I’ve read most of folklore.org and do not recall any such story. In fact, how do you even “drag the computer to the waste basket” as the first/only icon would be the System floppy and afaik they’ve never had / still don’t have a “computer icon”. 🤔
I wonder if the first attempt was simply dragging that Mac System Software to the trash. Not “the computer icon”, but it’s possible the anecdote was/is slightly misremembered by John
Seems like a simple folley, the person I responded to said it was a floppy (it’s two layers of “mesh”?) and couldn’t remember the computer icons. Details get fuzzy, I had no idea and was curious so I just looked it up. I’ve got no horse here.
The point of the trash was that nothing happened until you emptied it. And the OS was loaded into memory so you could eject the OS disk so it wasn’t actively using those files. I don’t think even dragging System to the trash and emptying it would have done anything except prevent you from booting with that System disk.
You honestly couldn’t pay me enough to use MacOS so I didn’t know there wasn’t a “computer icon” but I love that detail. I’m gonna go ahead and assume that whole anecdote is fictitious.
Seconded.
I’ve read most of folklore.org and do not recall any such story. In fact, how do you even “drag the computer to the waste basket” as the first/only icon would be the System floppy and afaik they’ve never had / still don’t have a “computer icon”. 🤔
First image I could find of the desktop and there is computer icons right there.
If dragging one of those to wastebasket at the bottom right crashed the computer, it would fit the description of the event.
I wonder if the first attempt was simply dragging that Mac System Software to the trash. Not “the computer icon”, but it’s possible the anecdote was/is slightly misremembered by John
Seems like a simple folley, the person I responded to said it was a floppy (it’s two layers of “mesh”?) and couldn’t remember the computer icons. Details get fuzzy, I had no idea and was curious so I just looked it up. I’ve got no horse here.
Dragging a floppy to the bin would simply eject it… 🤷 Well all right, maybe the story is from before the intro of the “Insert disk Foo”.
Ngl that’d be hilarious if that was basically a GUI for “rm -rf /” LOL
The point of the trash was that nothing happened until you emptied it. And the OS was loaded into memory so you could eject the OS disk so it wasn’t actively using those files. I don’t think even dragging System to the trash and emptying it would have done anything except prevent you from booting with that System disk.
I’m not even an Apple fan but folklore.org sounds fascinating. I love retro computing history! :D Thanks for sharing that!
You honestly couldn’t pay me enough to use MacOS so I didn’t know there wasn’t a “computer icon” but I love that detail. I’m gonna go ahead and assume that whole anecdote is fictitious.
I’m so used to Windows getting dunked on here that I forget MacOS must be more hated, being even more locked down than Windows.