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System requirements for some old design software
- Thread starter termatt56
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Most of these apps go back to System 6 (or System 5?). As such, they can run on a 68000-based Mac. Think Mac Plus. The G3 wasn't released until more than 10 years later. You have to be careful because several of these titles are not "32-bit clean." If so, then they simply will not run on a 32-bit clean Mac. The first 32-bit clean Mac was 1990's Mac IIci. Prior to the IIci, all Macs used 24-bit addressing.
Do you have a specific reason for wanted to know the system requirements of those apps or are you just curious. You are asking a question that does not apply. Many of your applications can run on a range of computers rather than on a single configuration. It is not possible to specify an exact set of requirements, only a minimum set and, in some cases, a maximum set.
I have already given you a link to the A History of Apple Computers site. Use the information there and correlate it with the dates and requirements of each application.
For Aldus/Macromedia Freehand, look here. This site contains disk image files of the distribution floppy diskettes for every version of Freehand of interest to you.
For Adobe Illustrator, look here. Adobe Illustrator 1.0 is a 1987 app. This application was developed for the Mac 512, Mac Plus, Mac II, and Mac SE. It would have run on System 6. For these machines, a 800K floppy and 1 MB RAM (or 512 KB) should have been sufficient.
Aldus PageMaker goes back to 1985 when the most powerful Mac was the Mac 512. A later version has the distinction of being the first Mac app to require two floppies for distribution. Amazingly, the most useful resource of PageMaker version information is here.
For the most part, your question then about something that is irrelevant. You are asking about applications that go back to 1985. I'm betting that they are older than most of the members of this forum. When those applications--particularly the earlier versions--were released, most Macs used floppy diskettes for both the System Software and the application. Many applications shipped with a copy of System Software on the distribution diskette. If an application shipped on multiple floppies, then a hard drive was required. However, hard drives did not become standard until the Macintosh II in 1987. My first Mac at work was a Macintosh SE with dual 800K, floppy drives, 1 MB RAM, but no hard drive.
The minimum requirements are the oldest model Mac that will run the software. To determine that, look at the Macs that were available at the time that each version of the software was introduced.