|
|
|
|
|
|
Apple
Easter Eggs
Programming
|
|
By: David K. Every
& Daniel Fanton
(C) Copyright 1999 DKE - All Rights Reserved.
Gestalt
Gestalt is a German word that basically means something
like "everything", "all about", or "the whole thing". It can
be tricky to translate one language to another -- especially
when you aren't a German speaker. Anyway, the point is that
Apple wanted to give programmers a way to ask the computer
what capabilities (model, peripherals, functions) that a
machine had. Since the programmers wanted to know
"everything" about a computer -- Apple created the "Gestalt"
Manager (routines). So Gestalt selectors are used by
programmers to determine the presence of certain hardware or
software functions before they try to use those functions
(generally a good idea). Apple only used this "Ask before
you crash" trick a decade or so before PCs (Microsoft)
caught on.
So what does this have to do with eggs? Use an
application like Gestalt! (by Roland Mansson) or
Gestalt.Appl (by Jean-Pierre Curcio) to list all the Gestalt
selectors installed with your System software (6.0.4 and
later) to find out.
Two selectors exist (with values 7 and 13) which return
the first name and initials of the two programmers who wrote
the Gestalt Manager code. The values returned are
respectively 'carl' and 'bbmc'.
|
