Animated happy mac on Mac Classic?

[Dennis Nedry]

I admit that I do not own a Mac Classic. Intrigued by the command+option+o+x bootable ROM ability, I peeked inside this ROM. I found this by importing the ROM as a fairly tall raw 1-bit 32-pixel wide image in GraphicConverter:

The final smile and sad mac faces are 16x10 bitmaps that occur later in the ROM:

This sure looks like an animated Happy Mac sequence. Can anyone with a Classic confirm/disprove if this actually got implemented?

 

[Dennis Nedry]

Here's what it would look like animated:

 

[Mars478]

Isn't that just how it is? (Like your animation)

 

[Dennis Nedry]

Isn't that just how it is? (Like your animation)

Are you saying that it is indeed animated like this on the actual Macintosh Classic machine?

I just spotted these frames in an LC III ROM as well. I have a Performa 450 handy so I'll be having a look.

 

[Tempest]

Not on mine. It just starts with the completed face. Unless it's too fast for me to see that is.

Tempest

 

[Dennis Nedry]

Very interesting. It's not animated on the LC III/Performa 450 either as far as I can tell. But the LC III ROM also contains normal 32x32 images of the complete happy mac and sad mac. The Classic does not. It must use one of these three animation frames, with mask, and place the appropriate 16x10 image on top of it.

Based on what you said, Tempest, I can only assume that this image is assembled behind the scenes and makes it to the screen in one piece.

Browsing my ROM collection, as incomplete and possibly having bad dumps as it is, I can date these "animation" frames back to the IIfx, but after the IIci. Checking several other Macs before the IIci also turned up nothing.

 

[Mac128]

I can date these "animation" frames back to the IIfx, but after the IIci.

Are you saying it definitely is NOT in the IIci ROM?

The one ting the IIci and fx have in common is that they were the first 512K 32-bit clean ROMs. However, the Classic was essentially the 256K SEFDHD ROM with an embedded System RAM disk, accounting for the other 256K, plus a software screen dimming feature. Paul Pratt details this somewhat on his Mini vMac documentation about the Classic.

So I would not be surprised if this was not developed for the 32-bit clean ROMs to set them apart from the old dirty ROMs and never implemented. But I would expect it to show up in the IIci then, which is otherwise the same interchangeable ROM software as the IIfx. Perhaps the IIfx got the idea to help set it apart during startup from the earlier IIx which was notoriously dirty, since the case was otherwise identical?

I took a look at this on Mini vMac and I don't see anything but the static image, either with a System disk or the embedded System. I doubt it would be different on a real Classic. However, the Classic failed to implement many aspects of its intended functions. It occurred to me that this might have been intended to be implemented to differentiate startup between the embedded system and that of the hard drive, or floppy (Apple was notoriously subtle with such distinctions, as in the single pixel in the wIndow bar between HFS & MFS systems).

 

[Dennis Nedry]

Are you saying it definitely is NOT in the IIci ROM?

Yep, as far as I can tell, it is not in there.

The one ting the IIci and fx have in common is that they were the first 512K 32-bit clean ROMs. However, the Classic was essentially the 256K SEFDHD ROM with an embedded System RAM disk, accounting for the other 256K, plus a software screen dimming feature. Paul Pratt details this somewhat on his Mini vMac documentation about the Classic.

It seems a lot of space is wasted in the IIci and IIfx ROMs. They each featured a 277x185 8-bit color image of the design team, which must account for 50k if it's stored in a raw format, plus palette. There also appear to be large areas of all zeros or repeating ASCII copyright notices. It's possible that the Classic ROM, IIci and IIfx have more in common than we might have thought.

So I would not be surprised if this was not developed for the 32-bit clean ROMs to set them apart from the old dirty ROMs and never implemented. But I would expect it to show up in the IIci then, which is otherwise the same interchangeable ROM software as the IIfx. Perhaps the IIfx got the idea to help set it apart during startup from the earlier IIx which was notoriously dirty, since the case was otherwise identical?
I took a look at this on Mini vMac and I don't see anything but the static image, either with a System disk or the embedded System. I doubt it would be different on a real Classic. However, the Classic failed to implement many aspects of its intended functions. It occurred to me that this might have been intended to be implemented to differentiate startup between the embedded system and that of the hard drive, or floppy (Apple was notoriously subtle with such distinctions, as in the single pixel in the wIndow bar between HFS & MFS systems).