When Apple Computer introduces its first Macs with Intel processors next year, onlookers could be surprised to hear an unfamiliar sound as the systems boot up and load a native copy of Apple's Mac OS X "Tiger" operating system, sources say.
Sources say prototypes of the first Intel Macs currently sport an unfamiliar boot chime, suggesting that Apple is at least toying with the idea making the change — possibly to symbolize the Mac's evolution from PowerPC to Intel processors.
Without describing the new boot chime, sources quipped that it "doesn't sound anything like the 'Intel Inside' chime heard in most of the chip maker's media advertisements."
It also remains to be seen whether Apple will implement the boot chime modification in shipping Intel Macs, or if the change is meant only to help distinguish pre-production systems.
Mac OS X 10.4.4 progress
In related Apple news, sources and reports already present on the Internet say Apple this week released to developers build 8G17 of Mac OS X 10.4.4 Update — a forthcoming maintenance release to the company's Tiger operating system.
Previous reports indicate that a later milestone of Mac OS X 10.4.4 may be the first version of Tiger to ship on Intel-based Mac systems. The release is also rumored to deliver fixes for AirPort and Bluetooth wireless access, Spotlight indexing and searching, and RAW camera support.
102 Comments
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.
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...
Nope, they don't have a "death" chime anymore. But there were some pretty good ones in the past.
Here's the car crash sound you're thinking of. It was in the early Power Macs.
The older Quadras played a "Twilight Zone" theme.
The Quadra AV had a kind of strange death chime.
This one's my favorite. BUM BUM BUM! (crash) It was in some of the 5xxx, 62xx, and 63xx Performas, and was a big, obnoxious tritone.
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.
In related Apple news, sources and reports already present on the Internet say Apple this week released to developers build 8G17 of Mac OS X 10.4.4 Update -- a forthcoming maintenance release to the company's Tiger operating system.
Previous reports indicate that a later milestone of Mac OS X 10.4.4 may be the first version of Tiger to ship on Intel-based Mac systems. The release is also rumored to deliver fixes for AirPort and Bluetooth wireless access, Spotlight indexing and searching, and RAW camera support.
[ View this article at AppleInsider.com ]
I would hope that they do some serious tweaking of the RAW support. Aperture is sorely in need of pro camera support.
ie. Kodak DCR files.
btw, I also hope that Craperture is updated to address its serious file system issues.