When was the current chime first used? I want to say it was the Quadra line, since that was my first Mac (well not mine, but at work). I remember the chime sounded great through the studio's speakers

And I think they changed the chime to something else for some models, and then returned to the current chime--with the first PowerMacs?

What I miss is the "failure" boot sounds. I remember some Macs used to make a really queasy out-of-tune chime to indicate inability to boot (RAM failure?)--it was kind of funny. And other Macs played the sound of a car wreck. A little humor as your project deadline is destroyed...

I have never seen a Mac crash on powerup that way, not since I worked there. (Funny how they had a lot of used equipment...) Do Macs still have a "failure" chime that plays if the Mac can't even display anything on the screen? Pre-gray-Apple?

The original sound file upon which all current startup sounds are derived from was first created for the Quadra 840 AV. It replaced the "match-stick" startup sound used in the Quadra 700/900. The first Power PC machines (pdm, carl segan, cold fusion) used a sampled guitar sound. For later models, this was replaced with a re-sampled version of the Quadra 840 AV file.

The chime has dropped in pitch by at least a half-step twice, since the late 90's. For a while, I had a Quadra, and Powermac 603e, and a Sawtooth G4 all in the same room, and the pitch was seqentially lower-tuned on each one. Not that big of a deal, but they have been tinkering with it over the years.

10.4.4 on the first Mactel's might be a bit premature.

The first rumors said that we would be seeing an iBook in January, then it said a Mini, then it said an iBook and a Powerbook, then all three. After that we were treated to the idea of the iMac coming out in January as well.

The latest rumors, however, by those who say they have visited the production plants, go back to saying that the first machines will be announced June 6th.

If that one is true, we might be seeing 10.4.6 instead.