The Desktop Critic - How to Become a Millionare Overnight (1996)

The Desktop Critic - How to Become a Millionare Overnight (1996)

Author: Derek March 9, 2025 Duration: 13:09

Eight best-selling Mac products that don’t exist–yet.

Original text by David Pogue, Macworld April 1996.

More on the history of DiskDoubler.

John V. Holder’s TakeABreak has recently been uncovered from the depths of archive.org.

A hybrid of the imaginary Concatenator Pro and PocketBoot might be Startup Doubler, which gloms together all your extensions (internally, not on the filesystem) to accelerate startup. Apple sort of tried to make extensions management easier by including Ricardo Batista’s Extensions Manager with System 7.5 and later.

I’ve lost track of the number of Uninstaller-type software that’s been produced for the Mac since this article was written, not that I would ever touch any of them.

MacBreakZ is an awful lot like the imaginary Carpal Diem.

From ~2010-2014, I always thought of NexTag as a real-world PriceDex. It’s a shame it disappeared. CamelCamelCamel fills the void for those who haven’t yet separated themselves from Amazon.

Nobody ever went so far as to produce an INIT magazine but Symbionts will give you more technical insight into your System Folder. My all-time favourite feature: a file-by-file breakdown of how much memory is allocated by each INIT and cdev.

Things I don’t miss about the old days: holding my breath while capturing analog video, and waiting for machines with mechanical HDDs to boot. The PocketBoot would nearly useless today anyhow–not because of SSDs, but because Apple is actively striving to make it impossible to boot from external media. Thanks, Tim Cook! Super useful, good job. All because SECURITY. …except in the UK and everywhere else, shortly. Mmmkay, how about you let us boot from external devices again while you’re at it? Better yet, throw out the current version of Mac OS, fork Snow Leopard, and start things over from there, kthxbai

Scott Joplin “Maple Leaf Rag” clip courtesy of ConcertWare.

PPG Wave 2.3 demo courtesy of RetroSound.

More about CANYON.MID, composer George Stone, and how his work ended up shipping with most copies of Windows from 1991-1996. Composed on a Mac running Passport Designs’ Master Tracks Pro.

Live performance of CANYON.MID…?

The canyon.mid Simulator and hard rock cover (pun not intended).


Derek hosts Mac Folklore Radio, a podcast that serves as a warm, nostalgic conversation about the machines that defined personal computing for a generation. This isn't a dry technical history, but rather a collection of stories, memories, and shared experiences centered on the Macintosh ecosystem from its early beige-box days through the colorful iMac era and beyond. Each episode feels like digging through a box of old software manuals and rediscovering the community, the quirks, and the sheer sense of possibility those computers inspired. You'll hear tales of first setups, beloved and baffling peripherals, the games that consumed hours, and the software that felt like magic. It's crafted specifically for those who lived through it-the users, tinkerers, and enthusiasts who remember the hum of a CRT and the distinct scent of a warm motherboard. Tune in for a dose of genuine, fond reminiscence that functions as comfort food for the Apple-centric soul, preserving the personal side of tech history one story at a time. This podcast is a love letter to the culture built around these machines, celebrating the folklore that official manuals never recorded.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 50

Mac Folklore Radio
Podcast Episodes
Power 100 Review and Mac OS Clone Commentary (1995) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 18:23
Original text by Tim Warner, Macworld, August 1995. Additional clone cancellation fallout information from Macworld, October 1997. Original Power Computing magazine ad. Clearly the Mac OS clone program failed due to the…
KON and BAL's Puzzle Page (1992, 1994) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 24:31
Original text by Konstantin Othmer and Bruce Leak for Apple’s develop! magazine, May 1992 and June 1994. “These problems are supposed to be tough. If you don’t get a high score, at least you’ll learn interesting Macintos…
Glider 4.0 Reviews (1991) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 15:48
Game Hall of Fame text by Steven Levy, Macworld January 1992. Review of Glider 4.0 by Toni Thompson, Macworld February 1992. I wonder if that’s the Toni Thompson who did the graphics for the Apple II version of Temple of…
The Desktop Critic Secret Reviewer's Notebook (1996) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 11:49
Original text by David Pogue, Macworld June 1996. The database review mentioned in this article might be one of these two. Review of the hilariously terrible Brother HL-8 printer and two (yes, two) attempts at Macintosh…
John Calhoun on Casady and Greene (2024) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 10:35
Original text by John Calhoun. MacScene’s interview with John re: The History of Glider. Part 1, Part 2. Mr. Advisador for the Newton has been revived! Told you it was creepy. Original Newton version. The Computer Chroni…
Charles Piller: Is Apple Serious About Macintosh Clones? (1995) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 40:03
Actions speak louder than words: a look at Apple’s extremely quiet Mac OS licensing program. Original text by Charles Piller. Macworld Boston 1994, Tim Bajarin: Apple has to either start licensing, or lower their prices.…
Jim Black on John Carmack and Steve Jobs (2018) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 11:21
Original text by Jim Black. Previous John Carmack episode: The Steve Jobs Rollercoaster. Peter Graffagnino’s appearance at NeXTEVNT 2015. Peter is interviewed by fellow Pixar veteran Michael Johnson. Some of the original…
The Iconoclast - Send In The Clones (1995) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 15:17
Apple’s licensing approach (ca. 1994-1997) is a bad idea. Original text by Steven Levy, Macworld January 1995. Andy Bechtolscheim quote about SPARC licensing and Macintosh clones: “Sun had a unified business… it wasn’t r…
Wise Guy - 1984 Redux (1994) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 11:10
How Macintosh could have taken over the world. Original text by Guy Kawasaki, Macworld February 1994. Various 1993ish Apple commercials courtesy of RetroByte.
Steven Levy - One Mississippi, Two Mississippi, ... (1996) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 7:03
Why does System 7.5 take so long to start up? Original text by Steven Levy, Macworld April 1996. Avoid conflating Moore’s Law with Dennard scaling. 65scribe has an easily-digested summary of Dennard scaling in his extens…