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intric8
Seattle, WA, USA

Posted Sun Nov 14, 2021 10:23 am

Friend and site member Crispy, also a fan of Amiga and vintage Apple, sent me some very interesting visual artifacts.

First is a Boing Ball Demo that came out some time during the Mac Plus days (circa 1986).
macBoing.png
Read my lips: "Boing!" Spoken as if from the movie "A Quiet Place."

Macintosh Repository:
Vanlandingham is the Macintosh's answer to the Amiga's "boing!" demo. When you launch the app, it will take 20 to 40 seconds for the animation to start, depending on your hardware, since the program draws at high resolution (unlike "boing!").

You can download the demo for your Mac Macintosh Repository here. (Note: Does NOT work under Mac OS 9 and above. If you use an emulator aim for System 6.)

Worth noting that it does not come with a haunting and commanding bounce sound effect. It's kind of interesting to compare this version to the original. While we get a higher resolution with the Mac version, we also lose the enormity of the original with its stunning peek-a-boo multitasking, the vibrant colors and, as mentioned, the sound.

Crispy also sent over a very curious "Kickstart Image" made for Mac, naturally sporting the same high resolution of 512 x 342 also in black and white.

startup-screen.png
The Mac's high resolution of the day was 512 x 342.


It's actually quite a nice rendering with only a couple of minor technical flaws in the hand. All that stippling (which I love) looks simply fantastic on the disk portion.

Note that the had has changed to a right-hand rather than a left. And it pinches the corner a bit more realistically than in the original Amiga rendering. Regardless, going to black and white, while definitely interesting, simply loses some of the warmth the original image casts.

You can download the image for your old Mac from AmigaLove, here.

Want to try this on your own Mac? First unzip the file and move the BIN file to your Mac.

Crispy explained:
Just un-binhex this file, rename it to "StartupScreen", and put it in your System folder. Interestingly, If you put the StartupScreen file in your System folder, then it will be shown instead of the "Welcome to Macintosh" screen.
If you put move the file over to to see the difference for yourself but then want to go back to original, can you simply remove the image to undo the "damage."

Going one step further, if you have a Mac that runs System 7 (and thus sports gobs of color potential) you can do this same kind of trick - with any image you might have in mind.

You can even make your own startup images by converting images to BIN using a tool like BinHex.

Crispy continued:
First the Boing ball, then a Kickstart hand. Hmm, could it be that Mac users were secretly jealous of the Amiga?

The answer, of course, is Only Amiga Makes It Possible.

:boing: <3

-- AL --





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