Macintosh startup

The Macintosh startup behaviors characteristic to Macintosh computers include the startup chime, Chimes of Death (also known as Hawaiian Death Chimes), Happy Mac, and Sad Mac.

Startup chime

The Macintosh startup chime () is the single note or chord (depending on model type) played when an Apple Macintosh computer is turned on. The sound indicates that diagnostic tests run immediately at startup have found no hardware or fundamental software problems.

Mark Lentczner created the code for the arpeggiated chord used on the Macintosh II. Variations of this sound were used until Jim Reekes created the startup chime used on most Macintoshes since the Quadra 840AV. Reekes said, "The startup sound was done in my home studio on a Korg Wavestation. It's a C major chord, played with both hands stretched out as wide as possible (with 3rd at the top, if I recall)." The first generation of Power Macintosh computers do not use the Reekes chime, instead using a chord strummed on a Yamaha 12-string acoustic guitar by jazz guitarist Stanley Jordan. Also, the Twentieth Anniversary Macintosh features a variant of the chime not used on any other Macintosh model.

For models built prior to the introduction of the Power Macintosh in 1994, a Sad Mac icon and error code, accompanied by unusual startup tones, are displayed on failure of initial self-diagnostic tests; this is referred to as the "Chimes of Death" or "Chords of Doom".

The chime for all Mac computers since 1997 is the same chime used first in the Power Macintosh 9600. The chord is a G flat/F sharp major chord instead of C major, and was produced by pitch-shifting the 840AV's sound.

File:Happy Mac.png

The Happy Mac icon

=Happy Mac

A Happy Mac is the normal bootup (startup) icon of an Apple Macintosh computer running older versions of the Mac OS operating system. It was designed by Susan Kare in the early 1980s. The icon remained unchanged until the introduction of the PowerPC Macs, when it was updated to 8-bit color. It wasn't like that, however, for all Macs, as some late PowerPC Macs still had black and white "Happy Mac". The Happy Mac indicates that booting has successfully begun, whereas a Sad Mac (along with the "Chimes of Death" melody or one or more beeps) indicates a hardware problem.

File:Happy Mac original.png

The original Happy Mac icon as it appeared from System 1 to Mac OS 9

When a Macintosh boots into Mac OS 9 or lower, the system will play its startup chime, the screen will turn gray, and the Happy Mac icon will appear, followed by the Mac OS splash screen, which underwent several stylistic changes. Mac OS versions after 8.6 also included the version number in this splash screen i.e. "Welcome to Mac OS 8.6".

On early Macs that had no internal hard drive, the computer would boot up to a point where it would need to load the operating system from a floppy disk. Until the user inserted the correct disk, the Mac would display a floppy icon with a blinking question mark. In later Macs, a folder icon with a question mark that repeatedly changes to the Finder icon is shown if a valid System Folder cannot be found.

With Mac OS X 10.1, Puma, a new Happy Mac was included. This is also the last version that had a Happy Mac logo.

With the introduction of Mac OS X, the Sad Mac icon was replaced with the prohibition icon, the bomb screen was replaced with a Kernel panic (which was originally coloured white but was changed to black in version 10.3) and, in version 10.2, the Happy Mac symbol was replaced with the Apple logo.

External links

• The Original Macintosh: Boot Beep - Folklore.org