History
A wristwatch was the last wait cursor in late versions of Mac OS. Apple's HyperCard first popularized animated cursors, including a spinning beach ball which could be advanced by repeated HyperTalk invocations of "set cursor to busy". The beach ball cursor was also adopted to indicate running script code in the HyperTalk-like AppleScript.
These cursors would be activated by the operating system querying simulations system uploads. (Microsoft Windows would later adopt the Apple Lisa hourglass/green spiral cursor for the same concept.) Some versions of the Apple Installer used an animated "counting hand" cursor; some applications provided their own theme-appropriate custom cursors, such as a revolving Yin Yang symbol, Fetch's running dog, Retrospect's spinning tape, and Pro Tools' tapping fingers. Apple provided standard interfaces for animating cursors: originally the Cursor Utilities (SpinCursor, RotateCursor) and, in Mac OS 8 and before, the Appearance Manager (SetAnimatedThemeCursor).
In Mac OS X, Apple used the NeXTSTEP rainbow-colored spinning optical disk cursor. In OS X 10.0 and 10.1, the cursor had a two dimensional appearance, essentially unchanged from NeXT. Mac OS X 10.2 gave the cursor a glossy rounded "gumdrop" look in keeping with other OS X interface elements. The presence of preemptive multitasking under OS X changed the cursor's meaning. Rather than being an indication that an application was performing an action it expected to take a while, it meant that the system software had noticed that an application had stopped responding to events. This could indicate that the application was in an infinite loop, or just performing a lengthy operation and ignoring events.
Read more about this topic: Spinning Pinwheel
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“The history is always the same the product is always different and the history interests more than the product. More, that is, more. Yes. But if the product was not different the history which is the same would not be more interesting.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“We are told that men protect us; that they are generous, even chivalric in their protection. Gentlemen, if your protectors were women, and they took all your property and your children, and paid you half as much for your work, though as well or better done than your own, would you think much of the chivalry which permitted you to sit in street-cars and picked up your pocket- handkerchief?”
—Mary B. Clay, U.S. suffragist. As quoted in History of Woman Suffrage, vol. 4, ch. 3, by Susan B. Anthony and Ida Husted Harper (1902)
“Let it suffice that in the light of these two facts, namely, that the mind is One, and that nature is its correlative, history is to be read and written.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)