# You may be an old-school Mac user if...

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-may-be-an-old-school-mac-user-if/513088>\
**Category:** In My Humble Opinion\
**Created:** [October 8, 2009, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-may-be-an-old-school-mac-user-if/513088 "2009-10-08T18:48:15Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 17\
**Page:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Motorgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e36b37/32.png) [@Motorgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Motorgirl)\
**Post date:** [October 9, 2009, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-may-be-an-old-school-mac-user-if/513088/21 "2009-10-09T16:21:27Z")

</div>

> [@Chicken\_Fingers](#):
>
> You remember what it was like to have no hard drive.  
> You used to play Daleks.

I was never any good at Daleks. I had terrible luck when teleporting.

ETA - a few years ago on a road trip we all chose a superpower - mine was the ability to teleport. I spent the rest of the trip jumping around and making the Daleks teleport sound. Only my sister got the allusion.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\
**Post date:** [October 9, 2009, 5:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-may-be-an-old-school-mac-user-if/513088/22 "2009-10-09T17:42:18Z")

</div>

> [@gotpasswords](#):
>
> ..if you break into a cold sweat upon hearing the Death Chime.

Anybody ever hear the Car Crash?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![bink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/439d5e/32.png) [@bink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bink)\
**Post date:** [October 9, 2009, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-may-be-an-old-school-mac-user-if/513088/23 "2009-10-09T18:01:20Z")

</div>

…you still don’t quite trust command-X so you always command-C and delete the original after you know the paste worked.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/troy_mcclure_sf/32/4150_2.png) [@Troy\_McClure\_SF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Troy_McClure_SF)\
**Post date:** [October 9, 2009, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-may-be-an-old-school-mac-user-if/513088/24 "2009-10-09T18:04:39Z")

</div>

> [@Green\_Bean](#):
>
> I use PCs, but I always put my taskbar on top. That’s where it belongs, dammit!

Ha! We use Windows at work and I do the same thing.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Mariemarie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/58f4c7/32.png) [@Mariemarie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mariemarie)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2009, 1:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-may-be-an-old-school-mac-user-if/513088/25 "2009-10-10T01:16:24Z")

</div>

Nanosaur!

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Ranchoth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ranchoth/32/1066_2.png) [@Ranchoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ranchoth)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2009, 3:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-may-be-an-old-school-mac-user-if/513088/26 "2009-10-10T03:51:53Z")

</div>

Let’s see…

•I’ve got a “hockey puck” mouse. Right now, hooked up to this computer. I still have to remove and clean the rubber ball, occasionally.

•I’ve got a Basilisk emulator setup, which I’ve used occasionally, which has copies of software I got at retail. And a freeware flight simulator scenario editor I got off of AOL, which involves programming aircraft behavior with raw, four-character hex codes. (22FF for the win, baby)

•I have a graphics editor which I got, free, on a floppy disc with a Macworld book. Some of the modified “texture” graphics go back to the first Clinton administration.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![miamouse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ad7895/32.png) [@miamouse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/miamouse)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2009, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-may-be-an-old-school-mac-user-if/513088/27 "2009-10-10T03:54:45Z")

</div>

I never did figure out what ARose was…

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2009, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-may-be-an-old-school-mac-user-if/513088/28 "2009-10-10T04:02:56Z")

</div>

> [@miamouse](#):
>
> I never did figure out what ARose was…

Apple Realtime Operating System Environment

> [@](#):
>
> A/ROSE stands for Apple Real-Time Operating System Environment. It’s a
> 
> system extension that allows communication between the Macintosh main logic
> 
> board and Macintosh Coprocessor Platform (MCP) based NuBus cards that run the
> 
> Apple Real-Time Operating System.
> 
> A/ROSE runs as a driver under the standard Macintosh operating system. It
> 
> downloads, starts, stops, sets priorities, and communicates with real-time
> 
> processes that run on any A/ROSE-compatible NuBus card.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\
**Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-may-be-an-old-school-mac-user-if/513088/29 "2009-10-11T14:11:10Z")

</div>

> [@Max\_Torque](#):
>
> oo, Airborne! Did everyone else change the date to December 25th so the cactus would turn into a Christmas tree?
> 
> I used to play [Dark Castle](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCkbp4wurW0) on a 512K Mac with only one floppy drive. That’ll give ya Disk-Swapper’s Elbow real quick, lemme tell ya.
> 
> Who else here has snipped resistor R8 to allow them to upgrade a Mac Plus to 4 MB of RAM?

Thanks! I remember doing that-now that you reminded me…

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![rbroome](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/838e76/32.png) [@rbroome](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rbroome)\
**Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-may-be-an-old-school-mac-user-if/513088/30 "2009-10-11T14:16:40Z")

</div>

> [@beowulff](#):
>
> Apple Realtime Operating System Environment

thanks for the clarification on the Moose and Airborne.  
ARose. I never programmed for it and had completely forgotten about it.  
good memories!

do you live in cupertino by any chance? 🙂

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![beowulff](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/beowulff/32/542_2.png) [@beowulff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/beowulff)\
**Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-may-be-an-old-school-mac-user-if/513088/31 "2009-10-11T15:06:11Z")

</div>

> [@rbroome](#):
>
> thanks for the clarification on the Moose and Airborne.  
> ARose. I never programmed for it and had completely forgotten about it.  
> good memories!
> 
> do you live in cupertino by any chance? 🙂

No, although I did interview at Apple for the “Scientific and Engineering Evangelist” position back in the Mac II days. My first Mac was a “Fat Mac”, and the only reason I didn’t buy a 128K was I had read all the magazines, and they all said to wait for the inevitable upgrade.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\
**Post date:** [October 11, 2009, 3:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-may-be-an-old-school-mac-user-if/513088/32 "2009-10-11T15:32:55Z")

</div>

I once read a hilarious article about an Apple guy who went to a classroom of 3rd or 4th graders back in 1987 or thereabouts, to talk about the Mac. The techie boots up a Mac Plus and shows them how to draw little fishies in MacPaint and some other things of that ilk before the teacher says “Excuse me… before you go any further I think you should come look at Bobby’s Mac over here”. Little Bobby had used ResEdit to edit all the error messages to say things like “WARNING! You need to change your underpants!” instead of “WARNING! Change All is NOT Undo-able!”, had recorded macros that made a bunch of Empty Folder icons march around the desktop and attack each other, had changed dialog boxes so that previously “modal” error messages could be dragged offscreen and let you keep working, etc.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![cmyk](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cmyk/32/3353_2.png) [@cmyk](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cmyk)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 7:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-may-be-an-old-school-mac-user-if/513088/33 "2009-10-13T07:36:42Z")

</div>

When the mac was thinking, you’d get a little B&W wristwatch, no multi-colored spinning beach ball, and there was no telling if your mac froze, or if you should give it “just another five minutes” before you had to hard-reboot and lose all your unsaved docs.

Your cursor arrow didn’t have a shadow under it.

You had to assign how much RAM each app used under Get Info.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![elmwood](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/elmwood/32/3060_2.png) [@elmwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elmwood)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-may-be-an-old-school-mac-user-if/513088/34 "2009-10-13T07:42:13Z")

</div>

If I go to a coffee house, I’m the only one using a G4 iBook. Hell, I’m the only one using a Mac laptop without chicklet keys.

Also, I donated my color NeXTStation to the local computer museum last week. THAT is old-school Mac, in the context f OS X.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![UncleRojelio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/unclerojelio/32/3160_2.png) [@UncleRojelio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/UncleRojelio)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-may-be-an-old-school-mac-user-if/513088/35 "2009-10-13T13:31:37Z")

</div>

I had a Mac512K and remember everything in this thread. Damn, getting old sucks.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![AHunter3](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ahunter3/32/368_2.png) [@AHunter3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AHunter3)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 5:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-may-be-an-old-school-mac-user-if/513088/36 "2009-10-13T17:24:47Z")

</div>

Yes they conflicted. (How many times did you have to rename them to make them load in a different order?) Yes some of them created system instability (and you had to figure out which ones were causing the crashes and dump them). But you loved them. You know you did.

Flash-It \<—— for snagging screen shots  
Super Clock \<—— before Apple made menu bar clock option as part of the OS.  
Escapade \<—— enabled the Esc key and ⌘-anyletter to auto-click nondefault buttons  
SFVol \<—— to create a New Folder within a Save dialog, before Apple added THAT  
DOS Mounter \<—— to read MS-DOS disks without that horrid Apple File Exchange thingie  
Møire \<—— screen saver  
Apollo \<—— launcher. way cool, you could swap directly from App 1 to App 2 without going thru Finder. Still cool even after MultiFinder  
Carpetbag \<—— cheaper than Suitcase or Juggler  
Scroll2 \<—— arrows on both ends of your scroll bars  
WaitLess \<—— bring up just one CDev; hierarchical Control Panels for System 6!  
WindowShade \<—— the original window minimizer, before Apple added it to the OS  
MacPUKE \<——sound effect when ejecting removable media.  
Remember? \<—— scheduler with alert pop-up

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Morbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/morbo/32/389_2.png) [@Morbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Morbo)\
**Post date:** [October 13, 2009, 5:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-may-be-an-old-school-mac-user-if/513088/37 "2009-10-13T17:54:15Z")

</div>

“The pirates laugh Har, Har, Har!”

[Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/you-may-be-an-old-school-mac-user-if/513088.md?page=1)