[bitjumper]

I'm just curious. I see it all the time, people report seeing it all the time, but I've never read a description of what it actually means. Is it occuring in a low level part of the OS? What triggers it? It seems to me to show up when the system is waiting for I/O. When I see it I'm always a little anxious wondering if things are stuck.

Erik

[Developer]

The spinning pizza of death is shown when an application doesn't respond to events for some time (about 2 seconds).

[Millennium]

The SPROD (SPinning Rainbow of Despair) is, as you guessed, shown when the system is waiting for I/O. It's done in a very low-level part of the OS, and although there have been ways to change it in the past, I don't know if those still work in Panther.