Ars Technica mentioned that in
macOS Tahoe the venerable old hard disk icons will be replaced with new, more generic, relatively less interesting equivalents. This process also apparently happens with Apple CEOs from time to time. If you are on Sequoia and want to keep them for posterity, you can get them out of
/System/Library/Extensions/IOStorageFamily.kext/Contents/Resources. I'm still impressed to this day that someone not only took the time to write actually plausible text copy for the label, but also gave it Torx screws. Get out your T8 MacCracker for this drive:
This isn't the only echo of Macs past in the operating system.
The Spacebar also noticed that Apple Symbols still has many old, nay, "obsolete" icons that are only of use to people who still use web browsers on Power Macs.
That's not the half of it, though. There's a bunch more in that file than the ones he spotted. Here's what I saw; perhaps you can find more.
In order: PowerPC logo, composite video out and in, S-video out and in (such as seen on some later PowerBooks), modem port, combined modem/printer port (like on the Duo 2300), printer port, SCSI, Ethernet (also AAUI), three glyphs for Apple Desktop Bus (ADB) ports, a server, rainbow outline Apple, Balloon Help (from System 7), Apple Guide (7.5), 5.25" floppy (I guess mostly for the Apple II folks), two Newton lightbulbs, Newton undo, Newton extras, Newton dates, Newton names, high-density 3.5" disk icon, a confused Compact Mac (possibly to evoke the flashing question mark when it can't find a bootable volume), classic QuickTime logo, busy watch, Apple Pro Speakers port (such as on the iMac G4 or the MDD G4), FireWire, programmer's key icon, and two versions of the reset icon, though these three do have Unicode equivalents or you can also use regular geometric shapes, and sometimes those faced the other way.
(A note on most of these characters is that they don't actually map to any defined Unicode code point; they are unconnected glyphs. Font Book will show them but you can't really copy them anywhere. A tool like Ultra Character Map will let you at least grab a graphical representation and paste it somewhere, as I have done here.)
But that's not all! Feast your eyes on what's still in /System/Library/CoreServices/CoreTypes.bundle/Contents/Resources!
What's particularly impressive is the multiple sizes for systems with differently sized screens as options. These are taken from the 1024x1024 144dpi retina versions in Sequoia.
eMac,
iBook G4 12" and 14",
iMac G4 15" (my favourite because it doesn't wear out the arm), 17" and 20",
iMac G5 (recognizeable because no iSight) 17" and 20",
iPhone 2G and 3G (notice the subtly different chrome),
Titanium PowerBook G4,
Alumin(i)um PowerBook G4 12", 15" and 17" (with all-region DVD drive firmware it's the best portable DVD player you can get),
"Graphite" Power Macintosh G4 (doesn't say if it's a Yikes!, Sawtooth or Gigabit Ethernet),
"Quicksilver" Power Macintosh G4,
"Mirrored Drive Doors" Power Macintosh G4, which looks nearly the same,
Xserve G4,
early Mac mini (we'll call it a G4, since we can't see the back),
[A commenter pointed out this must be an early Intel mini because of the small black aperture for the IR receiver. Good spot!]
and who let this thing in?
Why are all these things still in the macOS? My guess, modulo the Blue Screen PC, is trademark purposes.[A number of people have suggested for network serves; some servers will identify themselves as specific computers, which will pick up an icon in this group, and of course the Windows PC for this purpose is well-known. Fine, except that this archive isn't comprehensive for all the possible Mac models that could have participated as a network share point: no G3s, for example, and no Power Mac G5.] These all were used as Apple-specific labeling and could be considered as part of their trade dress, and having these legacy items still in the macOS probably serves some legal purpose if someone were to try to rip off their old IP. It can't be for nostalgia purposes or we'd still be able to run Carbon PowerPC apps on Tahoe like you can still run most Win32 applications on Windows 11. And Apple just doesn't do nostalgia — except in their ads.
About 10 years ago someone posted a fun little trick to display a NeXT icon buried somewhere in iPadOS and I’ve never been able to track it down since. Any ideas?
ReplyDeleteNot off the top of my head. What was the icon? A NeXT logo?
DeleteThe Mac Mini is an early intel model, not a G4. You can tell because it has a small dark spot on the right side of the CD slot: an infrared receiver to allow you to use the short-lived Apple Remote.
ReplyDeleteGood spot, I didn't see that. I'll mark it.
DeleteI think a more likely reason they haven't been removed is that there is no reason to remove them. Who knows what obscure code deep in the OS or somewhere else might break if they are removed. It takes effort to figure that out, and there is no harm in keeping them there. This isn't the days where every byte counts.
ReplyDeleteI'd be more inclined to believe that if Apple weren't so generally aggressive about cleaning out their legacy stuff (sometimes to its benefit, sometimes to its detriment). But here we have glyphs that don't attach to code points which could have easily been cleared out, and icons that were even updated for retina displays. To me, that suggests some sort of more active maintenance instead of benign neglect. Who knows?
Deleteif you're using a hackintosh or in some other way are able to edit your SMBIOS info those old icons will still show up. I set my SMBIOS to PowerMac4,4 and now about this mac and system settings say that I'm running Tahoe on an eMac with an 8th gen i5.
ReplyDeleteThe blue screen monitor used to be the icon for windows servers over SMB. Hotshot Linux admins would change their servers to the Xserve.
ReplyDelete