Fri, 10 March, 2000
Macaster and MacOS 8.6
Mar 10 Fri (10 AM)
My latest plaything has been <http://www.macster.com> a piece of software (free) in beta that allows Macs to hook up to Napster networks. I’ve found a few really great Depeche Mode mixes that I think are otherwise unreleased.
The issue that I have is that a number of recent software releases require MacOS 8.5 and above. Beyond Macster, the most significant that impacts me are the beta releases of Mozilla. I seem to recall that Mozilla will only support MacOS 8.5.1 and above. Now that’s fine for me at home, but at work my Beige G3 running 8.1 could not handle it. Nor could Amy’s 6400 at this point. (I will note that the very bottom of the Macaster page has a link where you can downlaod the Navigation Services package and add it to 8.1)
At work, I’m going to be upgrading to 8.6 (or maybe 9) today. I want to do a complete system rebuild. At that point I’l be able to use Mozilla, but I’m one of the lucky ones.
It seems to me that any new software releases should at least be able to support back to 8.0 or 8.1. They didn’t come out _that_ long ago.
Obiviously, Apple must have made some real inroads with the Appearance Manager or Navigation Services, since that’s what seems to be the dividing line between 8.0 and 8.5. I’ve got a bad feeling that this is the end of the road for anything that can’t run 8.5.
