--A. Percy said to me:
> I was wondering what people's experiences are with using various
> versions of the MacOS on a Duo 230. What's the fastest/slimmest? My
> "new" Duo (thanks Alan!) has 12mb of RAM and an 80mb hard drive.
I have a 230 and I run System 7.5.0 on it. Although it's only a minor
number change, the difference between 7.5.0 and 7.5.3 is HUGE in terms of
RAM and HD space. 7.5 is very fast (30 second boot time), small (~9-10 MB
HD and 2 MB RAM) and can handle pretty much anything you'll need. This does
of course require that you fine tune what extensions and CP's you have
loading (I have about 7 extensions and 12 CP's for full internet & network
access). Internet is though MacTCP 2.6 (there's a free updater from Apple
for the version that ships with System 7.5) & FreePPP 2.6.2.
> I'm also looking for a small word processor, small e-mail program,
> and small web browser -- versions that don't take up much hard disk
> space or RAM. Any recommendations are welcome.
I use WordPerfect 3.5 as my word processor. Again, if you get rid of a lot
of excess junk, this doesn't take up much HD (5 MB) and has modest (1.2-2.5
MB) RAM requirements. It depends on what you're used to though. Nisus has a
word processor called "Nisus Compact" which I believe is free and made
specifically for low requirements <http://www.nisus.com>. Hard disk
requirements are 600K for the application, 1.2 MB's if you want the
spelling dictionaries. Ram is 500K-1MB. I played around with it and it
seems to have a good amount of features. I don't use it because it doesn't
support tables (which I use) and all of my documents are in WordPerfect
format. But the full NisusWriter might be an option too, I just don't know
its requirements.
For my web browser, I use iCab <http://www.icab.de> -- it's not very stable
right now, but Netscape 3.0 (which I used before) wanted quite a lot of HD
space and RAM. Plus, I don't do a huge amount of web browsing. For email, I
telnet into a Unix box. NiftyTelnet is a great program, but there is quite
a lot of choice in this area these days. I used to have Claris Emailer on
my Duo, and it's requirements seemed to be reasonable. I believe you might
even be able to get it free these days although I'm not sure from where
exactly.
Anyway, I hope this long-winded response provides some help. My Duo has
full AppleTalk and Internet capabilities, WordPerfect, BBEdit Lite,
TexEdit, NetFinder, iCab, NiftyTelnet, some utilities (FileTyper, ResEdit,
TechTool Pro 2.1, and a couple others) CodeWarrior Pro (just the Mac 68k
development), some documents & projects, and 20 MB of free space. And yes,
I have an 80 MB hard drive too. You just have to delete any unneccessary
supporting files (like help files), and remove the PPC code from FAT
applications (I use Fat Free -- which you can find on the info-mac archives
under 'cfg/fat-free-122.hqx' -- because it's only 22K). Good luck!
Cheers,
Jolin
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