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Thumbs up for Copland on speed, reliability

Apple
Chris Walton

Apple's original plan for System 8, code-named Copland, was to make a modern operating system which was still 100-per cent compatible with existing software.

That proved a bit too ambitious, but System 8 is an improvement on the existing operating system, and what an improvement! I was not very impressed with System 7.6 and did not think it was worth the money. Not so with System 8.

Apple has improved the things people notice most: speed, reliability, and the famous Mac-user interface. Reviewers also have applauded the new OS for its stability, comparing it to the crash-proof System 6. Is System 8 fast? Booting up my 7200/120 takes about half the time of System 7.6.

Working in the Finder feels snappier. Calculating the speed improvement showed an improvement of 2-3 per cent, to 8-10 per cent.

A big tip - download LibMotoSh from www.mot orola.com. It is an optimised maths library which sped my machine's maths functions by 79 per cent.

The finder is now native to the PowerPC and multi-threaded, making it faster and allowing you to word process while performing disk-intensive functions like copying or deleting files.

System 8 introduces a new version of OpenTransport, the networking application, which is about 15 per cent faster at transferring a large block of files from a server rather than System 7.6.1.

The most interesting improvements come in the user interface. Icons, windows and buttons have a new 3D look and colour schemes.

The pull-down menus are sticky. One click and they stay down without having to hold down the mouse button.

Folders can be viewed as pop-up windows which appear as folder tabs at the bottom of the screen. One click and a folder somewhere in the depths of your hard disk, pops up on the screen.

Icons can now be viewed as buttons. One click and a file or folder can be opened or a program launched. There are other handy shortcuts.

You can now have all window icons cleaned into neat rows by alphabetical order, or any order you choose, and they will remain clean as you change the shape of the window and add or remove files.

This feature can be customised for each folder, but there is no global view function that lets you assign an attribute to all folders at once. That becomes a real pain, especially when you mount network folders, as you have to change these attributes every time you mount the folder.

The second problem comes with disk speed. I have been running OS 8 on two Macs. Both show higher disk speeds than they had with 7.6, but with one, opening folders seems much slower.

On my slower machine at home, I see no slowdown opening folders. The machine at work is formatted with Apple Drive Setup, and the one at home uses FWB's hard disk toolkit. I suspect this is behind the difference.

The last problem is a much bigger one: memory loss. Each time I used a program and then closed it, the amount of available Ram decreased slightly. It was just a few hundred kilobytes at a time, but it adds up. My machine at home ran non-stop for a week without rebooting - no troubles of any kind - but five megabytes of Ram disappeared.

System 8 goes beyond more horsepower. Since installing it, I can work faster and more efficiently on my machine. Small tasks that used to be a chore are now handled much more efficiently. Two thumbs up! PROS AND CONS Product: Apple Macintosh System 8 Operating System Price: About $550 Pros: Improved networking; more efficient user interface; crashes less Cons: Ram memory erosion

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