MacOS System 7.5 Pro - Copland aka 8.0

[blackdogvintagecomputers]

Anyone ever seen this version of MacOS?

I was testing some SCSI drives and one booted to Copland System 7.5 Pro. The About this Mac shows 8.0.

 

[eric]

I cant say i recognize the 7.5 Pro branding - though I have seen alpha's and betas of Copland on the garden. Best get an image of that HDD so we can dig in and see what alpha/beta it is!

 

[scj312]

Is it possibly a standard 8.0 with a custom boot splash?

 

[Nycturne]

Is it possibly a standard 8.0 with a custom boot splash?

I do wonder about that. Early alphas for developers in 1997 (which this has a 1997 copyright) were stamped with MacOS 7.7 as the version. MacOS 8 became the name later in development as the July release approached. MacOS 7.7 releases also didn't yet have the "About this Computer" banner that was used in MacOS 8. So this is a weird duck, 7.5 introduced the "MacOS" splash screen on boot that 7.6, 7.7 and 8.0 would go on to use. So while it's not impossible for an internal build to have a different splash screen, that would have been extra effort, and should have predated 1997, which means no 7.7 or 8.0 versioning in About this Computer. So something doesn't track here if it's an Apple splash screen.

I do suspect this was someone's idea of a tongue in cheek splash screen. I vaguely remember being able to edit the system file with ResEdit?

 

[misterg33]

Copland didn't have "extensions" that would load across the bottom of the screen.

 

[phipli]

Yeah, that is just Mac OS 8.0 with a custom boot screen.

I used to always be editing mine as a kid, and there was commercial software to make it easier. Not that it was hard anyway, you just needed to shove a MacPaint document or file with a pict resource in the system folder with the right name.

 

[blackdogvintagecomputers]

I didn’t boot it into Copland. This was the MacOS install. I looked around briefly and didn’t notice anything unusual as compared to 8.0. I did not see the Copland folder although I didn’t know to look for it at the time. I’ll plug it in again and take a closer look. I think it may be a custom boot screen.