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Classic 8×8-pixel B&W Mac patterns

(www.pauladamsmith.com)
180 points todsacerdoti | 5 comments | 04 Sep 25 19:53 UTC | HN request time: 0.806s | source
1. littlecranky67 ◴[04 Sep 25 21:10 UTC] No.45132230[source]▶
I'm pretty sure I first encountered some of those patterns on a C64 GEOS system.
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2. paulsmith ◴[04 Sep 25 21:39 UTC] No.45132516[source]▶
Huh, sure enough: https://www.lyonlabs.org/commodore/onrequest/geos/lobster-64...
replies(1): >>45134703 #
3. dzdt ◴[05 Sep 25 03:21 UTC] No.45134703[source]▶
Some overlap but not identical. There are 38 Mac patterns compared to 32 geos patterns. Of these I count 27 that coincide; 5 are unique to geos and 11 are unique to the Mac. I think certainly the direction of copying is geos copying from Mac.
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4. Someone ◴[05 Sep 25 05:53 UTC] No.45135372{3}[source]▶
> I think certainly the direction of copying is geos copying from Mac.

Given that the Mac shipped with those patterns in early 1984 and GEOS in 1986, it can’t be Mac copying GEOS.

That doesn’t mean it was GEOS copying Mac, though. Various horizontal and vertical stripes, block patterns and attempts to get a range of grays easily can be parallel evolution. 27 out of 32 seems a bit much, though.

5. raminyt ◴[05 Sep 25 08:42 UTC] No.45136362[source]▶
This page has an interesting (very brief) historical timeline: http://1x-upon.com/~despens/patterns/

[I knew them from the Atari ST :) ]