The spinning pinwheel is a variation of the mouse pointer arrow, used in Apple 's macOS to indicate that an application is busy. A spinning wheel generally means macOS has detected a problem in a specific app. The good news is it also means your entire system (including the OS) hasn’t crashed. In fact, a spinning wheel doesn’t necessarily mean anything has crashed (yet). In safe mode your Mac will look for system issues. If nothing happens after a bit of use then you’re good to go. Shut down your computer and restart as normal. If Mac goes haywire in safe mode then get your computer to Apple Support stat. If you’ve done all that, but you still get the rainbow wheel frequently Re-install your operating.
The classic Macintosh startup sequence includes hardware tests which may trigger the startup chime, Happy Mac, Sad Mac, and Chimes of Death. On Macs running macOS Big Sur the startup sound is enabled by default, but can be disabled by the user within system preferences.[1]
Startup chime[edit]
The Macintosh startup chime is played on power-up, before trying to boot an operating system. The sound indicates that diagnostic tests run immediately at startup have found no hardware or fundamental software problems.[2] The specific sound differs depending on the ROM, which greatly varies depending on Macintosh model. The first sound version in the first three Macintosh models is a simple square-wave 'beep', and all subsequent sounds are various chords.
Mark Lentczner created the software that plays the arpeggiated chord in the Macintosh II. Variations of this sound were deployed until Jim Reekes created the startup chime in the Quadra 700 through the Quadra 800.[3] Reekes said, 'The startup sound was done in my home studio on a Korg Wavestation EX. It's a C major chord, played with both hands stretched out as wide as possible (with 3rd at the top, if I recall).' He created the sound as he was annoyed with the tri-tone startup chimes because they were too associated with the death chimes and the computer crashes. He recalls that Apple did not give him permission to change the sound but that he secretly snuck the sound into the computers with the help of engineers who were in charge of the ROM chips. When Apple discovered this, he refused to change it, using various claims in order to keep the new sound intact.[4] He is also the creator of the iconic (or 'earconic', as he calls it) 'bong' startup chime in most Macintoshes since the Quadra 840AV. A slightly lower-pitched version of this chime is in all PCI-based Power Macs until the iMac G3. The Macintosh LC, LC II, and Macintosh Classic II do not use the Reekes chime, instead using an F major chord that just produces a 'ding' sound. The first generation of Power Macintosh computers also do not use the Reekes chime, instead using a chord strummed on a Yamaha12-string acoustic guitar by jazz guitarist Stanley Jordan. Further, the Power Macintosh 5200–6300 computers (excluding the 5400 and 5500, which have the 'bong' chime like the one in the PCI-based Power Macs) use a unique chime, which is also in the television commercials for the Power Macintosh and PowerBook series from 1995 until 1998, and the 20th Anniversary Macintosh uses another unique sound.
For models built prior to the introduction of the Power Macintosh in 1994, the failure of initial self-diagnostic tests results in a Sad Mac icon, an error code, and distinctive Chimes of Death sounds.
The chime for all Mac computers from 1998 to 2016 is the same chime used first in the iMac G3. The chord is a F-sharp major chord, and was produced by pitch-shifting the 840AV's sound. The Mac startup chime is now a registered trademark in the United States,[5] and is featured in the 2008 Pixar film WALL-E when the titular robot character is fully recharged by solar panels as well as in the 2007 Brad Paisley song 'Online'.[6]
Spinning Artillery Mac Os X
Starting with the 2016 MacBook Pro, all new Macs were shipped without a startup chime, with the Macs silently booting when powered on.[7] In 2020, the startup chime would be added to these models with the release of macOS Big Sur, which allows it to be enabled or disabled in System Preferences.[8] On the macOS Big Sur 11.0.1 beta, it was discovered that the new lower pitched chime was brought to all older supported Macs. In a firmware update included in the macOS Catalina 2020-001 Security Update, and the macOS Mojave 2020-007 Security Update, the new startup chime in Big Sur is brought to all Catalina and Mojave supported Macs except 2012 models.
Happy Mac[edit]
The splash screen under Mac OS 8.
The 'Welcome to Macintosh' screen seen in System 7.5 and earlier.
A Happy Mac is the normal bootup (startup) icon of an Apple Macintosh computer running older versions of the Mac operating system. It was designed by Susan Kare in the 1980s, drawing inspiration from the design of the Compact Macintosh series and from the Batman character Two-Face.[9] The icon remained unchanged until the introduction of New World ROM Macs, when it was updated to 8-bit color. The Happy Mac indicates that booting has successfully begun, whereas a Sad Mac (along with the 'Chimes of Death' melody or one or more beeps) indicates a hardware problem.
When a Macintosh boots into the classic Mac OS (Mac OS 9 or lower), the system will play its startup chime, the screen will turn gray, and the Happy Mac icon will appear, followed by the Mac OS splash screen (or the small 'Welcome to Macintosh' screen in System 7.5 and earlier), which underwent several stylistic changes. Mac OS versions 8.6 and later also includes the version number in this splash screen (for example, 'Welcome to Mac OS 8.6').
On early Macs that had no internal hard drive, the computer boots up to a point where it needs to load the operating system from a floppy disk. Until the user inserts the correct disk, the Mac displays a floppy icon with a blinking question mark. In later Macs, a folder icon with a question mark that repeatedly changes to the Finder icon is shown if a System Folder or boot loader file cannot be found on the startup disk.
With the introduction of Mac OS X, in addition to the blinking system folder icon, a prohibition icon was added to show an incorrect OS version is found. The bomb screen in the classic Mac OS was replaced with a kernel panic, which was originally colored white but was changed to black in version 10.3. With Mac OS X 10.1, a new Happy Mac was included. This is also the last version that had a Happy Mac icon; in version 10.2, the Happy Mac symbol was replaced with the Apple logo. In OS X Lion 10.7, the Apple logo was slightly shrunk and modified. In OS X Yosemite 10.10, the white screen with a gray Apple logo was replaced with a black screen with a white Apple logo and the spinning wheel was replaced with a loading bar. However, this only applies to Macs from 2013 and later, including the 2012 Retina MacBook Pros, and requires a firmware update to be applied. All earlier Macs still use the old screen. The shadow on the Apple logo was removed in OS X El Capitan 10.11. In 2016+ Macs, the Apple logo appears immediately when the screen turns on.The Face ID logo for the iPhone X was based on the Happy Mac.
Sad Mac[edit]
One version of the Sad Mac icon, this one indicating that an illegal instruction occurred.
Spinning Artillery Mac Os Catalina
A Sad Mac is a symbol in older-generation Apple Macintosh computers (hardware using the Old World ROM and not Open Firmware, which are those predating onboard USB), starting with the original 128K Macintosh and ending with the last NuBus-based Power Macintosh models (including the first-generation 6100, 7100, 8100, as well as the PowerBook 5300 and 1400),[10] to indicate a severe hardware or software problem that prevented startup from occurring successfully. The Sad Mac icon is displayed, along with a set of hexadecimal codes that indicate the type of problem at startup. Different codes are for different errors. This is in place of the normal Happy Mac icon, which indicates that the startup-time hardware tests were successful. In 68k models made after the Macintosh II, the Chimes of Death are played.
Models prior to the Macintosh II crash silently and display the Sad Mac, without playing any tone. PowerPC Macs play a sound effect of a car crash, and computers equipped with the PowerPC upgrade card use the three note brass fanfare death chime (A, E-natural, and E-flat), followed by the sound of a drum, same as the Macintosh Performa 6200 and Macintosh Performa 6300.
A Sad Mac may be deliberately generated at startup by pressing the interrupt switch on Macintosh computers that had one installed, or by pressing Command and Power keys shortly after the startup chime. On some Macintoshes such as PowerBook 540c, if the user presses the command and power keys before the boot screen displays, it will play the 'chimes of death'. The chimes are a fraction of normal speed and there is no Sad Mac displayed.
Spinning Artillery Mac Os Download
Old World ROM Power Macintosh and PowerBook models based on the PCI architecture do not use a Sad Mac icon and will instead only play the error/car-crash sound on a hardware failure (such as missing or bad memory, unusable CPU, or similar).
Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar and later instead use the Universal 'no' symbol to denote a hardware or software error that renders the computer non-bootable.[11][12]
Sad iPod[edit]
On the iPod, if damage or an error occurs in the hardware or the firmware, for example, if its files are deleted, a Sad iPod appears. This is similar to the Sad Mac, but instead of a Macintosh, there is an iPod, and there are no chimes of death. The icon also lacks a nose, and the frown is flipped horizontally. It also does not show hexadecimal codes indicating what problem occurred in the iPod. This error screen will not show up when a problem occurs in the newer iPods.
Chimes of Death[edit]
The Chimes of Death are the Macintosh equivalent of a beep code on IBM PC compatibles. On all Macintosh models predating the adoption of PCI and Open Firmware, the Chimes of Death are often accompanied by a Sad Mac icon in the middle of the screen.
![Spinning Artillery Mac OS Spinning Artillery Mac OS](https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/system-mac/images/c/cd/ARTILLERY.png/revision/latest?cb=20170923105024)
Different Macintosh series have different death chimes. The Macintosh II is the first to use the death chimes, a loud and eerie upward major arpeggio, with different chimes on many models. The Macintosh Quadra, Centris, Performa, LC, and the Macintosh Classic II play a generally softer and lower pitched version of the upward major arpeggio, followed by three or four notes, with slight variation depending on the model of the Macintosh. The PowerBook 5300, 190, and 1400 use the second half of the 8-note arpeggio as found on the Quadra and Centris models, or the entire death chime if the error occurs before the screen lights up. The Macintosh Quadra 660AV and Centris 660AV use a sound of a single pass of Roland D-50's 'Digital Native Dance' sample loop, and the NuBus based Power Macintosh models (including 6100,[13] 7100, and 8100) series use a car crash sound. Flaming pixels mac os. The Power Macintosh and Performa 6200 and 6300 series, along with the Power Macintosh upgrade card, use an eerily dramatic 3-note brass fanfare with a rhythm of drums and cymbals. The pre-G3 PCI Power Macs, the beige G3 Power Macs, the G3 All-In-One, and the PowerBook 2400, 3400, and G3 all use a sound of glass shattering; these models do not display a Sad Mac icon. Since the introduction of the iMac in 1998, the Chimes of Death are no longer used in favor of a series of tones to indicate hardware errors.
See also[edit]
References[edit]
- ^About Mac startup tones Apple. November 8, 2018. Retrieved February 23, 2020
- ^Hardwick, Tim (October 30, 2016). 'Classic Mac Startup Chime Not Present in New MacBook Pros'. MacRumors. Retrieved September 14, 2020.
- ^Whitwell, Tom (May 26, 2005) 'Tiny Music Makers: Pt 4: The Mac Startup Sound', Music Thing
- ^Pettitt, Jeniece (March 24, 2018). 'Meet the man who created Apple's most iconic sounds: Sosumi, the camera click and the start-up chord'. CNBC. Retrieved March 24, 2018.
- ^'Apple's Classic Mac Startup Chime is now a Registered Trademark'. Patently Apple. December 12, 2012. Retrieved October 30, 2016.
- ^Apple Sound Designer on Iconic Startup Sound. Obama Pacman. March 10, 2010. Retrieved January 24, 2011.
- ^Hardwick, Tim (October 30, 2016). 'Classic Mac Startup Chime Not Present in New MacBook Pros'. MacRumors. Retrieved October 30, 2016.
- ^Peters, Jay (June 23, 2020). 'The Mac's iconic startup chime is back in macOS Big Sur'. The Verge. Retrieved June 28, 2020.
- ^Hertzfield, Andy (November 19, 2011). Revolution in The Valley [Paperback]: The Insanely Great Story of How the Mac Was Made. O'Reilly Media. ISBN978-1-4493-1624-2.
- ^'Macintosh: 'Sad Macintosh' Error Code Meaning'. Apple. November 30, 2003. Archived from the original on June 17, 2009. Retrieved August 24, 2008.
- ^'OS X: 'Broken folder' icon, prohibitory sign, or kernel panic when computer starts. Apple'. Archived from the original on October 13, 2007. Retrieved July 29, 2010.
- ^Delio, Michelle (August 2, 2002). ''Happy Mac' Killed By Jaguar'. Wired.com. Archived from the original on February 4, 2011.
- ^'Weird Mac Startup and Crash Sounds'. 512 Pixels. November 14, 2011.
External links[edit]
- The Original Macintosh: Boot Beep – Folklore.org
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Macintosh_startup&oldid=1014729985'
Spinning Wait Cursor as seen in OS X El Capitan
The spinning pinwheel is a variation of the mouse pointer arrow, used in Apple's macOS to indicate that an application is busy.[1]
Officially, the macOS Human Interface Guidelines refers to it as the spinning wait cursor,[2] but it is also known by other names, including the spinning beach ball[3], the spinning wheel of death[4], the spinning beach ball of death,[5] or the ferris wheel of death.
History[edit]
A wristwatch was the first wait cursor in early versions of the classic Mac OS. Floaty brain in space mac os. Apple's HyperCard first popularized animated cursors, including a black-and-white spinning quartered circle resembling a beach ball. The beach-ball cursor was also adopted to indicate running script code in the HyperTalk-like AppleScript. The cursors could be advanced by repeated HyperTalk invocations of 'set cursor to busy'.
Wait cursors are activated by applications performing lengthy operations. Some versions of the Apple Installer used an animated 'counting hand' cursor. Other applications provided their own theme-appropriate custom cursors, such as a revolving Yin Yang symbol, Fetch's running dog, Retrospect's spinning tape, and Pro Tools' tapping fingers. Apple provided standard interfaces for animating cursors: originally the Cursor Utilities (SpinCursor, RotateCursor)[6] and, in Mac OS 8 and later, the Appearance Manager (SetAnimatedThemeCursor).[7]
From NeXTStep to Mac OS X[edit]
NeXTStep monochrome (2 bit)
NeXTStep 1.0 used a monochrome icon resembling a spinning magneto-optical disk.[a] Some NeXT computers included an optical drive which was often slower than a magnetic hard drive and so was a common reason for the wait cursor to appear.
NeXTStep color (12 bit)
When color support was added in NeXTStep 2.0, color versions of all icons were added. The wait cursor was updated to reflect the bright rainbow surface of these removable disks, and that icon remained even when later machines began using hard disk drives as primary storage. Contemporary CD Rom drives were even slower (at 1x, 150 kbit/s).[b]
Mac OS X (24 bit)
With the arrival of Mac OS X the wait cursor was often called the 'spinning beach ball' in the press,[8] presumably by authors not knowing its NeXT history or relating it to the hypercard wait cursor.
The two-dimensional appearance was kept essentially unchanged[c] from NeXT to Rhapsody/Mac OS X Server 1.0 which otherwise had a user interface design resembling Mac OS 8/Platinum theme, and through Mac OS X 10.0/Cheetah and Mac OS X 10.1/Puma, which introduced the Aqua user interface theme.
Mac OS X 10.2/Jaguar gave the cursor a glossy rounded 'gumdrop' look in keeping with other OS X interface elements.[9]In OS X 10.10, the entire pinwheel rotates (previously only the overlaying translucent layer moved).With OS X 10.11 El Capitan the spinning wait-cursor's design was updated. It now has less shadowing and has brighter, more solid colors to better match the design of the user interface. The colors also turn with the spinning, not just the texture.
System usage[edit]
In single-tasking operating systems like the original Macintosh operating system, the wait cursor might indicate that the computer was completely unresponsive to user input, or just indicate that response may temporarily be slower than usual due to disk access. This changed in multitasking operating systems such as System Software 5, where it is usually possible to switch to another application and continue to work there. Individual applications could also choose to display the wait cursor during long operations (and these were often able to be cancelled with a keyboard command).
![Spinning Spinning](https://i1.wp.com/blogs.letemps.ch/yannick-rochat/wp-content/uploads/sites/46/2016/05/maxresdefault.png?resize=750%2C410&ssl=1)
After the transition to Mac OS X (macOS), Apple narrowed the wait cursor meaning. The display of the wait cursor is now controlled only by the operating system, not by the application. This could indicate that the application was in an infinite loop, or just performing a lengthy operation and ignoring events. Each application has an event queue that receives events from the operating system (for example, key presses and mouse button clicks); and if an application takes longer than 2 seconds[10] A wish upon the stars (demo) mac os. to process the events in its event queue (regardless of the cause), the operating system displays the wait cursor whenever the cursor hovers over that application's windows.
This is meant to indicate that the application is temporarily unresponsive, a state from which the application should recover. It also may indicate that all or part of the application has entered an unrecoverable state or an infinite loop. During this time the user may be prevented from closing, resizing, or even minimizing the windows of the affected application (although moving the window is still possible in OS X, as well as previously hidden parts of the window being usually redrawn, even when the application is otherwise unresponsive). While one application is unresponsive, typically other applications are usable. File system and network delays are another common cause.
Guidelines, tools and methods for developers[edit]
By default, events (and any actions they initiate) are processed sequentially, which works well when each event involves a trivial amount of processing, the spinning wait cursor appearing until the operation is complete. If processing takes long, the application will appear unresponsive. Developers may prevent this by using separate threads for lengthy processing, allowing the application's main thread to continue responding to external events. However, this greatly increases the application complexity. Another approach is to divide the work into smaller packets and use NSRunLoop or Grand Central Dispatch.
- Bugs in applications can cause them to stop responding to events; for instance, an infinite loop or a deadlock. Applications thus afflicted rarely recover.
- Problems with the virtual memory system—such as slow paging caused by a spun-down hard disk or disk read-errors—will cause the wait cursor to appear across multiple applications, until the hard disk and virtual memory system recover.
Instruments is an application that comes with the Mac OS X Developer Tools. Along with its other functions, it allows the user to monitor and sample applications that are either not responding or performing a lengthy operation. Each time an application does not respond and the spinning wait cursor is activated, Instruments can sample the process to determine which code is causing the application to stop responding. With this information, the developer can rewrite code to avoid the cursor being activated.
Apple's guidelines suggest that developers try to avoid invoking the spinning wait cursor, and suggest other user interface indicators, such as an asynchronous progress indicator.
Alternate names[edit]
The spinning wait cursor is commonly referred to as the (Spinning) x (of Death/Doom).[d] The most common words or phrases x can be replaced with include:
- Disk
- (Beach) Ball[11][12]
- (Rainbow) wheel
- Pinwheel
- Pizza[e]
- Pie
- Marble
- Lollipop
See also[edit]
Notes[edit]
- ^NeXT Optical Discs, Photo of the underside, showing the rainbow effect depicted on the icon (a then new type of media that was built into the early NeXT Cubes.)
- ^often an external AppleCD drive was used
- ^not a single bit was changed
- ^named after the Blue Screen of Death
- ^frequently encountered across Mac users forums as The SPOD
References[edit]
- ^'Mini-Tutorial: The dreaded spinning pinwheel; Avoiding unresponsiveness/slow-downs in Mac OS X'. CNet. 10 March 2005. Retrieved 16 July 2012.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
- ^'macOS Human Interface Guidelines: Pointers'. developer.apple.com. Retrieved 2018-01-24.
- ^'Troubleshoot the spinning beach ball'. Macworld. 2010-05-28. Retrieved 2020-03-22.
- ^'How to Fix a Spinning Wheel of Death on Mac'. MacPaw. Retrieved 2020-03-22.
- ^'Frozen: How to Force Quit an OS X App Showing a Spinning Beachball of Death – The Mac Observer'. www.macobserver.com. Retrieved 2020-03-22.
- ^'Using the Cursor Utilities (IM: Im)'. Developer.apple.com. Retrieved 2010-04-30.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
- ^'SetAnimatedThemeCursor'. Developer.apple.com. Retrieved 2010-04-30.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
- ^Macworld 2002-04-01
- ^Ars Technica Jaguar review: 'The dreading 'spinning rainbow disc' has an all new look in Jaguar'
- ^'WWDC 2012 – Session 709 – What's New in the File System'(PDF). Apple. Retrieved 2018-05-23.
Applications SPOD if they don’t service the event loop for two seconds
CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link) - ^Swain, Gregory E. (28 May 2010). 'Troubleshoot the spinning beach ball'. ((MacWorld)). Retrieved 16 July 2012.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
- ^Todd, Charlie (9 March 2012). 'Spinning Beach Ball of Death'. ((Improv Everywhere)). Retrieved 16 July 2012.CS1 maint: discouraged parameter (link)
External links[edit]
- Apple Human Interface Guidelines: Standard Cursors from Apple's website.
- Perceived Responsiveness: Avoid the Spinning Cursor from Apple's website.
- Troubleshooting the 'Spinning Beach Ball of Death' Excerpt from “Troubleshooting Mac OS X” book where there are some information on how to deal with Spinning Wait Cursor problems.
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spinning_pinwheel&oldid=1012710173'