<Then you are in good shape. The 190 will run OS 8 with no problems. 8.1 is as high as you can go, though. Apple removed support for 68k Macs (your 190 has a 68040-based microprocessor, hence the term "68k") in OS 8.5 and later.>
Then how come Shon said the PB 190 won't run anything higher than OS 7.6.1 because it's a 68K (yeah, I know the term)? Do *you* have a 190 (or did you used to work for Apple) and that's how you know this? A limit of OS 8.1 works for me, because that's what I've already got on the 7200 and don't plan to go any higher. I hear the 7200 will take but doesn't like OS 8.5 or higher (and I think I read or heard that OS 9x won't work at all on it), and that's my "main" computer." I use the PB and the 7200 as a team (PB is portable, everything I do when not home gets floppied over to the 7200 when I get home, and often I do stuff on the 7200 I want to take with me to work on elsewhere, so I copy back to the PB) and I need them to "get along." The PB's present 7.5.3 works really well like this with the 7200's 8.1, but if I can have 8.1 on BOTH (plus not lose my specific PB control panels), hell, why not? :-) <Yep, really. But trust me, it's also mind-bogglingly slow.> and <Also, if you've got a hard drive larger than about 250 MB or so, this isn't something you want to do with the printer port network. It takes about a minute per megabyte, in my experience, to transfer data across this type of network. If you've got 500 MB, that's a long time... Transferring files this way is best done with SCSI Disk Mode.> Yeah, I have a 500 MB drive on the PB, but only 168.6K of data is on it, and perhaps if I get rid of the rest of the Microsoft garbage left on it by its former owner, I'll have considerably less. But anyway, worst case scenario: if it's a minute per meg, and I DON'T get rid of the Microsoft garbage, the transfer would take just under three hours. I'd rather just sit down with a book or a few Trek episodes and relax while the data transfers, than be running around looking for what I'd need to do, and then tear my hair out learning how to set up SCSI Disk Mode, ethernet or all those other (IMO) complicated convolutions. I don't, as a rule, need or want to do major megabyte data transfers on a frequent basis. I want to do this cleanup on the 190 and the possibly upgrade it to 8.1 and then transfer the data back to the 190, but other than doing a once a year cleanup, my only file transfers would be small files (they thus far average only a few hundred K apiece) that can be easily floppied back and forth. Yes, I'm a minimalist. <Yep, that's also possible. But don't get ahead of yourself. If you delete, erase, or remove the system folder on your 190, things get a whole lot more complicated. You need a working system folder on the 190 in order to connect to the network. It _is_ possible to start from a floppy disk (see the archives for this info) with all the necessary AppleTalk and AppleShare bits on it, but it's not fun and makes life difficult. I'd suggest this: Once you've backed up all your data (and any unrecoverable programs), run Disk Doctor, but _DON'T_ reformat or erase your disk, and leave the system folder in place. (Dan K. wrote a good guide to setting up a floppy disk that will do this. You can see it in the archive at http://mail.maclaunch.com/lists/powerbooks/Message/24163.html> Thanks. Well OK then. How about backing up to the 7200 first (the major file transfer through the printer port of which we speak), then Trashing everything on the PB EXCEPT the system folder, doing both disk doctor and optimize (I already have external floppies for this), and then transferring my data back from the 7200 to the PB? I haven't gone to look at this archive yet (and won't do anything without reading it first: the PB is presently sitting on the coffee table, sleeping peacefully) but I'll definitely go and read this. I suppose if I have any questions or comments when I read it, I should direct them to him. <You'll need to do it "normally" as the OS 8.1 CD doesn't have all the bits and pieces to enable file sharing. Just start up the 7200 as normal, and put the CD in just like you would any other CD. You should set both to never go to sleep so that neither Mac will decide halfway through the Mac OS installation that it's time to go to sleep and cut off the install. That's never fun... Once the install is complete, you can set up whatever sleep preferences you like. All you're doing here is taking a precaution to make sure the install doesn't fail.> A sensible precaution. I'll make sure to do this before starting either the major file transfer or the 8.1 upgrade. <You'd probably have to do this for the 7200 as well. Is your laser printer one that can work on a network (i.e. a LaserWriter IIf or something) or is it serial-only?> It's a LaserWriter 300. It can and has been used network fashion, though it's not anymore. I didn't do the physical networking of it, but my ex-husband did (we both had Macs and wanted to share the printer, and he said we had to fully network both our computers to do this. Not being able to afford a second laser printer, and since he said HE'D do the actual networking, I went along with it). I don't remember how he did it, obviously. I tried to pay attention at the time (1995-96 or so) but he kept running into all kinds of complications and it took him nearly a week to accomplish it, and I lost track somewhere in the process -- which is why I'm so leery of playing around with networking suggestions I see on here that require anything more than just pulling the cable from the printer and putting it in the PB. <Regardless, it's a good idea to check the AppleTalk settings and make sure that it's turned on and set to the correct port.> OK. <There's a little more to it than that. The Chooser lets you pick what printer you want to use, but it _also_ (and independently of printer functions) lets you connect to networked Macs and other servers. So you'd have to do this, even if you had already picked a printer for the 190...> All right. No printer is selected for the 190 though. This will be the first time the printer is detached from the 7200 at all: the work I do on the 190 is floppied over to the 7200 and then printed from there, if I'm going to print it (which does eventually happen). <I was just being thorough. I was mistaken, though. With Mac OS 8, you still have to pick "Sharing" from the File menu. This step specifies who can connect to your disk and who cannot (it uses the list of people in the Users & Groups control panel under system 7.x or the Users & Groups tab of the File Sharing control panel for later OS versions). Since the "owner" always can access his/her own disks, you can ignore this step. It's really only in case you are hooked into a larger network (like at a school).> No more sharing my computer(s) with others. Now it's just me, the PB and the 7200. <It should, yes. If you use the printer port networking setup, then installing the Mac OS on your 190 is just like using a CD-ROM to install it (only much much slower).> I can deal with the slow install (good books, good Trek episodes while I wait...). :-) I just want to make sure the "conflicting information" I got on this list concerning whether OS 8.1 will run on the 190 (you say yes vs. Shon saying no) is resolved before I try it, that's all. <Hey, no problem. If everyone can excuse my verbosity, then that would also be good... ;-)> I am the queen of verbose. Not only do I excuse it, I appreciate it. Now, off to check out that archive you suggested earlier. And thank you once again. ~Yersinia. -- PowerBooks is sponsored by <http://lowendmac.com/> and... 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