Hey guys & gals,
I'm on an Imac Rev A 233. I'd never touched a Mac before this. Anyway I had no idea that when I got the Imac I had a free (or $20) upgrade to Os 8.5. Now the time has expired. My Mac crashes on a daily basis. I'm so used to it it doesn't even bother me. When PC guys ask me about my Mac and how it works I say no games, easy to use and crashes just as much as a Wintel machine. I also tell them how cool it looks, but anyway... Is this operating system that bad? Can the ones availabel to me be that much better if they are based on the same "foundation"? Anyway I would appreciate any unbiased information. Please keep in mind if you get technical I will have no idea what you are talking about. Thanx in advance!

[wlonh]

I had good results with OS 8.1 on my G3 minitower, better with OS 8.5, fantastic with OS 8.6.

Your mileage may vary, but get thee to a MacOS 8.5 CD and then download the free MacOS 8.6 update and install both on your iMac...

see www.dealmac.com or www.pricepulse.com for best price on MacOS 8.5

for MacOS 8.6 free from Apple: http://asu.info.apple.com/swupdates....6?OpenDocument

and if I were you I'd backup my HD and reinitialise it and then install OS 8.5 and then 8.6 right after... I think you will like the results.

FYI, 8.5 and 8.6 do represent some fairly major changes but not much change in the GUI (graphic user interface; what you 'see' when you interact with MacOS and applications) most particularly a new nanokernel (deep guts of OS) and better VirtualMemory, other improvements to be sure but these come immediately to mind.

[This message has been edited by wlonh (edited 12-06-1999).]

Thanx for the simple and useful info. While we're on the subject I always see HFS. What the heck is that?

[wlonh]

HFS means 'Hierarchical File System'...
for complete info see: http://til.info.apple.com/techinfo.nsf/artnum/n8647

but in short it is the way data is placed/located on your HD, HFS is called an HD 'format' in common parlance.

HFS+ is newer/better and is the way to go because it allows for a smaller blocksize... this is good because say you have many files that are somewhat small, less than 16k (which is as i remember, the smallest blocksize under HFS format), well these files (like many Pref's files) will take that 16k of disk space even if they are much smaller in reality, like 4k perhaps. So, you use diskspace more efficiently if your format your HD to be HFS+... Apple's Drive Setup utility can perform the formatting and reinitialisation of your HD. JUST be SURE to always use the Apple Drive Setup that comes with each new MacOS when you install that OS... and when you immediately update to MacOS 8.6 you should be sure to use the option in the 8.6 installer to update the HD driver...