6 came
out, so I decided to upgrade again.
Another big mistake. As I opened the installer, I came upon a
message: "Make sure you have at least 24 MB of RAM." I figured that
it just wanted to make sure that your computer would work well with
8.6, and that it still needed only 16 MB to actually run, so I
clicked continue. It took a while to update, but once it did, I
restarted.
"Welcome to Mac OS 8.6." It was successfully updated. I looked a
moment later. "Welcome to Mac OS 8.6" was still showing on the
screen, yet the machine was not frozen. It sat there for 10 minutes
trying to load the extensions! By the time it was done, it was
painfully slow in the Finder - it was almost impossible to use. I
kept it this way for some time before I decided I would let a
friend borrow it. They told me it was way too slow, and if there
was anything I could do to speed it up....
I deleted Mac OS 8.6 and installed a fresh copy of Mac OS 7.6.
"Welcome to Mac OS." It looked as if everything went well. Then: "A
System Error Occurred." It turned out to be the "Auto Power Off"
control panel. It had been installed before.... (Could this be a
hint of the problems to come later?)
I later decided I would install Microsoft Word 5.1a. It
installed and then told me I didn't have enough memory - but there
was nearly 16 MB left!* I restarted with the shift key down, and
then Word worked fine. I restarted normally, and an empty box came
up where a system error would normally be.
- * This is a known and frustrating "feature" of Word 5.1a on
certain versions of the Mac OS. We struggled with it for quite a
while at work, since Word 5.1a has been our default word processor
for about eight years. One workaround is to always launch another
program before launching Word; we don't know why, but that almost
always worked. The other is a freeware extension
FixWordSystemMemory by Larry Rosenstein. You can learn more about
it and download it
here. Dan Knight, editor
I went through all the extensions, and even reinstalled the Mac
OS. Same problem. I then tried to update the hard disk driver with
Apple's Mac OS 7.6 Drive Setup. It stated the hard disk was
"unknown," yet it had Apple ROMs and Mac OS 8.6's Drive Setup had
worked fine.
I tried Mac OS 8.0's Drive Setup, and it recognized the driver.
I reinstalled it and restarted. Same problem.
I then decided to install System 7.5. I installed it, and it
worked! I updated to 7.5.3 successfully. However, I now frequently
get system errors, usually error type 11. Internet Explorer 4.0
refuses to work; 3D Website builder also freezes.
The main lesson I learned from this experience is to be sure
what OS you want on your Mac and what works well. If you are
unsure, consult my article, A Question of
OS. My poor 6100 is to the point that if I want to use an OS
prior to 8.0, I must reinitialize the hard disk to make it function
properly. Oh well. When I find my Mac OS 8 CD, I will install
that.
I am writing this article on my Power Macintosh 6100/60 with
System 7.5.3 in Microsoft Word 6.0.1. Despite what people say, I
will never, ever again try Word 5.1a on a Power Mac. I have found
"my" version of Word: 6.0.1. It rarely crashes, seems to have a lot
of nice features, can still use the Word 5 menu bar, and has a nice
new interface, which you either love or hate. I love it.
I also have mixed feelings about this computer itself. I both
love it and hate it, all at the same time. I love it because it is
a cool design and it's a PowerMac. I hate it because of all the
trouble it has given me.
I wonder what it would say to me if it could talk.
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