Mac OS 8 8.1
Apple Mac OS 8 was another major overhaul of the OS from the earlier Mac OS 7. It added a new Platinum visual theme, a multi threaded Finder, better virtual memory, and many customization options. 8.5 and later require a PPC CPU. It was followed up by Mac OS 9.
Running MacOS 8 requires a supported Motorola 68K or Power PC based Macintosh (see the compatibility matrix), or one of the following emulators:
Basilisk II - Runs MacOS 7.x-8.1, emulates later color Motorola 68k based Macs.
SheepShaver - Runs MacOS 7.5.2-9.0.4, emulates a Power PC based Macintosh.
Other Mac OS Versions:
| 1.x-6.x | 7.x | 8.x | 9.x | MacOS X | All |
Screenshots
Release notes
Last version to run on 68k CPUs. Introduced HFS+. Bundles Microsoft Internet Explorer for Mac because Microsoft threatened to discontinue MS-Office for Mac if they didn't.
Installation instructions
Emulation notes: To run MacOS 8.1 we recommend Basillisk II, which emulates a Motorola 68K based Macintosh. To run PowerPC software, you can also use SheepShaver.
8.1 is the highest version that will run under Basillisk II.
Note: The foreign language versions that were here were corrupt and have been removed. If you have a foreign language version you would like to contribute, please see our contributions page.
Downloads
| Download name | Version | Language | Architecture | File size | Downloads |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
 Apple Mac OS 8.1 (ISO) |
8.1 | English |
|
202.81MB | 13 |
|
Apple Mac OS 8.1 [German] [iMac] (ISO) |
8.1 [iMac] | German |
|
256.64MB | 1 |
|
Apple Mac OS 8.1 [Japanese] (ISO) |
8.1 | Japanese |
|
200.19MB | 21 |