On Jan 7, 6:57 pm, "Christian Wacker" <[email protected]> wrote: > -------------------------------------------------- > From: "pgpapas" <[email protected]> > Sent: Thursday, January 07, 2010 5:50 PM > To: "Vintage Macs" <[email protected]> > Subject: Re: Question about Mac IIsi > > > Keep in mind, we're talking about a Mac here, not a PC, an older one > > at that...The "clean install" thing really doesn't apply here as it does in > > the > > PC world since ... Just removing stuff you don't need should be enough. > > I've NEVER reformatted ... since bought new from '86 thu '92. > > Also keep in mind that this pertains to the Classic Mac OS, and not OSx > Both the PC and the Mac suffer from something called Fragmentation which is > what the reformat (soft-format, also called re-initilization) does away with > for a period of time. All it does is place all the system files back at the > start of the disk, making them much faster to access. > As for Junk Files and misdirected whatnot, a Mac still has the same > problems, it's called a WebCache, and any Browser Enabled OS (which I > wouldn't know any more geared to just internet than Mac OS) would be filled > with without regular cleaning. it's just digital nature to be crap, and you > have to make sure it never "devolves" into crap, by maintiaing it regularly. > which a PC owner doesn't maintain as much of, seeing as they hold onto, and > use for nearly twice the time as a Mac owner. > Just my 2 cents. > -Christian (AKA Pizzaboy192)
Good points, Christian. I hadn't considered the fragmenting issue, as I'd had software set up to regularly defragment the drives automatically whenever idle. The alteranative - occasionally doing it manually - seemed to take forever with those 'huge' 100 to 300 MB drives ;p (oh, the good old days...) I remember the first time I defragmented a drive - it was an 80meg external on a Mac Plus - the computer suddenly seemed considerably -- make that dramatically faster (I can't remember how many hours it took). And yes clearing out the crap is and was important; my point was, on the system 7 & prior machines that meant files of any type that you no longer needed - even applications - could simply moved to the trash without an uninstaller without fear of buggering up the system. Mind you, of couse some Microsoft programs didn't fit that mould, but that's a whole other story... That all reminds me of how nice it was being able to have several OSs "on hand" within the same drive - even within the same System Folder - as long as each system's finder file was isolated in yet another folder. Then if something ever went screwey (ie- from too much experimenting with resedit) or if an older program wasn't compatible, you could simply swap system files, restart, and away you go...
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