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As a Mac user since the 1980s I enjoyed the startup sound and miss it. It was removed for no obvious reason, presumably for some perceived minimalism or desire

As a Mac user since the 1980s I enjoyed the startup sound and miss it. It was removed for no obvious reason, presumably for some perceived minimalism or desire for austerity, which you can put in the same basket as removing all useful ports and the escape key from their "pro" laptops, or the headphone jack from their cellphone, offering no benefit but apparently done for the sake of doing.

seiferteric 8y ago
I agree, new macs are moving toward all polish and no humanity, just a clean sterile machine.
- reaperducer 8y ago
  I agree, new macs are moving toward all polish and no humanity, just a clean sterile machine. There's a reason for that. Tim Cook is a bean counter, not a technologist, and not an artist. Steve Jobs was a technologist, and a wannabe artist. "The goal was never to beat the competition, or to make a lot of money; it was to do the greatest thing possible, or even a little greater. Steve often reinforced the artistic theme; for example, he took the entire team on a field trip in the spring of 1982 to the Louis Comfort Tiffany museum, because Tiffany was an artist who learned how to mass produce his work." Source: https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Signing_Party.txt https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...
toast0 8y ago
I agree that the sound could be useful at times, but it was awful when booting a computer in the middle of the night to respond to a page; that sound could wake up everyone in the house, and i couldn't figure out how to turn it off.
- wool_gather 8y ago
  Yeah, it would be nice to disable it selectively -- just silence it for this one boot. It may be a false memory, but I think this used to be possible at some point in the 00s, by holding down the mute button on the keyboard. Also possibly in the late 90s it went through external speakers if they were hooked up?

seiferteric 8y ago

I agree, new macs are moving toward all polish and no humanity, just a clean sterile machine.

reaperducer 8y ago
I agree, new macs are moving toward all polish and no humanity, just a clean sterile machine. There's a reason for that. Tim Cook is a bean counter, not a technologist, and not an artist. Steve Jobs was a technologist, and a wannabe artist. "The goal was never to beat the competition, or to make a lot of money; it was to do the greatest thing possible, or even a little greater. Steve often reinforced the artistic theme; for example, he took the entire team on a field trip in the spring of 1982 to the Louis Comfort Tiffany museum, because Tiffany was an artist who learned how to mass produce his work." Source: https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Signing_Party.txt https://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&stor...

toast0 8y ago

I agree that the sound could be useful at times, but it was awful when booting a computer in the middle of the night to respond to a page; that sound could wake up everyone in the house, and i couldn't figure out how to turn it off.

wool_gather 8y ago
Yeah, it would be nice to disable it selectively -- just silence it for this one boot. It may be a false memory, but I think this used to be possible at some point in the 00s, by holding down the mute button on the keyboard. Also possibly in the late 90s it went through external speakers if they were hooked up?