Mac OS 8.1 Update 1 --

Macs Only!'s copy was obtained yesterday afternoon from a mirror site DOWNLOAD.COM before it became excessively overloaded. Before downloading Mac OS 8.1, Apple suggests starting at the special page here and reading the information provided. Also, download Apple's Mac OS 8.1 Late-Breaking Tips Page. Here are some initial observations:

Download & Inventory: The download took a long time by ISDN standards, some 70 minutes for 22 MB at an average of about 5K bps (range 4.4-7.2K). The download rate that I was getting on Apple's servers was less than 1K bps. The 22 MB image file expands to 28 MB after it is decoded and the contents are copied to the hard disk. The disk image contained five items consisting of 3 readme files (About Mac OS 8.1 update, About Mac OS Extended Format and Installing Mac OS 8.1), the Update Installer alias and the update Install Pieces folder.

Read all the readme files. "About Mac OS 8.1" warns one to read the Extended Format readme and describes all the new stuff. HFS+ and Open Transport 1.3 are there but not QuickTime 3.0. "About Extended Format" describes the new HFS+, says that its only really useful for hard drives over 1 GB and provides no small measure of warnings and limitations of this new format and its installation. It doesn't work on 680x0 Macs' internal drives but will on attached externals. The readme scared me enough to put off installing this feature for a later date--I'll do a write up later. "Installing Mac OS 8.1" warned that PowerMacs with 16 MB RAM or less should install with extensions off. Otherwise, 8.0 Base Extensions should be chosen in the Extensions Manager and the computer rebooted.