HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

System 7 (later named Mac OS 7) is the seventh major release of the
classic Mac OS Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Mac (computer), Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and end ...
operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware and software resources, and provides common daemon (computing), services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems scheduler (computing), schedule tasks for ...
for
Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...
computers, made by
Apple Computer Apple Inc. is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Cupertino, California, in Silicon Valley. It is best known for its consumer electronics, software, and services. Founded in 1976 as Apple Computer Co ...
. It was launched on May 13, 1991, to succeed System 6 with
virtual memory In computing, virtual memory, or virtual storage, is a memory management technique that provides an "idealized abstraction of the storage resources that are actually available on a given machine" which "creates the illusion to users of a ver ...
, personal
file sharing File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include ...
,
QuickTime QuickTime (or QuickTime Player) is an extensible multimedia architecture created by Apple, which supports playing, streaming, encoding, and transcoding a variety of digital media formats. The term ''QuickTime'' also refers to the QuickTime Pla ...
,
TrueType TrueType is an Computer font#Outline fonts, outline font standardization, standard developed by Apple Inc., Apple in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe Inc., Adobe's PostScript fonts#Type 1, Type 1 fonts used in PostScript. It has become the ...
fonts, the
Force Quit In computing, kill is a command (computing), command that is used in several popular operating systems to send Signal (IPC), signals to running process (computing), processes. Implementations Unix and Unix-like In Unix and Unix-like operating s ...
dialog, and an improved user interface. It was
code-name A code name, codename, call sign, or cryptonym is a Code word (figure of speech), code word or name used, sometimes clandestinely, to refer to another name, word, project, or person. Code names are often used for military purposes, or in espiona ...
d "Big Bang" in development and the initial release was named "The System" or "System" like all earlier versions. With version 7.5.1, the name "Mac OS" debuted on the boot screen, and the operating system was officially renamed to Mac OS in 1997 with version 7.6. The Mac OS 7 line was the longest-lasting major version of the Classic Mac OSes due to the troubled development of Copland, an operating system intended to be the successor to OS 7 before its cancellation and replacement with
Mac OS 8 Mac OS 8 is the eighth major release of the classic Mac OS operating system for Macintosh computers, released by Apple Computer on July 26, 1997. It includes the largest overhaul of the classic Mac OS experience since the release of System 7 ...
.


Development

By 1988, the Macintosh had been on the market for four years. Some aspects of the operating system were beginning to fall behind those of
Microsoft Windows Windows is a Product lining, product line of Proprietary software, proprietary graphical user interface, graphical operating systems developed and marketed by Microsoft. It is grouped into families and subfamilies that cater to particular sec ...
. Many of the assumptions of the System software architecture were obsolete – mainly, the single-tasking model, the replacement of which had first been examined in 1986's Switcher and then replaced with MultiFinder in System 5. In March 1988, shortly before the release of System 6, a group of senior technical staff and managers at Apple held an offsite meeting to plan the future course of Mac OS development. Improvements that seemed achievable in the short term were written on blue
index card An index card (or record card in British English and system cards in Australian English) consists of card stock (heavy paper) cut to a standard size, used for recording and storing small amounts of discrete data. A collection of such cards ei ...
s, longer-term goals like true multitasking on pink cards, and more ambitious ideas like an
object-oriented Object-oriented programming (OOP) is a programming paradigm based on the concept of '' objects''. Objects can contain data (called fields, attributes or properties) and have actions they can perform (called procedures or methods and impleme ...
file system on red cards.Singh, pg. 2 The blue and pink ideas proceeded in parallel teams. The Blue team nicknamed itself Blue Meanies, after characters in the film '' Yellow Submarine'', and released System 7 in 1991. Pink was spun off into Taligent, Inc in 1992 within the
AIM alliance The AIM alliance, also known as the PowerPC alliance, was formed on October 2, 1991, between Apple Inc., Apple, IBM, and Motorola. Its goal was to create an industry-wide open-standard computing platform based on the IBM POWER architecture, POWE ...
with
IBM International Business Machines Corporation (using the trademark IBM), nicknamed Big Blue, is an American Multinational corporation, multinational technology company headquartered in Armonk, New York, and present in over 175 countries. It is ...
.


Overview


Changes

As intended with the Blue and Pink model, improvements in System 7 are significant but incremental. * A new Sound Manager
API An application programming interface (API) is a connection between computers or between computer programs. It is a type of software interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standard that describes how to build ...
, version 2.0, replaces the older ''
ad hoc ''Ad hoc'' is a List of Latin phrases, Latin phrase meaning literally for this. In English language, English, it typically signifies a solution designed for a specific purpose, problem, or task rather than a Generalization, generalized solution ...
'' APIs. The new APIs provided significantly improved
hardware abstraction Hardware abstractions are sets of routines in software that provide programs with access to hardware resources through programming interfaces. The programming interface allows all devices in a particular class ''C'' of hardware devices to be acc ...
and higher-quality playback. * 32-bit
QuickDraw QuickDraw was the 2D graphics library and associated application programming interface (API) which is a core part of classic Mac OS. It was initially written by Bill Atkinson and Andy Hertzfeld. QuickDraw still existed as part of the libraries ...
, supporting so-called "true color" imaging, is standard; it was previously available as a system extension. * System 7 allows a 32-bit program address space. This expanded the memory addressing capabilities from the previous 24-bit address space and increased the system memory limit from 8MB to 4GB. * System 7 makes MultiFinder's
cooperative multitasking Cooperative multitasking, also known as non-preemptive multitasking, is a computer multitasking technique in which the operating system never initiates a context switch from a running Process (computing), process to another process. Instead, in o ...
mandatory. * Trash became a normal directory allowing items to be preserved between reboots and disk eject events instead of being purged. * System extensions are relocated to their own subfolder rather than in the root level of the System Folder as in System 6. They can be installed or removed simply by moving these "extensions" to or from the folder and then rebooting the computer. * Similarly, the Control Panel desk accessory becomes the Control Panels folder. The control panels themselves are separate files stored within this directory. * Under System 6, the Apple Menu contains both a list of desk accessories and a list of running programs under MultiFinder. In System 7 the list of active programs is relocated to its own Application Menu. * System 7.1 introduces System Enablers, small extensions that are loaded at startup to support Macintosh models introduced since the last OS revision. *Cannot run on Macintosh 512Ke.


New features

* Personal
File Sharing File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include ...
– along with
user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fro ...
improvements for
AppleTalk AppleTalk is a discontinued proprietary suite of networking protocols developed by Apple Computer for their Macintosh computers. AppleTalk includes a number of features that allow local area networks to be connected with no prior setup or the ...
, System 7 includes a basic file-sharing server allowing any machine to publish folders to the AppleTalk network. *
Aliases A pseudonym (; ) or alias () is a fictitious name that a person assumes for a particular purpose, which differs from their original or true meaning (orthonym). This also differs from a new name that entirely or legally replaces an individual's ow ...
– small files that represent another object in the file system. Similar in concept to
Unix Unix (, ; trademarked as UNIX) is a family of multitasking, multi-user computer operating systems that derive from the original AT&T Unix, whose development started in 1969 at the Bell Labs research center by Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, a ...
symbolic link In computing, a symbolic link (also symlink or soft link) is a file whose purpose is to point to a file or directory (called the "target") by specifying a path thereto. Symbolic links are supported by POSIX and by most Unix-like operating syste ...
s and Windows shortcuts, an alias in System 7 acts as a redirect to any object in the file system, such as a
document A document is a writing, written, drawing, drawn, presented, or memorialized representation of thought, often the manifestation of nonfiction, non-fictional, as well as fictional, content. The word originates from the Latin ', which denotes ...
, an application, a folder, a
hard disk A hard disk drive (HDD), hard disk, hard drive, or fixed disk is an electro-mechanical data storage device that stores and retrieves digital data using magnetic storage with one or more rigid rapidly rotating hard disk drive platter, pla ...
, a network share or removable medium or a printer. *
Drag and drop In computer graphical user interfaces, drag and drop is a pointing device gesture in which the user (computing), user selects a virtual object by "grabbing" it and dragging it to a different location or onto another virtual object. In general, i ...
– document icons can be dragged with the mouse and "dropped" onto application icons to open in the targeted application. System 7.5's Drag Manager expanded the concept system-wide to include multiple data types such as text or audio data. * ''Stationery'', allowing users to save often-used document styles as a
template Template may refer to: Tools * Die (manufacturing), used to cut or shape material * Mold, in a molding process * Stencil, a pattern or overlay used in graphic arts (drawing, painting, etc.) and sewing to replicate letters, shapes or designs C ...
. "Stationery-aware" applications create a new, untitled file containing the template data. * Balloon Help, a widget-identification system similar to
tooltip The tooltip, also known as infotip or hint, is a common graphical user interface (GUI) element in which, when hoverbox, hovering over a screen element or component, a text box displays information about that element, such as a description of a ...
s. *
AppleScript AppleScript is a scripting language created by Apple Inc. that facilitates automated control of Mac applications. First introduced in System 7, it is currently included in macOS in a package of automation tools. The term ''AppleScript'' may ...
, a
scripting language In computing, a script is a relatively short and simple set of instructions that typically automation, automate an otherwise manual process. The act of writing a script is called scripting. A scripting language or script language is a programming ...
for automating tasks. * AppleEvents, a new
interprocess communication In computer science, interprocess communication (IPC) is the sharing of data between running processes in a computer system. Mechanisms for IPC may be provided by an operating system. Applications which use IPC are often categorized as clients ...
model for "high-level" events to be sent to applications including support for AppleEvents over an AppleTalk network. * Publish and Subscribe permits data "published" by one application to be "subscribed" to in a document of another application, so that it is automatically updated if the original is changed. *
TrueType TrueType is an Computer font#Outline fonts, outline font standardization, standard developed by Apple Inc., Apple in the late 1980s as a competitor to Adobe Inc., Adobe's PostScript fonts#Type 1, Type 1 fonts used in PostScript. It has become the ...
outline fonts, replacing bitmapped fonts and outline
PostScript PostScript (PS) is a page description language and dynamically typed, stack-based programming language. It is most commonly used in the electronic publishing and desktop publishing realm, but as a Turing complete programming language, it c ...
printer fonts. TrueType for the first time offers a single font format that scales to any size on screen and on paper. * A newly colorized
user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fro ...
, for machines that support color.


Installation

After initial publication on a set of 15 floppy disks, System 7 became the first Apple operating system to be released on a
compact disc The compact disc (CD) is a Digital media, digital optical disc data storage format co-developed by Philips and Sony to store and play digital audio recordings. It employs the Compact Disc Digital Audio (CD-DA) standard and was capable of hol ...
. Unlike earlier systems, System 7 did not come bundled with major software packages. Newly purchased
Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...
computers had System 7 installed and were often bundled with software such as
HyperCard HyperCard is a application software, software application and software development kit, development kit for Apple Macintosh and Apple IIGS computers. It is among the first successful hypermedia systems predating the World Wide Web. HyperCard com ...
,
At Ease At Ease was an alternative to the Macintosh desktop developed by Apple Computer in the early 1990s for the classic Mac OS. It provided a simple environment for new Macintosh users and young children to help them to work without supervision. At ...
and ''
Mouse Practice ''Mouse Practice'' was a Game based learning, game-based computer tutorial aimed at teaching new User (computing), users how to operate a computer Mouse (computing), mouse at a time when many were unfamiliar with this feature of a computer. Mous ...
''. Later, the Macintosh Performa family added various software bundles including ClarisWorks, The New Grolier Multimedia Encyclopedia, Microsoft Bookshelf, '' Spectre VR'' and '' Power Pete''. Since System 7 was introduced before the Internet came to popular usage, software such as MacTCP, FreePPP, and
Netscape Netscape Communications Corporation (originally Mosaic Communications Corporation) was an American independent computer services company with headquarters in Mountain View, California, and then Dulles, Virginia. Its Netscape web browser was o ...
were not included. They later became available on disk from
Internet service provider An Internet service provider (ISP) is an organization that provides a myriad of services related to accessing, using, managing, or participating in the Internet. ISPs can be organized in various forms, such as commercial, community-owned, no ...
s and bundled with books such as Adam C. Engst's Internet Starter Kit for Macintosh.
Power Macintosh The Power Macintosh, later Power Mac, is a family of personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Inc., Apple Computer, Inc as the core of the Mac (computer), Macintosh brand from March 1994 until August 2006. Described by ''Mac ...
machines also included
NuCalc NuCalc, also known as Graphing Calculator, is a computer software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The hist ...
, a graphing calculator. System 7 includes
AppleTalk AppleTalk is a discontinued proprietary suite of networking protocols developed by Apple Computer for their Macintosh computers. AppleTalk includes a number of features that allow local area networks to be connected with no prior setup or the ...
networking and file-sharing software in the form of system extensions and control panels. The basic utilities installed by default with System 7 include TeachText (which was replaced by
SimpleText SimpleText is the native text editor for the Apple classic Mac OS. SimpleText allows text editing and text formatting (underline, italic, bold, etc.), fonts, and sizes. It was developed to integrate the features included in the different versio ...
in later versions) for basic text editing tasks and reading
readme In software distribution and software development, a README file (computing), file contains information about the other files in a directory (file systems), directory or archive (computing), archive of computer software. A form of Software doc ...
documents. Also available on the additional "Disk Tools"
floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, a diskette, or a disk) is a type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a ...
are Disk First Aid for disk repair and Apple HD SC Setup for initializing and partitioning disks. Later versions of System 7, specifically System 7.5 and Mac OS 7.6, come with dedicated "Utilities" and "Apple Extras" folders including:
AppleScript AppleScript is a scripting language created by Apple Inc. that facilitates automated control of Mac applications. First introduced in System 7, it is currently included in macOS in a package of automation tools. The term ''AppleScript'' may ...
, Disk Copy, QuickDraw GX Extras and
QuickTime QuickTime (or QuickTime Player) is an extensible multimedia architecture created by Apple, which supports playing, streaming, encoding, and transcoding a variety of digital media formats. The term ''QuickTime'' also refers to the QuickTime Pla ...
Movie Player. More optional extras and utilities can be manually installed from the System CD.


Transition to PowerPC

System 7.1.2 is the first version of the Macintosh System Software to support Apple's new
PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple Inc., App ...
-based computers. 68k applications that had not yet been updated to run natively on these systems were emulated transparently (without the user having to intervene) by a built-in 68k processor emulator. Fat binaries, which contained the code necessary to run natively on both PowerPC and 68k systems, became common during this time. This process was similar to the distribution of universal binaries during the
Mac transition to Intel processors The Mac transition to Intel processors was the process of switching the central processing units (CPUs) of Apple's line of Mac and Xserve computers from PowerPC processors over to Intel's x86-64 processors. The change was announced at the 200 ...
in 2006, as well as the
Mac transition to Apple silicon The Mac transition to Apple silicon was the process of switching the central processing units (CPUs) of Apple's line of Mac computers from Intel's x86-64 processors to Apple-designed Apple silicon ARM64 systems-on-a-chip. Apple CEO Tim Coo ...
beginning in 2020. System 7.1.2 is the only release of the Macintosh operating system that boots stating "Welcome to Power Macintosh." Release 7.1.2P reverts this.


PC compatibility

System 7.0 and 7.1 have a utility called Apple File Exchange, which accesses the contents of
FAT In nutrition science, nutrition, biology, and chemistry, fat usually means any ester of fatty acids, or a mixture of such chemical compound, compounds, most commonly those that occur in living beings or in food. The term often refers specif ...
- and
Apple II Apple II ("apple Roman numerals, two", stylized as Apple ][) is a series of microcomputers manufactured by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1977 to 1993. The Apple II (original), original Apple II model, which gave the series its name, was designed ...
-formatted floppy disks. Since System 7 Pro, PC Exchange is included, which allows the system to mount FAT-formatted
floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, a diskette, or a disk) is a type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a ...
s on the desktop like Macintosh disks.
OS/2 OS/2 is a Proprietary software, proprietary computer operating system for x86 and PowerPC based personal computers. It was created and initially developed jointly by IBM and Microsoft, under the leadership of IBM software designer Ed Iacobucci, ...
disks can use the FAT file system. Macs can read and write UNIX file systems using extra software. System 7 accesses PC networks and uses TCP/IP and other compatible networking stacks.


Miscellaneous

System 7 had a larger memory footprint than System 6. System 6 could boot the system from a single 800k
floppy disk A floppy disk or floppy diskette (casually referred to as a floppy, a diskette, or a disk) is a type of disk storage composed of a thin and flexible disk of a magnetic storage medium in a square or nearly square plastic enclosure lined with a ...
and uses about of
RAM Ram, ram, or RAM most commonly refers to: * A male sheep * Random-access memory, computer memory * Ram Trucks, US, since 2009 ** List of vehicles named Dodge Ram, trucks and vans ** Ram Pickup, produced by Ram Trucks Ram, ram, or RAM may also ref ...
, whereas System 7 used well over one
megabyte The megabyte is a multiple of the unit byte for digital information. Its recommended unit symbol is MB. The unit prefix ''mega'' is a multiplier of (106) in the International System of Units (SI). Therefore, one megabyte is one million bytes ...
. It was some time before the average Mac shipped with enough RAM built-in for System 7 to be truly comfortable. System 7 was the first system release that could no longer be usefully run on floppy-only systems. Although most Macintosh models sold at the time included a hard disk as standard equipment, owners of older models were required to upgrade their hardware by buying either a new Mac or an external
SCSI Small Computer System Interface (SCSI, ) is a set of standards for physically connecting and transferring data between computers and peripheral devices, best known for its use with storage devices such as hard disk drives. SCSI was introduced ...
hard disk drive if they wished to run System 7. The official system documentation, '' Inside Macintosh'', initially shipped in three volumes, with another added to describe the changes introduced with the Mac Plus, and another for the Mac II and Mac SE. System 7's virtual memory requires a Macintosh with a paged
memory management unit A memory management unit (MMU), sometimes called paged memory management unit (PMMU), is a computer hardware unit that examines all references to computer memory, memory, and translates the memory addresses being referenced, known as virtual mem ...
(PMMU). The
Motorola 68030 The Motorola 68030 ("''sixty-eight-oh-thirty''") is a 32-bit microprocessor in the Motorola 68000 family. It was released in 1987. The 68030 was the successor to the Motorola 68020, and was followed by the Motorola 68040. In keeping with gener ...
CPU has one, or one can be added to a 68020-equipped
Macintosh II The Macintosh II is a personal computer designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Computer from March 1987 to January 1990. Based on the Motorola 68020 32-bit CPU, it is the first Macintosh supporting color graphics. When introduced, a basic ...
. System 7.0 was adopted quite rapidly by Mac users and quickly became one of the base requirements for new software. The engineering group within Apple responsible for System 7 came to be known as the " Blue Meanies", named after the blue
index card An index card (or record card in British English and system cards in Australian English) consists of card stock (heavy paper) cut to a standard size, used for recording and storing small amounts of discrete data. A collection of such cards ei ...
s on which were written the features that could be implemented in a relatively short time as part of Apple's operating system strategy. The pink index card features were handled by the Pink group, later becoming the ill-fated
Taligent Taligent Inc. (a portmanteau of "talent" and "intelligent") was an American software company. Based on the Pink object-oriented operating system conceived by Apple in 1988, Taligent Inc. was incorporated as an Apple/IBM partnership in 1992, and ...
project. System 7.0 is the last version of the Macintosh operating system that was available at no charge and could be freely redistributed. Although System 7 could be purchased from Apple, the cost was nominal and considered to only cover duplication and media. It was common for Macintosh dealers to allow customers to use the store's demo machines to copy System 7 install disks for the cost of a box of floppies. CD-ROM magazines such as ''Nautilus'' included System 7 on their disks. After Mac users downloaded thousands of copies of System 7 from online services such as AOL,
CompuServe CompuServe, Inc. (CompuServe Information Service, Inc., also known by its initialism CIS or later CSi) was an American Internet company that provided the first major commercial online service provider, online service. It opened in 1969 as a times ...
, and
GEnie GEnie (General Electric Network for Information Exchange) was an online service provider, online service created by a General Electric business, GEIS (now GXS Inc., GXS), that ran from 1985 through the end of 1999. In 1994, GEnie claimed around ...
, Apple surveyed the services and based on this popularity started selling the Mac OS as a retail product with System 7.1. Apple continued charging for major operating system upgrades until the release of
OS X Mavericks OS X Mavericks (version 10.9) is the 10th major release of macOS, Apple Inc.'s desktop and server operating system for Macintosh computers. OS X Mavericks was announced on June 10, 2013, at WWDC 2013, and was released on October 22, 2013, wo ...
in 2013.


Version history

Soon after the initial release of System 7, the 7.0.1 minor update was released in October 1991, which updated the Portable and Brightness control panels, added the Caps Lock extension - which showed an up-pointing arrow on screen if the Caps Lock key was depressed on PowerBooks - and added the Cache Switch control panel in addition to RAM disk and sound management optimizations for
68040 The Motorola 68040 ("''sixty-eight-oh-forty''") is a 32-bit microprocessor in the Motorola 68000 series, released in 1990. It is the successor to the 68030 and is followed by the 68060, skipping the 68050. In keeping with general Motorola ...
systems. Three small patches called "System 7 Tune-Up" also followed, which initially added the extension "System 7 Tuner" that improved memory management by quitting unused items, like applications and
AppleTalk AppleTalk is a discontinued proprietary suite of networking protocols developed by Apple Computer for their Macintosh computers. AppleTalk includes a number of features that allow local area networks to be connected with no prior setup or the ...
, and added "minimum" and "preferred" memory allotments to an application's "Get Info" box in its 1.0 version. This would be followed by version 1.1, which included
LaserWriter The LaserWriter is a laser printer with built-in PostScript interpreter sold by Apple, Inc. from 1985 to 1988. It was one of the first laser printers available to the mass market. In combination with WYSIWYG publishing software like PageMaker ...
driver version 7.1.1 and added a hidden extension called "Tuna Helper", intended to fix the "disappearing files" bug in which the system would lose files. The final release, 1.1.1, included everything 1.1 included but also added the StyleWriter 7.2.2 printer drivers,
Chooser Chooser can refer to: * Choosing, to select freely and after consideration. * A user interface on a computer that allows the user to choose items from large collections of data. ** Apple Chooser The Chooser is an application program for Macin ...
7.1 and a minor update to Tuna Helper.


System 7.1

In August 1992, the 7.1 update was released. This is the first version of the system software that Apple charged money for. Of this change,
David Pogue David Welch Pogue (born March 9, 1963) is an American technology and science writer and TV presenter, and correspondent for ''CBS News Sunday Morning''. He has hosted 18 ''Nova'' specials on PBS, including '' Nova ScienceNow'', the ''Making Stu ...
wrote: New to 7.1 is the Fonts folder. This replaced the often time-consuming method of dragging fonts to and from the System file, introduced in System 7.0; it also replaced the Font/DA Mover application from System 6, which could also be used with 7.0. System 7.1 also included a lot of internal changes to support the internationalization of dates, times, and numbers. It was also the first version to support "Enablers", which removed the requirement to release a new version of the system software every time new hardware was released. A set of specialized versions of 7.1, ranging from 7.1P1 to 7.1P6 (excluding 7.1P4) were created and included with various Performa models that were already available or were released after 7.1. These specialized versions included
At Ease At Ease was an alternative to the Macintosh desktop developed by Apple Computer in the early 1990s for the classic Mac OS. It provided a simple environment for new Macintosh users and young children to help them to work without supervision. At ...
, Launcher, and some other changes that were integrated into later versions of the system software. The first major upgrade was System 7.1.1, also known as "System 7 Pro". This release was a bundle of 7.1 with AppleScript tools,
QuickTime QuickTime (or QuickTime Player) is an extensible multimedia architecture created by Apple, which supports playing, streaming, encoding, and transcoding a variety of digital media formats. The term ''QuickTime'' also refers to the QuickTime Pla ...
and Apple Open Collaboration Environment (AOCE). While System 7 had some trouble running on slightly older machines due to its memory footprint, System 7 Pro barely fit into any Macintosh computers of the time. It was most commonly used for its minor bug fixes rather than its new functionality. Apple co-founded the
AIM alliance The AIM alliance, also known as the PowerPC alliance, was formed on October 2, 1991, between Apple Inc., Apple, IBM, and Motorola. Its goal was to create an industry-wide open-standard computing platform based on the IBM POWER architecture, POWE ...
(Apple, IBM, and Motorola) in 1992, shortly after the release of System 7 in 1991, and started developing
PowerPC PowerPC (with the backronym Performance Optimization With Enhanced RISC – Performance Computing, sometimes abbreviated as PPC) is a reduced instruction set computer (RISC) instruction set architecture (ISA) created by the 1991 Apple Inc., App ...
-based machines that later became the
Power Macintosh The Power Macintosh, later Power Mac, is a family of personal computers designed, manufactured, and sold by Apple Inc., Apple Computer, Inc as the core of the Mac (computer), Macintosh brand from March 1994 until August 2006. Described by ''Mac ...
family. Support for these machines resulted in System 7.1.2. System 7.1.2 was never offered for retail sale; it shipped with the first batches of the PowerPC Macs and a 68k version shipped with a small number of Quadra 600 series systems. Later shipments shipped with System 7.5 instead. System 7.1.2P was the same as 7.1.2 and shipped with the Performa 630, LC 630, and Quadra 630 models that were released between July and November 1994.


System 7.5

On September 12, 1994, System 7.5 was released with bug fixes from previous updates and several new features: *An updated startup screen with a progress bar *A new interactive help system called Apple Guide *A clock in the menu bar (from the third-party freeware control panel SuperClock!) *An Apple menu item called Stickies (formerly a third-party application called "PasteIt Notes"), which provided virtual
Post-It Note A Post-it note (or sticky note) is a small piece of paper with a re-adherable strip of glue on its back, made for temporarily attaching notes to documents and other surfaces. A low-adhesion, tack pressure-sensitive adhesive allows the notes to ...
s * WindowShade, another former third-party shareware control panel, provided the ability to condense a window down to its title bar. It was introduced as a "minimize" feature to compete with Windows 95 as Mac OS had no taskbar or dock. * MacTCP was bundled, enabling any Macintosh to connect to the
Internet The Internet (or internet) is the Global network, global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a internetworking, network of networks ...
out of the box for the first time. *The Control Strip (a fast way to change the system volume, control the playback of audio CDs, manage file sharing and printers, and change the monitor resolution and
color depth Color depth, also known as bit depth, is either the number of bits used to indicate the color of a single pixel, or the number of bits used for each color component of a single pixel. When referring to a pixel, the concept can be defined as bit ...
) was enabled on desktop Macintosh models for the first time. It had previously only been included with the PowerBook series. *A new Desktop Patterns control panel allowed for tiled patterns up to 128x128 pixels with 8-bit color; previous versions were limited to 8x8 pixel tiles with a maximum of eight possible colors. Similar functionality was found on earlier system versions exclusive to Performa models and was housed in the General Controls panel. *The Extensions Manager (enabling the user to turn extensions and control panels on and off; also based on a formerly third-party control panel) *
PowerTalk Apple Open Collaboration Environment (AOCE) is a collection of messaging-related technologies introduced for the Classic Mac OS in the early 1990s. It includes the PowerTalk mail engine, which is the primary client-side interface to the system, th ...
, a system-level email handling service and the originator of the
Keychain A keychain () (also keyring) is a small ring or chain of metal to which several keys, or fobs can be attached. The terms keyring and keychain are often used interchangeably to mean both the individual ring, or a combined unit of a ring and fob ...
system. *The Launcher, a control panel containing shortcut buttons for frequently used programs (in a manner akin to the
macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...
Dock The word dock () in American English refers to one or a group of human-made structures that are involved in the handling of boats or ships (usually on or near a shore). In British English, the term is not used the same way as in American Engl ...
) *A hierarchical Apple menu (folders within the Apple Menu Items folder would expand into submenus showing their contents. Again, based on a third party control panel; HAM by Microseeds publishing) *System-wide drag & drop for text and other data (selections can be simply dragged with the mouse and dropped to their new destination, bypassing the clipboard) *A scriptable Finder * QuickDraw GX, a 2-D graphics rendering and geometry engine *For the PowerPC only, an advanced, 3d
Graphing Calculator Graphing Calculator may refer to: * Graphing calculators, calculators that are able to display and/or analyze mathematical function graphs * NuCalc, a computer software program able to perform many graphing calculator functions * Grapher, th ...
, secretly developed at Apple by a former third party contractor *Support for
OpenDoc OpenDoc is a defunct multi-platform software componentry framework standard created by Apple in the 1990s for compound documents, intended as an alternative to Microsoft's proprietary Object Linking and Embedding (OLE). It is one of Apple's ea ...
System 7.5 is codenamed "Capone", a reference to
Al Capone Alphonse Gabriel Capone ( ; ; January 17, 1899 – January 25, 1947), sometimes known by the nickname "Scarface", was an American organized crime, gangster and businessman who attained notoriety during the Prohibition era as the co-foun ...
and "Chicago", which is the codename for Microsoft's
Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft and the first of its Windows 9x family of operating systems, released to manufacturing on July 14, 1995, and generally to retail on August 24, 1995. Windows 95 merged ...
and is also the name of the default system font in Mac OS until version 8. System 7.5.1 is primarily a bug fix of 7.5 but also introduced a new "Mac OS" startup screen in preparation for Mac clones. System 7.5.2, released only for the first PCI-based Power Macs, introduced Apple's new networking architecture,
Open Transport Open Transport was the name given by Apple Inc. to its implementation of the Unix-originated UNIX System V, System V STREAMS networking stack. Based on code licensed from Mentat's Mentat Portable Streams, Portable Streams product, Open Transport w ...
. System 7.5.3 is a major bug-fix update that also included
Open Transport Open Transport was the name given by Apple Inc. to its implementation of the Unix-originated UNIX System V, System V STREAMS networking stack. Based on code licensed from Mentat's Mentat Portable Streams, Portable Streams product, Open Transport w ...
for other PowerPC-based machines and some 68k-based machines. 7.5.3 improved the 68k emulator, and added translucent dragging to the Drag Manager. It included the first version of Control Strip to be compatible with all Macs. This was the first version of Mac OS to support SMP (9500/MP). System 7.5.3 Revision 2 included performance enhancements; better reliability for PowerBooks using the third-party RAM Doubler program; improved reliability for PowerBook 500, 2300, and 5300 series computers with the PowerPC Upgrade Card; improved reliability when using the Startup Disk control panel; and improved reliability when copying files to 1  GB hard disks. System 7.5.3 Revision 2.1 was shipped with the Performa 6400/180 and 6400/200; this particular release is specific to these machines as there was stability problems with System 7.5.3 Release 2 on the new hardware, especially with the video card and transferring files over LocalTalk. System 7.5.4 was pulled due to a mistake at Apple, in which some components were not included in the installer. System 7.5.5 included significant performance improvements for virtual memory and memory management on PowerPC-based Macs, including the elimination of one type 11 error. Also included are several reliability improvements, such as fixes for Macs using floppy disks equipped with a DOS compatibility card, improved hard disk access for PowerPC PowerBooks and Performa 5400 through 9500 computers, fixes for Macs that included an Apple TV Tuner or Macintosh TV Remote Control, improvements to LocalTalk and networking (especially for the Performa 5400 and 6400), fixes to system startup for the faster 180  MHz Macs (which included PowerPC 604 or 604e processors), improved reliability when using sound-intensive applications on Quadra or Centris computers that contained the PowerPC upgrade card, and improved stability when using multiple background applications and shared printers on a network. System 7.5.5 is also the last System 7 release that can run on 68000-based Macs such as the Macintosh Plus and Macs with ROMs that lack support for 32-bit addressing such as
Macintosh IIcx The Macintosh IIcx is a personal computer designed, manufactured and sold by Apple Inc., Apple Computer, Inc. from March 1989 to March 1991. Introduced six months after the Macintosh IIx, the IIcx resembles the IIx and provides the same perform ...
. 7.6 and later required a 68030 processor and 32-bit-addressing-capable ROM and will automatically turn on 32-bit addressing on boot.


Mac OS 7.6

Mac OS 7.6 (codenamed "Harmony") is the final major update, released in 1997. With 7.6, the operating system was officially called "Mac OS" instead of "System". New features include a revamped Extensions Manager, more native PowerPC code for Power Macs, more bundled Internet tools and utilities, and a more stable Finder with increased memory allocation. In this version, the
PowerTalk Apple Open Collaboration Environment (AOCE) is a collection of messaging-related technologies introduced for the Classic Mac OS in the early 1990s. It includes the PowerTalk mail engine, which is the primary client-side interface to the system, th ...
feature added in 7.5 was removed due to poor application support, and support for a large number of older Macintosh models was dropped, including those with a Motorola 68000 or 68020. Mac OS 7.6.1 ported the 68k exception handling routines to PowerPC, turning type 11 errors into less harmful errors (type 1, 2, or 3, usually) as crashing applications would more often terminate safely instead of crashing the operating system. Through this period, Apple had been attempting to release a completely new "modern" operating system, named Copland. When the Copland project was abandoned in 1996, Apple announced plans to release an OS update every six months until Rhapsody (which would by 2001 evolve into what was released as
Mac OS X macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...
) shipped. Two more releases were shipped, now officially branded as Mac OS: Mac OS 7.6 and the minor bug fix 7.6.1. Future versions were released as Mac OS 8–8.6 and Mac OS 9–9.2. Released during a troubled time in Apple's history, 7.6 is known for several bugs, such as the inability to customize what components are installed to the system and its tendency to crash on some systems when they are shut down while a RAM disk is in use.


Releases


Timeline


See also

* List of Apple operating systems *
List of Macintosh software The following is a list of Mac (computer), Mac software – notable computer applications for current macOS operating systems. For software designed for the Classic Mac OS, see List of old Macintosh software. Audio software Digital audio wor ...
* Inside Macintosh *
Mini vMac VMAC is a block cipher-based message authentication code (MAC) algorithm using a universal hash proposed by Ted Krovetz and Wei Dai Wei Dai ( zh, c=戴维 or zh, c=戴伟) is a computer engineer known for contributions to cryptography and c ...
* Project Star Trek


Notes


References


Bibliography

* Amit Singh
''Mac OS X Internals: A Systems Approach''
Addison-Wesley, 2007.


Further reading

* Harry McQuillen, ''10 Minute Guide to System 7'' (1991), * Stuple, S. J., ''Macintosh System 7.5 For Dummies Quick Reference'' (1994), * Bob Levitus, ''Macintosh System 7.5 for Dummies'' (November 1994), * from
Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...
* from
Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...
* from
Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...
* from
Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...
* from
Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...
* from
Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...
* from
Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...
* from
Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...


External links


System 7 Today


{{Apple Inc. operating systems 1991 software Classic Mac OS PowerPC operating systems