Want to breath some new life into that old 68030 Mac, or an '030 that has been upgraded to '040? The last Apple operating system that supports '030 machines, stock or upgraded, is Mac OS 7.6.1. However a new shareware hack by Ruben Brochner, Jr. called Born Again enables certain 68030 Macs tosupport Mac OS 8.1

By using Born Again, a '030 Mac user can take advantage of several key features of Mac OS 8.1, including:
• Mac OS Extended Format (HFS+) compatibility
• Spring-loaded folders
• Contextual Menus
• Finder Pop-up Windows
• Open Transport 1.3.1
• Internet Setup Assistant

These features permit legacy Macintosh models to work more efficiently with newer Macintosh models by allowing seamless sharing of hard drives and removable media regardless of whether or not the media is in HFS or HFS+ format and by making the user interface more consistent across models.

Hardware Requirements

In order to use Born Again you must have the following:

1. One of the following Macintoshes:
Macintosh IIci Macintosh IIfx Macintosh IIsi Macintosh LC III Performa 450 Macintosh PowerBook Duo 210 Macintosh PowerBook Duo 230 Macintosh PowerBook 180 Macintosh PowerBook 160 Macintosh PowerBook Duo 250 Macintosh IIvi Performa 600 Performa 600CD Macintosh IIvx Macintosh PowerBook 165c Macintosh LC 520 Performa 520 Macintosh LC III+ Performa 460 Performa 466 Performa 467 Macintosh PowerBook 180c Macintosh PowerBook Duo 270c Macintosh LC 550 Performa 550 Performa 560 Color Classic II Performa 275 Macintosh PowerBook 165 Macintosh PowerBook 150

2. A CD-ROM drive.

3. 12 megabytes of physical RAM (as opposed to virtual memory or RAMDoubler)

4. 5 megabytes of free hard drive space on your startup volume, and approximately 120 megabytes of hard drive space on the volume onto whichyou will install Mac OS 8.1.

5. A validly licensed copy of Mac OS 8.1 on CD-ROM.  Version 1.0 Of Born Again only works with Mac Os 8.1 CD-ROM's; it will not work with Mac Os 8.0 CD-ROM's. A revision to Born Again that will work with Mac OS 8.0 is under development.

You MUST use Born Again at the same time that you install Mac OS 8.1.  Born Again works in conjunction with Apple's Mac OS 8.1 installer to provide a simple way to install the code that provides 68030 compatibility to Mac OS 8.1.

Born Again is $25.00 shareware.

After downloading Born Again, you are permitted to use it three times without paying for it. After that time, it will disable itself.

For more information or to download, visit:
http://www.brochner.com/bornagain/

Charles W. Moore

.

July 25, 2008