Apologies if this is fluff, but here's a cool little website that simulates the startup and shutdown sequences of various retro OSes. Includes sound effects for the Mac OS and Windows ones!
Apologies if this is fluff, but here's a cool little website that simulates the startup and shutdown sequences of various retro OSes. Includes sound effects for the Mac OS and Windows ones!
I was at the centre for computing history in Cambridge not too long ago and they had a bunch of old machines on display and usable. This would fit right in there.
I was at the centre for computing history in Cambridge not too long ago and they had a bunch of old machines on display and usable. This would fit right in there.
Seeing the old MacOS startup screens is really nostalgic but also reminds me that I never really understood what the 'puzzle pieces' in the bottom actually signified. Did Macintosh load it's...
Seeing the old MacOS startup screens is really nostalgic but also reminds me that I never really understood what the 'puzzle pieces' in the bottom actually signified. Did Macintosh load it's different programs into memory at startup? Does the shape mean anything in particular?
As I understand it, the shapes were representations for kernel extensions; Mac OS was quite limited at the time, so Apple let programmers modify some of the code in the base system to change its...
As I understand it, the shapes were representations for kernel extensions; Mac OS was quite limited at the time, so Apple let programmers modify some of the code in the base system to change its behavior. This could be used for modifying how the OS responded to certain events, preload data or files, etc. Wikipedia has a page on them and specifically mentions a "parade of puzzle pieces" :)
They also had a social function. When you were hanging out with other Mac-using nerds in the '90s, your spool of extensions on startup would say everything about you. It was sort of a point of...
They also had a social function. When you were hanging out with other Mac-using nerds in the '90s, your spool of extensions on startup would say everything about you. It was sort of a point of pride to hit two rows, and extension conflicts could imbue your computer with such impressive crashing powers that a piece of software called Conflict Catcher was developed solely to manage their crazy interactions.
Oh that's actually really interesting, reading the wiki page does make it seem like the idea was similar to UNIX daemons and such. Wonder if such a system still exists today or if they coded it...
Oh that's actually really interesting, reading the wiki page does make it seem like the idea was similar to UNIX daemons and such. Wonder if such a system still exists today or if they coded it out during the OS X era.
Don't quote me on it, but I believe they eliminated the old style extensions, because the fundamental base between the OSes was just way too different. They did keep the idea of kernel extensions...
Don't quote me on it, but I believe they eliminated the old style extensions, because the fundamental base between the OSes was just way too different. They did keep the idea of kernel extensions though; I believe they're called kexts. They're hardly used nowadays, but back in the mid to late 2000's (think Tiger to Snow Leopard), there were some that were relatively popular.
Apologies if this is fluff, but here's a cool little website that simulates the startup and shutdown sequences of various retro OSes. Includes sound effects for the Mac OS and Windows ones!
I was at the centre for computing history in Cambridge not too long ago and they had a bunch of old machines on display and usable. This would fit right in there.
Seeing the old MacOS startup screens is really nostalgic but also reminds me that I never really understood what the 'puzzle pieces' in the bottom actually signified. Did Macintosh load it's different programs into memory at startup? Does the shape mean anything in particular?
As I understand it, the shapes were representations for kernel extensions; Mac OS was quite limited at the time, so Apple let programmers modify some of the code in the base system to change its behavior. This could be used for modifying how the OS responded to certain events, preload data or files, etc. Wikipedia has a page on them and specifically mentions a "parade of puzzle pieces" :)
They also had a social function. When you were hanging out with other Mac-using nerds in the '90s, your spool of extensions on startup would say everything about you. It was sort of a point of pride to hit two rows, and extension conflicts could imbue your computer with such impressive crashing powers that a piece of software called Conflict Catcher was developed solely to manage their crazy interactions.
Oh that's actually really interesting, reading the wiki page does make it seem like the idea was similar to UNIX daemons and such. Wonder if such a system still exists today or if they coded it out during the OS X era.
Don't quote me on it, but I believe they eliminated the old style extensions, because the fundamental base between the OSes was just way too different. They did keep the idea of kernel extensions though; I believe they're called kexts. They're hardly used nowadays, but back in the mid to late 2000's (think Tiger to Snow Leopard), there were some that were relatively popular.