Mac OS 7.6

The "system" from the name was dropped in favor of "Mac OS" in part to prevent clone makers from keeping their licenses. This followed System 7.5 and is followed by Mac OS 8.0.

Feature List

This feature list provides a partial list of the various components we have revised for Mac OS 7.6. Some of these are available via the Internet, and others are only available from Mac OS 7.6 But all of them are conveniently integrated into this one release to make it easy for you to take full advantage of all the Mac OS has to offer.

• New Installer 1.0
• Revised Virtual Memory
• Extensions Manager 4.0
• Finder 7.5.6
• Open Transport 1.1.1 (includes AppleTalk & TCP/IP)
• LaserWriter 8.4.2
• Desktop Printing 2.0.2
• ColorSync 2.1.1
• Apple Guide 2.1.1
• QuickTime 2.5
• CD-ROM Set up 5.3.1
• PC Exchange 2.1.1
• Mac OS Easy Open 1.1.3
• Open Transport PPP 1.0
• OpenDoc 1.1.2
• Apple OpenDoc Essentials Kit 1.0.1
• Cyberdog 1.2.1
• QuickDraw 3D 1.0.6
• QuickDraw GX 1.1.5
• Text-to-Speech 1.5
• Apple Remote Access (ARA) 2.1
• Energy Saver 2.0.3
• Apple System Profiler 1.1.2
• Multiprocessor Support
• Dataviz MacLink Plus 8.1
• AOL version 3.0
• Apple Internet Connection Kit (AICK) 1.2

Best-of-class Internet

By including the latest versions of the Apple Internet Connection Kit, OpenDoc Essentials Kit, Cyberdog, and Open Transport software--as well as new connectivity tools such as PPP and ARA--Mac OS 7.6 enables easy connection to the Internet and its vast resources, including both local and remote networks.

Plug-ins to Netscape make it possible to surf the web by voice, just by speaking the links, and to have web pages speak or sing to you without the normal overhead of downloading speech data. See Apple's Speech Technology web site for more details.

In addition to general Internet access, the combination of Cyberdog and OpenDoc lets you bring the Internet into Live Objects-aware documents-embedding live Internet links into documents as easily as text or graphics. Cyberdog also lets you save and launch URLs directly from the Finder, in the same way that opening a document automatically launches the appropriate application. In addition, Cyberdog lets you create custom cyber-documents, for use on company intranets, in school curriculum materials, or even as interactive brochures.

State-of-the-art Multimedia & Graphics Capabilities

Mac OS 7.6 brings together the latest versions of Apple's QuickTime technologies. 60% of the industry's CD-ROM titles (Mac OS and Windows) are authored using Apple technologies, including Toy Story, Doom and other popular titles.

Collectively known as the QuickTime Media Layer (QTML), Apple's multimedia technologies enable cross-platform authoring and playback with media elements such as video, music, virtual reality, three-dimensional graphics and text to speech conversion, and teleconferencing.

With Mac OS 7.6, media authors and end users will have transparent access to the following QTML components:

• QuickTime 2.5, the core technology that unites QTML and provides a means of working with any compression/decompression standard to control virtually any digital media content.
• QuickDraw 3D, a technology that brings real-time, workstation-class three-dimensional graphics to desktop computing.
• Text-to-Speech technology, supporting over 200 applications and hundreds of web pages that talk.

In addition, because Mac OS 7.6 will include the Apple OpenDoc Essentials Kit, you can get started right away with Live Objects component software, easily creating high-impact communications with compelling three-dimensional images, sound, and even speech synthesis. For example, the Apple Button object lets you embed buttons within a document that can speak text, open a URL, or play a sound.

Improved PC Compatibility

PC file compatibility is a key requirement for many customers, although many people remain unaware of the rich PC support already built-in to the Mac OS.

For example, the Mac OS has long included PC Exchange, allowing you to open and read DOS and Windows disks and media. With System 7.5, the Mac OS Easy Open utilities were built-in, so you could open files even without the application in which they were created (try this on other computer platforms!)

Building on the strong foundation of the existing software - not only PC Exchange and Mac OS Easy Open, but also the complementary DataViz MacLinkPlus translators - Mac OS 7.6 will improve support for opening, viewing, and saving files from DOS and Windows media into either Mac OS or PC formats, so users can share files easily, regardless of platform. Users will find that they can open most Mac OS and Windows files without the application in which those files were created. And Mac OS 7.6 will add support for the DMF file format of Windows 95 for PCI-based systems to its existing support of DOS and Windows 3.x floppies, SCSI drives, and third-party removable media such as Syquest cartridges.

Troubleshooting

StuffIt Expander 5.5 unexpectedly quit - error type 3

For some reason MacOS 7.6.1 and StuffIt Expander 5.5 sometimes don't work properly together. The expander may work with other archives except actual StuffIt archives. A workaround is to install the full StuffIt Deluxe 5.5 version which seems to expand the archives properly.

See Also

• Apple Computer
• System 7.5
• Mac OS 8

Peripheral Component Interconnect

Small Computer System Interface