Found Footage: a Mac Classic booting
The Mac Classic was an early 90's 'budget' Mac running System 6 (check out Low End Mac's history and profile of this model), and I've personally never seem one in action. Since pictures are worth only so many words, I thought I'd post a YouTube video I stumbled across of a Classic starting up. The res/frame rate flicker (funny thing: I had to edit 'flicker' because I originally and instinctively typed 'flickr') and crummy Flash compression certainly don't propel this video to the top of the list in terms of video quality, but I figured this might still be a fun, though brief, look at an old school version of the Mac OS.
If ya'll know of any better videos of older versions of Mac OS booting or running, feel free to link them in the comments. If we can collect enough, I'll round them up in another post.
![TUAW [Cafepress]](http://www.blogsmithmedia.com/www.tuaw.com/media/tuaw-cafepress-promo.png)
Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)
eletro said 12:25PM on 9-03-2006
Uh....what exactly is the big deal here? We had these in high school and college in the early '90s. They weren't the most advanced things but they got the job done. Now, when I walked into my dorm room in August of '94 and saw a brand new Power Mac with color monitor sitting on my desk...THAT was exciting.
Reply
RaVeNouS said 12:34PM on 9-03-2006
I am seriously lost in why this is significant. If it was booting OS X I would think this was cool. Forgive me if I am wrong, but isn't this just a really old computer starting up? : /
Reply
Ryan said 12:37PM on 9-03-2006
The video was relevant and entertaining for me, as I was only 9 years old when you were in your dorm room with your Powermac. This blog wasn't written only for you, electro.
Reply
Andrew Eller said 12:37PM on 9-03-2006
I like how his folders were arranged in finder, that was clever.
Reply
Brandon Wardlaw said 2:04PM on 9-03-2006
I'm wondering the same thing as the last two posters. Come on, I saw this every day between 4th and 7th grades. It's no more interesting to me than watching an old Windows 3.1 box boot.
Reply
lieven said 12:46PM on 9-03-2006
There were way too many inits, and the machine was running the multifinder (or maybe even System 7). If booted with a standard System 6 installation, it would blow your minds how fast a cold boot was back then... Ah, good old times :) (I like my MacBook Pro though :p )
Reply
Bart said 12:58PM on 9-03-2006
Nice. I remember my Mac'intosh' Classic II and LC. Did you know you can actually emulate an old Mac, with the Motorola 680x0 processor? Using emulators such as Basilisk or vMac, you can run any Mac OS until 8.1 (or System, as the OS was called). Actually, it's even legal to simply download any Mac OS up to version 7.5.5; Apple is offering disk images of various versions on their FTP.
Reply
Jeano said 1:53PM on 9-03-2006
I have two Mac Classics sitting on my bookshelf at this very moment. My first computer was a Mac 512K that had been upgraded to a Mac Plus.
These guys booted up in no time at all!
Why did I bring home the Classics? So I can have Talking Moose, and Shadowgate and a number of fun things that are from bygone days!
Reply
Joshua Ochs said 1:23PM on 9-03-2006
Nope, that is System 7 (the balloon help and Label menus cinch it).
Seeing Disinfectant show up in the inits brought back fond memories, however. Disinfectant was a free anti-virus program that was updated faster (usually within a day or so of a new virus), caused fewer conflicts (none), and worked better than its commercial competition. I knew the author - John Norstad - when I was at Northwestern. Great guy, and a great little program.
Reply
Cap'n Hector said 1:35PM on 9-03-2006
That is the slowest booting Classic I've ever seen…I had a Plus that I booted from floppy faster than that.
Interesting video, but I still have a working Classic at home…play Beyond Dark Castle on it every so often. A clean System 6 install is still my favorite OS.
Reply
jmatt1122 said 1:31PM on 9-03-2006
brings back good memories of kidpix and fun with appleworks in grade school. ahh the fun we had.
Reply
nate said 1:40PM on 9-03-2006
David, how old are you? That isn't meant in any offensive way. I'm just curious since you said you've never seen a Mac Classic in person, all of the sudden I feel like a geezer.
Reply
Macmonster said 1:45PM on 9-03-2006
I tried to get mine to boot but it kept giving a Error 14 bomb from my 1984 vintage System Disk and SystemMacWriteMacPaint disk.
I did capture it with my iSight and may post to my web site. There are pictures there of it already. That was fun for a hot Sunday afternoon when I was avoiding chores!
Reply
Ed said 2:00PM on 9-03-2006
Is it just me or was there no startup chime? I'm pretty sure they used to have it...
Reply
David Chartier said 2:16PM on 9-03-2006
#10: I'm 26, and my first Mac was the first 12-inch PowerBook. I more or less grew up on PCs, and am glad I made the switch when I did.
This also means that my only exposure to the Mac OS was really mac OS X. I'd used 9 in a couple of design classes at an older school before I moved to CO from WI and had to take some time off (in-state tuition and all that jazz), but I never liked 9, partly because I didn't understand it, but also because it was uglier than WinME and XP at the time. Fortunately, a friend at my new school sat me down and showed me the ins and outs of Mac OS X 10.2, and I instantly fell in love. I've been learning everything I can about the Mac and its inner workings ever since.
Reply
anon said 6:11PM on 9-03-2006
If you can get me a boot disk, I can get a video of a 512k booting.
Reply
Juan de Dios Santander Vela said 2:37PM on 9-03-2006
Startup chime is supressed if volume was set to 0…
And by the way, it was some flavor of System 7 it was booting… System 6 booted way faster.
Reply
Dave said 3:27PM on 9-03-2006
I'd love to watch it but that stupid advert with the buzzing mosquito is on the page so I have hit mute.
Reply
derek said 3:33PM on 9-03-2006
wow, who gives a damn
Reply
Wry Cooter said 4:31PM on 9-03-2006
Rent "2010" for some sweet Apple IIc action. With Dolphins.
Reply