Well, so I guess my PB 1400c is coming with OS 9 loaded instead of OS 7 as originally planned! That is exciting, if not for the fact that performance will be reduced.

Should I install 8.6 on it instead? There are like either 32 or 48MB of RAM. Would it make that large of a difference, do you think? If i do keep OS 9, should I use that helper app to boost it to 9.2.2 in order to run things like iTunes and MSN, etc?

My view is always that less is more. I personally would go back to 7 but if you're not willing to do that then definitely go back to 8 in my view. The eye candy is not worth all that extra drain on resources.

When I got my 1400c/133 it was running System 9. I switched back to System 7 and it's far better.

Even with the full 64MB of RAM, OS 9.1 is a burden to a 1400. NuBus Macs have to be tricked into installation of 9.2.x, an exercise that is scarcely worth undertaking but for the experience.

OS 8.6 is by far the most grateful and stable OS for the PB 1400, whether or no the Mac's CPU has been upgraded. The full complement of RAM is a Good Thing in any case. The 1400 is a fine machine, but prevented from some advances by its 10MHz NuBus architecture. I have a 1400/G3/400 (Sonnet) and two 1400/G3/233s (NewerTech). They hold their own for utility as PowerBooks, ie portable notebooks, with many a later PB model. However, they are definitely from before the era of expectation that they also be miniaturized desktops. The 1400/400 is still useful for dial-up web work away from home/on the road. It's the available browsers that begin to creak with Macs of that age, especially shown when snotty site owners tell you that you should upgrade your browser because they haven't the wit to understand who is the customer.

de
_________________
(60x) 13DT + 3PB + PTPro; (G3) 7DT/MT; (G4) 3T + PB. System 8.1 to OS 10.5.8

I used to have 8.0 on my Power Mac 6500 with 32 megs of RAM. I've since "upgraded" to 9.1. I really wish that I'd left it in 8.0. OS 9 blows on anything with under 64 megs of Physical RAM.
_________________
PPC Macs:

• Power Macintosh G4
  
• B&W Power Macintosh G4
  
• Power Macintosh 6500/225

Definitely use the lowest OS you are comfortable with on your 1400.

I'd go with 8.6 too, on lower end PowerPCs. More PPC native code, lower RAM requirement than 9.x, and more compatibility with the newer Classic MacOS than 8.1. Best of all worlds for the machine .

Dana

Nice to see that cat finally gave you your tongue back.

I know I'm weird - but I tend to skip OS 8.5 and 8.6 altogether - I go for 8.1 or 9.1, or 7.6 if you want the best performance.

If you don't specifically want a lot of those Internet apps, I'd stick with 7.6, if you do want them, 9.1 or 9.2.2 (needed for MSNm I think) will be your best bet.
_________________
[Insert Cool Signature here!]

Nice, nice. Skipping 8.6 - 9.2.2 seems odd, but I can understand the logic there. I would really like to use 7.6.1 or 8.1 to make it run as fast as possible, but I still have a burning desire to use AIM and have a decent (Mozilla) webbrowser, since that would be the only purpose of this machine.

I just see 8.6 as a bit of a cop-out, It's heavier than 8.1 without adding much in the way of usability, and 9.x has some features that I actually like. Dunno about anybody else, but I was actually really excited when I heard about the "Multiple Users" in OS9. Finally - inbuilt password protection.
_________________
[Insert Cool Signature here!]

Yeah, for sure the multiple users thing was a pretty nice feature. I remember how excited I was using the Windows 98 multiple users bootscreen on my 486DX2 66MHz.

I think there is actually quite a bit more software that will run on 8.6 than 8.1... and isn't 8.6 PPC native anyway, whereas 8.1 has code for 68k processors as well?

That's probably true -- I forget about that since I used OS Helper to put 9.2.2 on my old 5500/225 that I used to have.

I have OS8.6 on my 1400/133 and it is a little too slow for me. Work reasonably well though. I'd say that 8.5 was a bit quicker.

OS7 was definately the fastest though.

There are 32MB of RAM installed, and it is running OS 9.0 (Just got it today).

I don't think the Xircom ethernet card that came with it actually works under Mac OS, not to mention that 9 is SLOW as Heck. That is why I would like to downgrade to 8.1, I think. Give me some more "eye candy" while having decent performance and support for AIM and IE.

Yeah that's way too little memory for 9.x or even 8.6. And even with 8.1 you'll want to strip pretty viciously at the Extns and CPs. Use Symbionts; it shows you everything that loads at startup - Extensions Manager doesn't.

I have some version of 9 (9.0.4 or 9.1, I can't remember now) on a 6500 with 48mb and it's not exactly snappy. When I first got it the hard drive was bad so I swapped in a drive from another machine and that's what was on it. I really have to get around to maxing out the RAM on that machine before the SIMMs become unavailable. That will probably cure most of the speed issue.

I have a Mac OS 8.7 beta.

Mac OS 8.7 got rebranded as OS 9.0.

Still pretty cool to have a beta of the OS. I have a copy of 8.2 around somewhere. But as beta software, the quality and stability is poor, and not something I would want to use for anything other than experimentation. I think the original poster in this thread was interested in picking the right OS for a PowerBook 1400, so you can assume that person wants something stable.

Peace,
Drew
_________________
Power to the PowerPC!

8.2 is good, this build has a unique themes that doesn't showed up in next releases. Also have a Copland Betas.
_________________
To Be Continued...