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MacHack Yields Clever Tricks With Apples
gagganator writes: "Machack (that 72 hour nonstop hacking contest) has ended, and here are the hacks voted most interesting. also, Steve Wozniak spoke about everything from phone phreaking to the future of computing." Sounds like a fun event -- does anyone have any other first-hand stories about this year's Machack?
But the best ones were how he tweaked secret service agents by buying 2 dollar bills in sheets and having a friend bind them into a pad and perforate them. Lots of people think they're counterfeit when he pays with them, but they're not!
Actually, the other keynote speakers had some really good stories, too. All in all, it was probably the best keynote I've seen in the past few years.
-D
At the time that was a very big deal- and it _did_ trigger an incredible explosion of consumer interest. I'd agree that Woz invented the personal computer. It was a hell of a big change from the Altair scene, which was really 'obsessive crazed hobbyist' land.
Woz stated that he did not think it was in Apple's best interest to buy NeXT at the time it did. He didn't feel that the operating system was Apple's problem.
I'm flat out astonished that he could possibly have felt that way!
Now, I was only vaguely aware of Apple's goings-on in the 90's (I went from Amiga to Linux and pretty much avoided Apple and Microsoft) but I do recall the endlessly "coming soon" next-generation OS. But I just recently read Jim Carlton's book "Apple", and was stunned by just how much time, how much money, how many completely abandoned efforts went into the quest for a "new" Mac OS before finally merging with NeXT. And even then several more years passed before OS X finally made it out.
Now I can't guarantee that Carlton's book is an objective and unbiased account of the times. But based on that, I got the very strong impression that Apple were never going to successfully write a next-gen OS. If they had rejected NeXT (as they rejected Be..) I'm sure they would have gradually slid into bankruptcy (just as everyone predicted for so many years).
I'd love to know what the Woz thinks would have happened between 1997 and now if Apple had decided it was "not in their best interests" to buy NeXT..?
You have to go to the 'Start' button to shut the machine down
That's because the shutdown sequence can take several minutes on an NT Server box. So, you "start" the shutdown service.
Seriously, though, it's just shorter to just wait for the machine to crash.
Karma karma karma karma karmeleon: it comes and goes, it comes and goes.
System 2.0 / Finder 4.1 (April 1985)
was the version that added the "Put Away" option
to the Finder for unmounting disks,
and the option to drag floppies to the trash to unmount.
Ask a Mac enthusiast one question, he answers a different one than the one you asked...
Yeah, but at least we know how to use a
search engine to fact-check.
It's not a metaphor.
Way, way, back in the day, the original Mac only had a single 400kB floppy drive. If you had some cash, you could afford a second one. (and man, would you want it - copying floppies with the paltry amount of RAM in those things was hell otherwise)
So it was customary to eject a disk you weren't using, but *leave* a copy of the icon on the system so that if it was needed it would simply prompt you for the appropriate disk to be inserted. This made sense at the time, honestly. The icons that were left were sort of dimmed, and when you wanted to get rid of them, you'd drag the dimmed icons to the trash. Ejecting the disk though, was done with a menu command.
Some developer got tired of having to eject disks twice to get them completely off the system, so he wrote code that would eject a disk all the way if it were dragged to the trash. This conflicted with the UI, and the HCI people bitched about it, but it turned out that they used it just as much as everyone else, because it was frickin' useful.
For years the idea of having an icon for eject on the desktop, or having the trash turn into one was bandied about. OS X actually implements this. (although it also conflicts with the icon = noun rule that has underlied GUIs for ages)
Personally I would've just put on a software controllable eject button on the drives, that also sent an event to the OS. But that's just me.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
What the heck has ESR got to do with the price of fish?
--
the telephone rings / problem between screen and chair / thoughts of homocide
"don't fall into the fallacy of believing that Perl can solve social problems. Maybe Perl 6 can, but that's a ways off"
Steve Wozniak, the man commonly credited with the invention of the personal computer,
Wow, In the Wintel mass cult the $PC_CREATOR is Ed Roberts and his Altair kit/MITS BASIC (which was actually slyly owned by Micro-soft), or if your a classiccmp collector it's Edmund Berkeley and his "Simon" PC, altho Apple probably gets the blue ribbon if you limit "PC" to something you just buy, plug in, boot up and use, no assembly (haha) required.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Hrm... this guy is likely a win-head. Here's a good windows irratation... You have to go to the 'Start' button to shut the machine down. heh...
-t
Or there is the pop-up menu option that will also do the job. Cick on a disk and you will see the 'eject' item just there to be selected.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Well, the first time I ever sat at a Mac, I placed a floppy in the drive, used it, and then spent a few minutes trying to understand where should I eject it (Which eject button, kemosabe? Mac floppy drives DON'T have an eject button, which is kind of the whole point)
If a soul more acquainted with the MacOS hadn't passed by and said "Just drag it to the trash, it's ok, it won't be erased" I'd never tried it! The "logical" action associated with dragging the disk to the trash, to someone not used to the interface, would be to erase it.
I should've said "in addition to the physical hardware based button".
Truth be told, I would probably never use these software solutions - rarely do I used a software disk eject feature, instead leaning over to hit the "eject" button (floppy, CD-ROM, Zip drive - of course, these last two are software controlled in some way, as you alude to).
However, I can see some people wanting a software disk ejection mechanism, and for those, what I outlined is more intuitive in that regard.
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
This sounds OK, but still isn't as intuitive. If you have an icon that represents a floppy (or some other removable media) drive, I can think of a few ways to intuitively eject the disk:
1. A "button" on the icon that looks like an eject button - click on it to eject the disk.
2. Drag the icon off the screen (preferably the bottom) to eject.
3. Maybe an "Open Door" type icon, showing "exitability"?
These are just my three suggestions - I am sure there are other ideas...
Worldcom - Generation Duh!
Reason is the Path to God - Anon
Here are my favorite hacks:
Some guy hacked an Apple one button mouse to make it two button. Here's a picture. Here is the relevant passage from the article:
Now that's a hack.
Here's another intersting quote about John Warnock, CEO of Adobe:
There was a big opensource sermon also.
Back when the early powerbooks came out many of them had a few bad pixels - Apple claimed at the time that this was expected and there was a certain number of bad pixels that were tollerable before Apple would replace yuor screen .... one of the MacHack entries back then was a program that would 'increase' the number of 'bad' pixels to above that number so that you could get your screen fixed
Why? Because PC floppy drives don't generate an OS event when a disk is inserted
Umm, what? Define "OS event" please. To me, an OS event is one which is generated by software because of some status change occuring within the hardware. You would be wrong to assume that PC floppy disks cannot generate a hardware event for disk changes. Review INT 13h, function 16h - Determine Disk Change (Floppy Drive, AT, and PS/2 only). The OS can poll this function to then generate an "OS event".
One thing that people forget is that when you're using windows (which I try to do as least as possible, mind you), what happens often when you go to the top most directory in the file browser to save something? Immediately the floppy starts grinding away. Why? Because PC floppy drives don't generate an OS event when a disk is inserted. The computer has no way of keeping a record of when a floppy is sitting in the drive. The only solution to this is to poll the floppy, which generates the most grating noise. With the mac floppy drive(which probably should have an eject button that works the same way as the ones on zip drives), every time a floppy is inserted, it generates a disk event that tells the OS "Hey, there's a floppy inside you". When there's no floppy in the mac, the mac understands it's not there, so it's not going to do something futile and useless like searching for data on a floppy disk that doesn't exist. Given, the electronics required for this elegant solution raised the cost of mac floppy drives considerably. It's one of those technical superiority vs. price tradeoffs we see so much in the computer industry (SCSI vs. IDE, etc).
FWIW, in MacOS X the "trash" icon in the dock changes into an "eject" icon when you drag a disk, which is slightly more intuitive. of course you could always just eject the disk from the menubar or by right-clicking (or command-clicking) on the disk and choosing "eject."
- j
Ultimately, the best part of the bizarre business deal that merged Apple and NeXT was the acquisition of Steve Jobs. For all his megalomania and at best offbeat management style, it's the singular vision of the The Steve that has brought Apple to where it is. Their hardware has, for sure, never been better. There is some definite question as to whether OSX can grow from a decent commercial UN*X to something more consumer oriented. My mom can't use it yet, that's for sure...
For those who have attended MacHack, ESR included, there is an understanding of the spirit of what's going on. The hack show is about rediscovering what it is that makes engineering and software design fun to begin with. Sure, some hacks are derivative and some are pure presentation with little or no coding involved. Heck, some the most legendary hacks have been pure showmanship. The reason that things like the Password sniffer went over well is because of the presentation. Blackmailing the entire audience serves as excellent marketing.
Judging a hack on merits of utility or even total originality isn't fair. That's just not what this event is about. There's more here than merely recompiling dsniff to run on OSX. I would have thought that the whole thing would be fairly obvious to the slashdot crowd at large. Clearly, some get it and some don't.
Now I need to figure out why I'm awake at 6a PDT on the Monday following 72 hours with very little sleep.
I think that following the MAC desktop theme, dragging anything to the trash (including disks) should delete/erase. I don't like the trash to eject thing.
:-)
They should also put a "Hand" on the desk, dragging anything to the hand would put something physical `in your hand'. If it's a disk, it would eject, if it's a document it would print, if it's a program it would say 'insert disk to put this file onto' and eject the disk when done.
Oh and apple, if you take my idea on board, I'll have a piece of that pie thanks
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That makes him resourceful (read: Hacker), becuase he still manages to get a conference of use out of his laptop *before* he bitches and gets it fixed. Perhaps if we had more people like him and less like you in this world, there would be a lot more doing, and a lot less bitching. Either that, or we need to bring back reruns of McGyver and the ATeam to get the do-it-yourself, hack-it-together spirit back.
_sig_ is away
To my knowledge, Apple is the only computer manufacturer in history not to include an eject button.
They compounded this on the PowerMac 6100 by putting the power button just underneath and to the right of the floppy drive! That was good for a few laughs...
Apple already confused people with the Trash/Eject function. It's not logical. To my knowledge, Apple is the only computer manufacturer in history not to include an eject button. Anyway, further down the article you'll notice the following:
Wozniak's hack was to change the routines of the trash so that if you drag a disk to the trash, it gave you the option of either ejecting the disk or erasing it.
The key word here is option. So, anyone used to ejecting their disks via the trash can will still be able to. However, people who want to erase the disk will also be able to. And no one is going to accidentally format the disk, especially if they don't have this hack installed anyway.
--
"To my knowledge, Apple is the only computer manufacturer in history not to include an eject button"
I don't recall ever seeing an eject button on Sun floppy drives.
. To my knowledge, Apple is the only computer manufacturer in history not to include an eject button.
Sun, SGI, Next, Alpha and possiably other didn't include physical eject buttons (expect paper clip hole) on some or all of their machines.
IMHO `eject` is the most easy to understand command to release the floppy...
Actucally it is probably more rare to physically see an eject button, the only machine that I can recall having them are x86 PCs.
"`Ford, you're turning into a penguin. Stop it.'" -THHGTTG
Control-click. Or do like the powerusers do and buy a 2-button mouse with the required control panel.
/Brian
I do think dragging a disk to the trash is potentionally unintuitive, but after a while, it "feels right."
Nevertheless, do note that under Mac OS X and the Aqua UI, dragging a disk toward the trash in the dock will make it change into a big 3D eject icon. It's REALLY cool looking. I think it makes more sense.
Just so people realize, Apple did change that, and therefore apparantly would agree with what Woz is saying (who can often be seen wearing OS X t-shirts).
The next comment I write will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and see it early!
Have none of you ever played with the menus?
Along the top, with writing on?
"Special", "Eject Disk" or "Put away disk"
"Eject" just spits the disk out, "Put away" also removes it from the desktop (so the machine forgets the disk was ever inserted).
Jeez, you guys call yourselves hackers...
--CTH
---
--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
They compounded this on the PowerMac 6100 by putting the power button just underneath and to the right of the floppy drive! That was good for a few laughs...
I agree, that has got to be among the stupider things Apple has done:
Me: Hey dude! Come see my new Mac! I'm just copying a big file off of my 2x CD-ROM right now.
Friend: Okay dude! I've never seen a Mac before!
Me: I've only got a old PowerMac 6100, dude!
Friend: Dude! I here Macs don't have floppy drives.
Me: Dude, that's only iMacs and stuff. I'm broke so I've only got an old Mac that I bought off some other dude. Mine has a floppy.
Friend: Dude!
[Puts floppy in drive.]
Me: And it's cool how it ej--- Dude, NOOOOOOO!!!
[Friend shuts down Power Mac 6100 while trying to eject floppy. Big file still copying.]
Me: Are you an idiot dude? That's the power button! I was copying a big file! You eject it by dragging it to the trash, dude!
[I start Mac back up only to be greeted by floppy with a flashing Question Mark]
Me: Oh crap, dude! You screwed up my disk! And I don't have Mac OS 8.1 on me!
Something like this did happen. Three days later I managed to aquire a burnt copy of OS 8.1 and found out only my Sytem File had crapped out.
--Volrath50
Now that you got me talking, I may as well go ahead and burst your bubble. Mac's are not the best systems in the world. Windows PC's are not the best in the world. And...here it comes...*nix systems are not the best in the world. In summary, there is no "One True System" that trumps all the others.
People like to say that they have the best of something. The best car...the best console system...the best box...the best whatever. The truth is that your definition of "the best" is not my defninition nor is it most likley anyone elses definition. This argument is so old it is not even interesting anymore. Take the old console argument, for example. People fight over which console is the best and some even refuse to buy competing consoles. Everybody's either heard it or participated in it, I'm sure.
People spend so much time defending "their system" that they never experience the other systems or they just neglect to see the perks of the other systems. Sure, everything has imperfections. But, everything has its own beauty. By being system biased, you miss out on the other systems' beauties.
Our human nature says "be the best". Darwin said "survival of the fittest", therefore implying that the "best" will prevail. Sometimes you have to put aside all that competition crappola and see the innate beauty in things. I like Windows because I like games. I like Mac's because of their attitude and photo/video editing support. I like GNU/Linux because of the GPL and the fact that for a couple bucks I can get a CD off of the 'net that has so many GPL'ed programs I have a complete GNU system for $5 shipping. If I had a lot of cash, I would have all of them.
Mac's are beautiful, Wintel's are beautiful, *nix boxen are beautiful. If they could only live together in peace and harmony. Why can't we all just get along? Now I sound like a hippy...eh, a techno-hippy I am.
Thank you Lord Hugh Toppingham for giving me something to do while I am stuck at work. I consider the use of the internet and the reading/posting at Slashdot "research" for the IT dept. It's been fun.
-= Jigoku =-
Looks like the contest succeeded. They managed to Dos-attack Slashdot almost contineously for the last 48 hours. :)
you can't burn data cds yet, and you can't watch dvds, but that will be in the next release (as an employee of apple told me), which will be the last release before macworld new york. keep your software up to date and you'll be alright.
Every once in a while I like to masturbate a new word into my vocabulary, even if I don't know what it means.
This is undoubtedly the leanest, meanest hack I've ever seen. It's a fun project, and if you have kids they'll love it.
--
Humm... I'd like to download that dock hack...looks like fun:) And reguarding that guy above... I think most firewire dirves do burn CD's under OS X. I actually have a yamaha drive that burns under X and not 9. All in all... toast for X is what is needed. It is a much better app. Burning in iTunes is slow. It takes to long to convert MP3s.
"Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"