Victoria, Yeah, sounds like you are in a predicament...
I actually have a minimal 7.5.2 system folder for the 5300 (enabler included) here. It came on my 5300ce (about the only _good_ thing I got out of that deal). The system folder, with no extensions, is ~1.2MB so it should fit on a floppy. I could put together two floppy images for you - one with the 7.5.2 system folder, another with networking stuff (which you could probably find on your own...). Here's an idea - set up a RAM disk. You have 16MB of RAM, right? System 7.5.x should fit in about 2 - 3MB of disk space and take no more than 10MB of RAM, so a RAM disk of about 4MB should suffice for a minimal 7.5.x install. Make the RAM disk, install 7.5.x and Drive Setup. Boot to the RAM disk. Format your internal drive. Copy the RAM disk system folder to the HD. Reboot. Install network stuff from a 2nd floppy (if it wasn't on the RAM disk). You could probably also boot into the RAM disk w/ all the network stuff installed, then use LocalTalk to install OS 8 from across the network. The only problem with this setup is that if you have a bad crash and have to push the reset button in the back, you'll lose your boot partition in the RAM. FWIW, using a separate partition for VM storage won't speed VM up. VM will just fragment the partition instead of your whole disk. Once the partition is fragmented, VM will slow back down - I don't see any advantage here (beyond not fragmenting your data partitions). It might be a good idea not to frag up the rest of your disk too hard (fragmentation lengthens boot time and drive access time), but fragging up one partition instead of the whole disk won't really help. These are my observations, and I'm confident that empirical evidence backs me up. But hey, do what you want with your own hard drive... If you are going to use VM, you might as well set aside a partition just for it. Now, if you REALLY want to speed VM up, get an Ultra160 SCSI hardware RAID array w/ 15000rpm disks and huge 2MB+ buffers each. But then, if you can afford that, you should already have all the real RAM you'd ever need... ;-) On the hacker side, you could clock up the system bus on the 5300 to about 40MHz (40*3 = 120MHz CPU speed, so maybe 36-37MHz is better). A faster bus will improve throughput. ;-) Anyway, let me know if you want me to send you the 7.5.2 disk image and associated disk tools. Now that I think about it, though, once you have this installed, you're probably going to be best served by installing OT 1.1.1 from Apple's website. That will give you TCP/IP, AppleTalk, etc. -- <http://homepage.mac.com/alk/> "There are of course many problems connected with life, of which some of the most popular are `Why are people born?' `Why do they die?' `Why do they spend so much of the intervening time wearing digital watches?'" -- Douglas Adams' "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy." -- PowerBooks is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... Small Dog Electronics http://www.smalldog.com | Enter To Win A | -- Canon PowerShot Digital Cameras start at $299 | Free iBook! | Support Low End Mac <http://lowendmac.com/lists/support.html> PowerBooks list info: <http://lowendmac.com/lists/powerbooks.shtml> --> AOL users, remove "mailto:"; Send list messages to: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To unsubscribe, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> For digest mode, email: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Subscription questions: <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Archive: <http://www.mail-archive.com/powerbooks%40mail.maclaunch.com/> Using a Mac? Free email & more at Applelinks! http://www.applelinks.com
