Guide or recommendations for 8.0/8.1?

bakkus

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Mar 18, 2022
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Since we live in a post-spinning disk time where hard disk space isn't really a factor anymore, and we can easily swap drive images/SD cards I've put together my own collection of "standard" images.

I am of course standing on the shoulders of giants, so they are all based on various guides found online.

My 6.0.8 image, used mainly for 68000 and 68020 machines has the updates from https://web.archive.org/web/20160520083340/http://home.earthlink.net/~gamba2/system6.html

7.0.1 for "System 7 essentials, but starved for RAM" is based on https://web.archive.org/web/20160117220048/http://www.fenestrated.net/mac/701/ + https://web.archive.org/web/20160117220058/http://www.fenestrated.net/mac/701AddOn/

7.1 for "Practically everything System 7.5.5 can do, but lighter" is based on a combination of http://system7today.com/sys71-on-68k/ and https://erichelgeson.github.io/blog/2021/03/23/ultimate-system-7.1/ (there is some overlap)

7.5.5 for my 68040 machines is based on http://system7today.com/sys75-on-68k

I like to run 7.6.1 on my pre-G3 PowerPCs, so I have an image containing all the updates and recommendations from http://system7today.com/sys76-on-powerpc


But what about 8.0/8.1?
Is it the unloved child, result of a floundering 90s Apple in crisis? The compromise between the need for renewal and the failure of Copland?
The last gasp before the nanokernel rewrite for 8.6/9.x?
My Google-fu either completely fails me, or there is a distinct lack of guides, best-practices and bag-of-tricks blog posts about the early 8.x days.

So I ask you, dear readers: What are your fav QoL updates/tweaks to MacOS 8.0 and/or 8.1?
 
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