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From: tecot@momenta (Ed Tecot)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.system,comp.sys.mac.misc
Subject: Re: System in Classic ROM?
Message-ID: <1991Jan5.030332.1393@momenta>
Date: 5 Jan 91 03:03:32 GMT
References: <1991Jan2.180849.26777@csn.org> <5128@optilink.UUCP>
Organization: Momenta Corporation
Lines: 28

witkowsk@optilink.UUCP (Dave Witkowski) writes:
>From article <1991Jan2.180849.26777@csn.org>, by kuo@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Andy Y.A. Kuo):
>>   From the Feb. 1991 issue of MacUser, page 13(reprint without permission):
>> 
>>   "The operating system has been built in to the Classic's ROM ever since
>>    the Classic started shipping back in October.  To access it, hold down
>>    Control-Option-X-O when you turn on your machine.  Your Classic will
>>    then boot from a ROM-based RAM disk....."
>
>Sounds wierd to me.  The number of changes that Apple makes to
>the Mac OS, plus the pending upgrade to system 7.0 makes
>having a ROM OS a waste of time and material.  You *might* get
>six months max use out of the ROM version, then it would be
>obsolete.

Makes sense to me.  It's enough to bootstrap so that you can access a file
server; then you can run anything you want.

>Apple may be confused at times but they don't make
>more work or expense for themselves than they have to.  A ROM
>large enough to hold the OS would be much more expensive than
>the 256K version used on the SE.

Not really.  Using 256K parts instead of 128K parts probably only adds
about a dollar or two to the cost.  The major expense is in the package
(which doesn't change) and the software (which already has been written).

						_emt