[leperkuhn]

does anyone remember the old os 7 extension that changed the trash can to have an oscar the grouch pop up when you emptied the trash?

I'd love to have that in OSX.

[Goldfinger]

You just brought back a childhood memory . I remember having that on our SE/30, LCs and Mac IIs.

[neoTony]

*sob* I remember... god I loved that little guy.

[Spheric Harlot]

I miss him too.

[Millennium]

Ah, The Grouch.

The author eventually made an application version of it, which features five trash cans in the window. Click on any one, and Oscar pops out of it. He made it after many angry letters from parents whose kids had deleted important files in their quest to see Oscar.

I think the app version still runs in Classic. I don't know if an actual port to OSX could be done or not. Even if it could, I never figured that those newfangled wire-mesh baskets could possibly be Oscar's style

Now, off to see if I can find an archive with the app version...

[jasong]

I haven't found an active link to download it yet, but I did find a movie of it for anyone who wants to see it in action.

http://rentzsch.com/share/thegrouch.mov

-- Jason

[- - e r i k - -]

Didn't the guy got sued for this and have to retract both his app and his extension?

I don't think this would be possible in OS X, it just hasn't the magic of the classic write and interrupt memory anytime / anywhere anymore

(Though with APE perhaps...)

[fisherKing]

that was so cool...
i remember teaching my friend's kid how to make untitled folders, just so she wouldn't trash the real stuff.

then she'd sit at the mac (a 6100/60...that's 60 mhz! 8 megs ram!) and trash folders all afternoon...

[Chinasaur]

OSCAR!!! I eventually disabled it because it got annoying...but what a neat thing to show off to DOS users who would look at you go "huh?"

[CharlesS]

My favorite was NetBunny.

Remember that? You installed the extension on each machine in a computer lab, then sent a signal from one of the machines with a program called StartWabbit and the Energizer bunny would march across each machine's screen, one by one. Hilarious!

[Superchicken]

I'd think someone should make an add on to OS X that would do this...

[graveguy]

Man...great post...I remember (and miss) Oscar...

Along the same lines, but going back even further...does anyone remember the Talking Moose? It just sat in a box in the corner (similar to the stupid MS Word Paperclip) and would tell jokes every so often and comment on the things you were doing (shutting down, emptying trash, etc.)...I remember being thrilled to be able to use my mother's 'new' Macintosh at her job at USWest...She was doing non-computer 'work stuff' late one night in the office and an AppleHead friend and I couldn't get enough of that moose...apparently we pushed the machine to the breakpoint and the moose suddenly started saying "Error...error...error..." over and over again...we were afraid my mother would hear and get pissed so we made the, then drastic, decision to 'pull the plug' on the machine (knowing, full well, the potential damage that might do with SCSI and all of that)...thankfully, the machine came back after a few tense minutes and the moose started telling jokes again...ah, the early days of the Mac...where is my old SE/30 that took me through college and beyond? I miss that thing...

[Ω]

Those were the days,,,,,,sob sob.....

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by graveguy:
...does anyone remember the Talking Moose? It just sat in a box in the corner (similar to the stupid MS Word Paperclip) and would tell jokes every so often and comment on the things you were doing (shutting down, emptying trash, etc.)... I miss that thing...

http://www.zathras.de/angelweb/moose.htm

[Millennium]

Originally posted by - - e r i k - -:
Didn't the guy got sued for this and have to retract both his app and his extension?

I don't remember if hewas actually sued, but I remember that Children's Television Workshop (the makers of Sesame Street) did get on his case about it.

(Though with APE perhaps...)

It's a thought, though you'd need to change the Trash icon as well. Oscar was never much for exhibitionism.

Perhaps a better way of doing this would be a skinnable app to change the Trash icon and play an animation (optionally with sound) when the Trash was emptied. A skin could be made to recreate the Grouch animation. I'm not normally a fan of skins, but this is a case where it makes sense from a legal standpoint: the skin could be developed independently of the app. That way, even if the skin developer were to be sued the app would not, so the code could survive. The skin, for its part, would almost certainly have to go underground, but once that's done it's done, and the proverbial cat would be out of the bag.

[waffffffle]

Originally posted by Millennium:
Perhaps a better way of doing this would be a skinnable app to change the Trash icon and play an animation (optionally with sound) when the Trash was emptied. A skin could be made to recreate the Grouch animation. I'm not normally a fan of skins, but this is a case where it makes sense from a legal standpoint: the skin could be developed independently of the app. That way, even if the skin developer were to be sued the app would not, so the code could survive. The skin, for its part, would almost certainly have to go underground, but once that's done it's done, and the proverbial cat would be out of the bag.

I have proposed this in the past. This is probably the best way. I certainly miss Oscar from when I was a kid as well.

[IamBob]

Quartz Debug seems to be able to get a list of windows and "pulse" them (as seen when you select something in the window list). I just made a simple SIMBL plugin for Quartz Debug and it loads my code (which just lists QD's windows for now). I haven't dug in past that, hoping maybe someone with more experience might have some ideas or pointers.

Hmm...
[snip]

I was poking around in Quartz Debug and it's just using CGSSetWindowListBrightness to work its magic (which I would've known earlier had I run 'nm' on it in the first place)...bummer.

[chessplayer]

I miss having Oscar in my Trash too.

[geran]

skinnable app to change the Trash icon is probably the best solution, but are you limeted to 128x128 icons? the trash icon + oscar would be much bigger.

[Millennium]

Originally posted by geran:
skinnable app to change the Trash icon is probably the best solution, but are you limeted to 128x128 icons? the trash icon + oscar would be much bigger.

In OS9, we were limited to 32x32 icons, but the author managed to stick the Oscar animation on top of the icon (I think by using a series of PICT resources; keep in mind that this predates QuickTime).

Nowadays, I'd use a set of icons at all the different sizes, and a corresponding set of QuickTime movies which would play over the top of the icon. Use an alpha channel to make sure the background shows through, and everything works out.

[geran]

Wouldnt it be quite tricky to determinate where the trash icon is located at the screen (dock) and the size?

[IamBob]

Wouldnt it be quite tricky to determinate where the trash icon is located at the screen (dock) and the size?

That's why I was thinking Quartz Debug. But the records it gets don't include anything you could use to get the location.

Using UIElementInspector the trash looks like a button. Not sure if you can work out where it is on screen from that.

One thing I hadn't thought about until now is using NSScreen. It can give you the visible portion of the screen, not including the menubar and dock. Maybe there's a way to figure it out based on that, the number of dock items and the dock size.

[geran]

Is it possible to use APE to retrive location and size?

[geran]

I made an oscar animation a long time ago, if someone want to use it in a trash can skinning app, just reply so can I post the animation, (tiff image whit alpha mask)



I love trash ... I love it beacuase it's trash!

[Tyler McAdams]

I remember the first time I saw the oscar in the trash... I was at school working on a paper and I kept seeing something move in the trash can... I thought I was seeing things for a second!

Trash is the most humanly acceptable metaphor, but I think the PC has a more "pc" one... with the recycle bin. Because you're really just recycling disk space *and* because it reminds you to use your REAL recycle bin, lol!

[leperkuhn]

Originally posted by Tyler McAdams:
I remember the first time I saw the oscar in the trash... I was at school working on a paper and I kept seeing something move in the trash can... I thought I was seeing things for a second!

Trash is the most humanly acceptable metaphor, but I think the PC has a more "pc" one... with the recycle bin. Because you're really just recycling disk space *and* because it reminds you to use your REAL recycle bin, lol!

I'd like to see the "dumpster" or even the "septic tank".

[hiddentrack]

Originally posted by leperkuhn:
I'd like to see the "dumpster" or even the "septic tank".

Check out the IconFactory 200th Icon Set which includes a nice yellow dumpster icon, complete with garbage bags when full.

~ Hiddentrack