Chris Silverman 🌻Happy #Marchintosh to those who celebrate.
So, a mystery: I know someone who claims to have seen Mr Macintosh, even though he was supposedly never actually implemented.
This was maybe 2000 or so. My dad's lab assistant had been working on one of the Macs when he said that a small cartoon man abruptly appeared on the screen, waved at him, and then vanished.
It sounded exactly like how Jobs described Mr Macintosh. But the original Mac people never added him, and I've never heard any evidence that Mr Mac was hidden anywhere else, either.
The lab assistant didn't have any reason to make this up, either. He was a very straight-laced guy who didn't know anything about Apple lore and wouldn't have been aware of stuff like Mr Macintosh. He thought one of the students was playing a prank on him.
So maybe someone out there actually did put Andy Hertzfeld's MrMacHook to good use in an extension or something. If anyone has any ideas what the lab guy might have seen, I would love to know.
Leo (he/him) 🇺🇦
@yildo I'm pretty sure he would have recognized those. But you reminded me of a new possibility—that he accidentally invoked PlainTalk and brought up one of the PlainTalk avatars: https://www.reddit.com/r/VintageApple/comments/1514st0/anyone_else_remember_the_classic_plaintalk/
I don't remember where on the screen this appeared. I thought it was in one of the menus, like Mr Macintosh was supposed to do, but maybe it was a window…?
Also, did the PlainTalk characters vanish if you didn't interact with them? It's been 30 years, so I don't recall exactly how they worked.