Since I have Macs of several vintages here, I use different OS's on all of them...
Currently:
On PowerCenter Mac clone: Mac OS 8.0 (I have the 8.1 upgrade but haven't bothered to update the thing)... I also run the Be OS off an external volume.
Macintosh IIsi: This is what I am using right now, and for years I have been using System 7.1. I have another IIsi that also runs with 7.1, but I hardly use that one since some of the ports doesn't seem to be working (like modem and printer)....probably a hardware problem on that thing. Oh.. I also can run System 6.08 booted off a Syquest 45 MB cartridge drive hooked up to my main Mac IIsi. The thing kicks and is a blast to fool around with, especially my older games...
Mac SE: I bought this thing from some guy for $40 about a year ago.. I updated it to Mac 7.01 downloaded off the internet. Runs nicely.
Mac Plus: Strictly System 6.08 on this machine and once in a while with some older floppy only games, the thing runs with System 3.2 or whatever is on the games disc.
As a rule the older operating systems take up way less space than Mac OS. 8.x... or even Mac OS 7.6... I think with all of the internet stuff and color management files and other stuff dumped into the extensions folders, today's OS's are invariably big, huge bloat hogs on current Power Macs... I think my OS 8.0 takes up about 150 MB or more of hard disc space and requires about 12MB of ram to run.
Of course the thing can do a lot of things that the older OS's can't do I guess...
As a comparison, Mac OS 6.08 on my Mac Plus takes up about 1.5 MB of space on the hard disc, and this includes a bunch of fonts and some goofy extension files that I can't rmember what they do...
Of course Mac OS 6.08 while functionally pretty much the same as newer OS's, lacks a lot of features that we take for granted today like better font management, running more than 1 app at the same time, desktop pictures and patterns, support for millions of colors, etc....
Depending on what Macintosh you have, you may want to opt for a newer OS or stay with the old, if your Mac is like really old... 68030 or older I guess.
MEL
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