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
Calling In Sick [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 0:32
MFR will be off its usual schedule while your host recovers from a brutal flu. Sound effect from MacPuke/MacBarfX.
Jean-Louis Gassée Interview (1998) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 36:00
A snapshot of Be’s direction in 1998 post-Apple merger talks and pre-bankruptcy. Original text by Henry Bortman. Selected Jean-Louis Gassée quotes: “Who could have put a date on not getting fired for using Linux?” “One o…
A Short Story About SCSI (1991) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 5:52
A short story about long cables. Original text by Steve Riggins. Macworld San Francisco 1999: Steve Jobs pokes fun at legacy parallel SCSI-1 versus FireWire.
Should Sun Microsystems Buy Apple? (1996) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 15:02
Original text from SunWorld, February 1996 by Michael McCarthy and Mark Cappel. This was such a bad idea that in the very same issue it was announced a potential Sun/Apple deal had fallen through. CHM Sun Microsystems Fo…
GlobalTalk Special - O Bolo Mio (1995) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 16:19
In Bolo’s world, players form alliances, pilot tanks and command little green men. Original text by Steve Silberman. GlobalTalk Overview, or how to run AppleTalk over TCP/IP around the world. Gursharan Sidhu quote at the…
The History of Be, Inc. (1998) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 38:23
Original text by Henry Bortman. Be’s roller coaster ride from 1990-1998: the 1995 O.J. Simpson trial, Commodore’s Irving Gould, a thirty-mile hike to the sea, headhunting disgruntled Apple employees, and what to do when…
Plan Be (1997) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 28:39
Original text by Henry Bortman and Jeff Pittelkau, MacUser, January 1997. How does BeOS measure up to System 7.5, and could it have become the next-generation Mac OS? The authors examine why Copland would not have been t…
The Wizards of Be, Inc. (1997) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 25:10
Original text by Dave Mark, MacTech, January 1997. Bryan Cantrill on interviewing at Be, Inc. (perhaps with Dominic Giampolo?) and inadvertently buying a VFS architecture at the Be bankruptcy auction. Apple wouldn’t have…
The Desktop Christmas '94 (1994) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 17:27
Original text by David Pogue, Macworld December 1994. Watch the CD3 compact disc storage and retrieval box in action. Photos of the salami-like CD3: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. The product lasted into the 2000s and the companion Disc…
Trouble In Finder City (1992)/The Hard Sell (1995) [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 27:53
Simplicity, sophistication, oversimplification, and At Ease. I rant about the usability of modern Apple software, Steven Levy rants about the complexity of the Mac and the oversimplified environment provided by At Ease,…