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 |
Mac OS 8.5 and later require a PowerPC based Macintosh. This version drops support for all m68k CPU based Macintosh computers.
Emulation notes: To run MacOS 8.5 on newer hardware, we recommend the SheepShaver emulator, which emulates a PowerPC Macintosh.
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.
Download name | Version | Language | Architecture | File size | Downloads |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
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8.5 | English |
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287.35MB | 8 |
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8.5 (alt) | German |
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321.18MB | 0 |
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8.5 | Spanish |
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313.08MB | 1 |
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8.5.1 [PowerMac G3] | German |
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364.38MB | 0 |
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8.5.1 [PowerMac G3 (BW)] | English |
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54.54MB | 0 |
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8.5.1 [PowerMac G3] | Simpl. Chinese |
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398.78MB | 0 |