Tommaso Armstrong
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.
Nigel Wadsworth@csilverman I used to install an application called NetBunny on my office Macintosh’s . At random times I’d start it up and the energizer bunny would smash cymbals across a random computer and move around the office. Maybe someone did the same for Mr Macintosh.
@nygl I've heard of NetBunny! The guy who wrote it, Dean Yu, was one of the core System 7 "Blue Meanies" team, if I remember.
@csilverman These days you’d probably get fired for installing it. But as you say…whimsy and fun. Freaking hilarious.
@csilverman I wonder if it would work across the entire GlobalTalk network. We should try.
@nygl I don't know enough about GlobalTalk's inner workings to responsibly encourage this, but I'll admit I'm curious to know if it would work. A shared global map, with people adding pins every time the bunny shows up on their machine, would be kind of neat.
You remember if it was restricted to a specific zone, or did it have access to the full AppleTalk network?
@csilverman Back in the day we really only had a single zone mostly. I suspect it wasn’t router or multi zone compatible. Thinking hats on. Hmmmm.
Ken McLeod@csilverman @nygl NetBunny was released at MacHack and there are two versions on the MacHack CDs. The MacHack '90 version did not appear to use zones, but the updated version for MacHack '91 says "choose a zone from the left list, then choose a machine name from the right list" to start it going, so I suspect it probably would work. Search on archive.org for "machack cd" to find many CD images (note: each year included all the hacks from the previous years.)
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.
Isocat@csilverman Thiz the first I've ever heard of Mr. Macintosh!
Timothy Roes@isocat @csilverman same. Will you tell us about the story of Mr Macintosh grandpa?
@csilverman Never heard of this being implemented as a Mac extension, but there is now a JS version for the browser: https://github.com/corrinely/mr-macintosh
@_the_cloud ha! Of course someone did a browser extension for this—nice. I didn't even think to check.
Andrew Harvey@csilverman It wasn't the guy from Macintosh Basics was it? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ScS4OYDfHE
Gosh this takes me back to 1994, on our family's LCII, potentially before I could read.
Apple System 7 Macintosh Basics Demo
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@andrewharvey heh yeah, I think I binged the entire thing in an hour or two hours or whatever it was. That's a face I'll never forget.
But no, it wouldn't have been Mac Basics Guy. The way the lab assistant described it, the appearance of this character was completely unexpected, and it disappeared very quickly; it wasn't obviously related to anything he was doing at the time.
@csilverman Macintosh Poltergeist
Ged Maheux@csilverman I saw this amazing photograph from the recent NYC blizzard and immediately thought of you. Seems like a real life image of one of your pieces. Just wanted to share.
Credit: Dave Krugman https://www.instagram.com/p/DVTfVNKDksv/
@gedeonm This is beautiful. I love this—I can see exactly how it would look as a Notes piece, too. It's got me thinking now.
Thanks for thinking of me.
Alecska 🏳️🌈🏴☠️🔮🧸🦄 📷@gedeonm @csilverman the author is Dave Krugman on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/p/DVTfVNKDksv/
Please credit or link to the original.
Please credit or link to the original.
@alecska @csilverman Updated, thanks!
decryption@csilverman this is beautiful! the story of mr macintosh makes me wish Apple kept that sort of whimsy
@decryption God, I know. That was the main reason I loved the Mac, and Apple, so much as a kid: they had a quirky sense of humor, whether it was weird easter eggs or official product design.
Someone—I believe Mitch Kapor—said, back in the 80s, that “The IBM PC is a machine you can respect. The Macintosh is a machine you can love.”
And I think that's changed. I respect the Mac nowadays (at least the hardware side of it; software's a different story) but it's not a machine I can *love* anymore.
@csilverman 100% agree, maybe when Tim Cook retires there can be a Mac renaissance
su_liam@csilverman I love my Mac. I mostly like my iPhone. I hate Apple.
Geekman@csilverman But where's his little dog(cow)?