The other day I realized that holding down the Option key in the System 7 Desktop Patterns control panel changes the button text from "Set Desktop Pattern" to "Set Utilities Pattern". Does anyone here happen to know what that means?
edit: holy crap, I just figured it out: "Set Utilities Pattern" replaces the background pattern of every desk accessory, such as the Calculator and Scrapbook apps, Find File, Key Caps, Puzzle— with the pattern you chose. What a different time that was!
JeremyHerrman · 26m ago
woah that's a new one for me too! great find
JeremyHerrman · 18h ago
(and I also did the hack of reading raw images to get the binary pattern :-D the source for the converter is also in this repo)
keyle · 15h ago
I wish I could upvote this more than once! <3
JeremyHerrman · 26m ago
thanks!
mjmasn · 5h ago
Tiny easter egg: refreshing the page on either the blog post or the website gets you a new random background pattern
exikyut · 15h ago
FWIW, X11 also includes a bunch of quaint background patterns as well, in /usr/include/X11/bitmaps.
You can try each of them by just doing `xsetroot -bitmap <filename>`. I have mine set to wide_weave, which is incidentally identical to Pattern 15 in https://paulsmith.github.io/classic-mac-patterns/
MontyCarloHall · 19h ago
If you want to play with the actual Control Panels within various emulated Macintoshes (all in the context of a gorgeously written and illustrated history of Macintosh settings), have a look here: https://aresluna.org/frame-of-preference/
hahajk · 16h ago
From the linked Raskin memo, the original sin that brought us to dongletown:
> The minimum number of holes in the case through which fingers, screwdrivers (either metallic or liquid), EMI or earwigs can crawl is to be desired. I guess that adapters are OK as accessories.
duskwuff · 19h ago
As an aside, you could also have gotten this data from the source code:
Interesting - what's the provenance of this? Is this a leaked copy of the System source, or a disassembly/decompile?
ndiddy · 15h ago
It's a copy of the Toolbox ROM code for the Quadra 660AV. It's a real leak, not reverse engineered. You can see comments on the code from the early 80s by the original Macintosh team. It was published online (I think on Applefritter or something) about 20 years ago by a former Apple employee who was having some sort of mental breakdown. He believed it contained proof that Apple was complicit in subjecting its employees to MKULTRA mind control and ran underground maglev trains to other dimensions.
sroerick · 14h ago
Is there an article or something covering this? Too wild
ndiddy · 4h ago
I don't think there was anything beyond the original forum post. Even back then it was already ancient code that Apple was no longer using, so there wasn't any legal drama etc.
egypturnash · 14h ago
Damn that's some serious rebound from leaving Steve's Reality Distortion Field.
duskwuff · 15h ago
Holy crap. I was not aware of that context - that's wild.
duskwuff · 18h ago
It's a leaked copy of the System 7.1 source code - just the System itself; it doesn't include any applications, control panels, or extensions. (So code for things like the Finder or QuickTime aren't included.)
I'm not certain where it came from precisely; from what I understand, it's been circulating online for ages. Apple hasn't authorized its release, but, as far as I'm aware, they haven't made any attempt to suppress it either.
fredoralive · 18h ago
It's a leaked version of the Mac toolbox ROM source code circa very early 1994.
turnsout · 19h ago
Or a screenshot! But what’s the fun in that?
paulsmith · 18h ago
Exactly. One of the cool things about doing this the hard way was discovering that Apple still hosts old system and programmers manuals like the one for QuickDraw on its website.
errantspark · 19h ago
Nice! I did one of these ages and ages ago copying the win 3.1 pattern editor (which doubtless is a ripoff of the mac one anyway)
Oh fantastic – great find. I actually started recreating these in Figma to use in some nostalgic designs, but now I don't have to – yay!
ayaros · 17h ago
Really glad to see I'm not the only one out there who appreciates these patterns.
In my LisaGUI project I've added not just the ones from the Lisa Office System and Mac System 1, but also a few I found in betas of the Mac OS, as well as some from Windows 3.x and 9x. These kinds of patterns popped up in all sorts of places in the 80s and 90s. I'm continually surprised at how much you can fit in an 8x8 monochrome grid whenever I come across a clever pattern I haven't seen before.
Edit: https://alpha.lisagui.com/
At the desktop click the preferences icon and go to the Decorate Desktop pane
unleaded · 19h ago
My favourite is the wide weave one (#15).. what looks like the same pattern is on X and old Windows too.
Same, that and the bubble one #36 have so much personality.
JKCalhoun · 15h ago
Like a cherry pie crust.
SG- · 11h ago
This is great, have you thought of expanding the early color patterns from Mac OS 7 systems? Those hit hard for and still look decent on modern systems.
1-6 · 19h ago
We're finally getting colors on e-ink displays. B&W [hatch] patterns still have a rightful purpose.
guerrilla · 16h ago
This feels like real archeology.
amatecha · 11h ago
Interesting, I think you could also get at the data using ResEdit, no? Since it's just PAT# resources? Now I'm curious to try...
paulsmith · 2h ago
It's a great point, and I did consider it, the trouble is, how do you get the pattern resource data out of ResEdit running in the emulator and onto the modern machine? And ResEdit doesn't seem to run in any kind of compatibility mode on modern Macs anymore either.
It's too bad because ResEdit is an amazing program, and even has a surprisingly full-featured graphical editor, including for those patterns, with a live preview mode:
Some overlap but not identical. There are 38 Mac patterns compared to 32 geos patterns. Of these I count 27 that coincide; 5 are unique to geos and 11 are unique to the Mac. I think certainly the direction of copying is geos copying from Mac.
Someone · 10h ago
> I think certainly the direction of copying is geos copying from Mac.
Given that the Mac shipped with those patterns in early 1984 and GEOS in 1986, it can’t be Mac copying GEOS.
That doesn’t mean it was GEOS copying Mac, though. Various horizontal and vertical stripes, block patterns and attempts to get a range of grays easily can be parallel evolution. 27 out of 32 seems a bit much, though.
system7rocks · 18h ago
How do I make these patterns my iPad wallpaper? — asking for a friend
It's still hard to believe that some of these effects are accomplished in 8x8 pixels — in a single integer's worth of space, on modern architectures.
Demo here: https://jherrm.github.io/classic-mac-desktop-pattern/
Source: https://github.com/jherrm/classic-mac-desktop-pattern
edit: holy crap, I just figured it out: "Set Utilities Pattern" replaces the background pattern of every desk accessory, such as the Calculator and Scrapbook apps, Find File, Key Caps, Puzzle— with the pattern you chose. What a different time that was!
You can try each of them by just doing `xsetroot -bitmap <filename>`. I have mine set to wide_weave, which is incidentally identical to Pattern 15 in https://paulsmith.github.io/classic-mac-patterns/
> The minimum number of holes in the case through which fingers, screwdrivers (either metallic or liquid), EMI or earwigs can crawl is to be desired. I guess that adapters are OK as accessories.
https://github.com/historicalsource/supermario/blob/master/b...
:)
I'm not certain where it came from precisely; from what I understand, it's been circulating online for ages. Apple hasn't authorized its release, but, as far as I'm aware, they haven't made any attempt to suppress it either.
https://errantspark.github.io/3.1/#0056755500caaeaa
https://jherrm.github.io/classic-mac-desktop-pattern/
In my LisaGUI project I've added not just the ones from the Lisa Office System and Mac System 1, but also a few I found in betas of the Mac OS, as well as some from Windows 3.x and 9x. These kinds of patterns popped up in all sorts of places in the 80s and 90s. I'm continually surprised at how much you can fit in an 8x8 monochrome grid whenever I come across a clever pattern I haven't seen before.
Edit: https://alpha.lisagui.com/ At the desktop click the preferences icon and go to the Decorate Desktop pane
See also Iconography of the X Window System: The Boot Stipple: https://matttproud.com/blog/posts/x-window-system-boot-stipp...
Same, that and the bubble one #36 have so much personality.
It's too bad because ResEdit is an amazing program, and even has a surprisingly full-featured graphical editor, including for those patterns, with a live preview mode:
https://raw.githubusercontent.com/paulsmith/classic-mac-patt...
[I knew them from the Atari ST :) ]
Given that the Mac shipped with those patterns in early 1984 and GEOS in 1986, it can’t be Mac copying GEOS.
That doesn’t mean it was GEOS copying Mac, though. Various horizontal and vertical stripes, block patterns and attempts to get a range of grays easily can be parallel evolution. 27 out of 32 seems a bit much, though.
Back in 2014 I made a phoney minigolf game using these patterns as a first step into making interactive work: https://www.maxpiantoni.com/projects/golfnet
The game isn’t particularly real, but the jokes are.
Swastikas make a nice pattern. Ya I know. But there are actually only like 7 really good strong patterns and swastikas is one of them.
Such a good graphic. Too bad about the branding.