I took a few moments to launch Mini vMac and play with Mac OS 6.08 on my MacBook Pro that runs Snow Leopard. Since Snow Leopard will not let you write to or create HFS disk images I was limited to what was available on the 6.08 Disk Tools disk, namely the venerable Disk First Aid and Apple HD SC Setup.
I was very proud of myself for remembering that there is a secret key combination to expose the logging window of DFA so you can see what it is doing. Back in the early days DFA just worked it’s magic and expected you to wait patiently for the watch cursor to disappear and the application to report it’s cryptic results.
If you press Command-S while DFA is open a window underneath appears that displays the status of the DFA processes. Since this always begins and ends with a date/time stamp and the message “Scavenging begun” or “Scavenging ended” I presume Command-S was chosen to display the Scavenging process.
Disk First Aid 1.4.3 with secret window revealed
Later versions of Disk First Aid by default display the disk examination and repair process, but back in the System 6 days you had to know the magical keycode to watch its inner workings as it churned away performing its diagnostics and repair.
Which one of these fits a PowerBook 5300?
If you’ve assembled a nice collection of older Mac laptops, or if you just started a collection with a laptop that came without a power adapter, you may wonder what you need to power it.
Fortunately, Apple has a series of excellent articles in their KnowledgeBase that will point you in the right direction:
There’s something oddly ironic about posting a news items that references one of today’s most technologically advanced consumer products (the iPhone) on a blog about vintage Macs. Heck, the cell phones that middle schoolers tote around have exponentially more processing power and capabilities than early Macs!
But if you share a love for early Apple technology and find a need for Ian Page’s comprehensive reference of every Macintosh computer ever made when you can’t be in front of a Mac, it’s available now for your iPhone. Best of all, MacTracker for iPhone, is free. Donations are accepted, though, and goodness knows Ian deserves them for all of his efforts in making MacTracker the quintessential document of record for Apple’s hardware history.
If you aren’t sure which versions of the Mac OS are compatible with your Macintosh, here are some excellent resources to find out:
AppleCare’s Knowledge Base includes several relevant articles on the topic:
My favorite tool for finding a quick answer to this question is Ian Page’s awesome MacTracker, a comprehensive collection of vital information about every model of Macintosh that is available as a free Mac OS X or Windows application, or via a web site that’s optimized for viewing on an iPhone or iPod Touch.
Now, as for which version of the Mac OS is optimal for your model of Macintosh, well, that’s beyond the scope of this article. The folks over at lowendmac.com have a number of helpful articles on this topic, though.
