Mac history echoes in current Mac operating systems
67 comments
·August 7, 2025ejdyksen
asimovDev
The AFP server in our old office often showed up as a Xserve that quickly helped identify it
While the normal file server showed up as a CRT with the legally distinct windows blue screen
plorg
I encountered this when setting up a Time Machine volume for my wife. In samba shares you can set that value in smb.conf by adding
fruit:model=ModelX,Y
pdntspa
Not sure why this is so remarkable. You can find similar assets on Windows buried in explorer.exe or shell32.dll. Hell just poking around my win10 install and I see winhlp32.exe and write.exe sporting their original Windows 3.x icons (though the programs themselves do not function)
My guess is that it's cheapest and lowest-risk to leave them in. It's not like most users are going to encounter them anyway.
philistine
The thing is you're comparing the king of backward compatibility with macOS, who is famous for shedding its past at a regular pace.
omnibrain
moricons.dll is also still around. https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20250507-00/?p=11...
nxobject
Re: Apple Symbols – the symbols aren't _too_ anachronistic: the font dates from Panther (10.3), which ran on all New World Macs (IIRC) – and indeed the B&W Power Mac G3 did have ADB (the "branch" icon at location (2, 2)), external SCSI (the icon at (10, 2)); while the "Lombard" PowerBook G3 had a reset interrupt switch (icon at (6, 7).
That being said, if you know why there are icons for the "programmer's switch" icon (6, 6) and LocalTalk (at (2, 8)), which died out with the Old World Macs, send answers on a postcard...
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Cyan488
Was waiting to see all different colors of iMac G3 in the high resolution device icons, but alas.
I believe those icons are used in Network places if a device with a known model is on the local network. The BSOD device would represent Windows PCs with network shares, of course! I also recall seeing the Xserve icon for a qnap NAS on our network.
stephen_g
Yes, Samba's vfs_fruit module (which has options for better interoperability with Mac OS) has the fruit:model setting lets you select which icon it will show up as. You can make it look like any Mac model or Apple TV or iPhones etc.
Setting it to the string RackMac or Xserve should get that icon.
Somebody pulled all the icons and their codes out here: https://callumgare.github.io/macos-device-icons/
ink_13
I believe these images are also used in the "About This Mac" window, although of course most highlighted in the article are long obsolete by now.
ivraatiems
This is correct - if you use OpenCore Legacy Patcher[0] to get a newer version of macOS onto an older device, it will identify the old device correctly.
pimlottc
That would be wild if you could see what color a network-connected computer was...
me-vs-cat
Search for ECOLOR at https://callumgare.github.io/macos-device-icons/
whoopdedo
The real echo of history is that Return/Enter is still rename and open/launch is Cmd-O.
volemo
For me open/launch is Cmd-Down and it fits in my head perfectly together with Cmd-Down and Cmd-Up to navigate directories.
Geof25
And the worst part is that you can't even change it as far as I know
carlosjobim
You can, but then Spotlight doesn't work when Finder is active.
eadmund
> a server
I used Macs from the 1980s up to 2000 or so, and I was very familiar with that icon of a hand with a tray and some files, but it wasn’t until today that I realised that it was a pun on ‘server’ used to mean what my dialect of English terms a ‘waiter.’
There’s probably a lesson about i18n in there somewhere!
What’s funny to me is how characterless I thought the half-volleyball iMac was at the time, compared to the classic Bondi blue iMac (and its awesome color variations too), but now when I compare it to Apple’s current offerings it has so very much more character. I miss the days of shape and colour and texture.
LoganDark
That blue-screen icon is used for network shares that happen to be running Windows. I'd imagine a bunch of the other icons are also used for other types of network shares.
pdntspa
My samba server running on Debian shows this icon too
chrisbrandow
Someone posted about a little Easter egg wherein the Next icon was buried somewhere in iPadOs but I’ve never been able to track it down since.
Elosha
The whole NeXT GUI widget set, as well as Rhapsody GUI widget set, and several 80‘s style NeXT tool icons, are still in Mac OS 15 in some assets.car file. And before car files where a thing, it must have been either TIFFs or PDFs.
Here someone even hacked an older version of Mac OS X to actually use the NeXT and Platinum styles: https://mastodon.social/@stroughtonsmith/110708615280659758
reaperducer
I'm not sure why the blogger thinks it's weird that macOS has an icon for the iPhone 3G in it. It's for when I plug my iPhone 3G into my M4 Mac to sync my music, as I did just this past weekend.
I also synced one of my iPod Shuffles over the weekend, and can tell you there's also still icons for all of the Shuffles back to the original gum stick ones, and all of the various colors of the other models, plus all of the regular iPods.
Shuffles are great for listening to music in bed because you don't have to worry about rolling over on them.
erickhill
I'm really nostalgic for the era of Apple computing and overall product design shown in the photos.
shortrounddev2
What, you're not impressed by apple going with the same uninspired brushed aluminum macbook design 15 years in a row? What about the same beveled slab of black glass for the iPhone? Is that not innovative enough for you?
vFunct
Yah I wish Apple made laptops like those Windows laptops, with angular wedged plastic housing holding a barely functioning trackpad and 30 different USB-A ports with grills and 5 fans and all topped off by bright rainbow LEDs everywhere and of course an Intel-Inside sticker so you remember what kind of CPU you have in case you forgot.
Maybe add a Dragon print on the cover as well? That would be so cool. I am also an adult.
can16358p
You forgot the screen lid hinge that always breaks in an unacceptable time, either completely or getting to a point a slight vibration causing screen to shake because of loose hinges.
crinkly
Don’t forget the CoPilot key you accidentally hit that suddenly pops up a window after 2 minutes waiting saying there is a problem at the moment.
And if it’s Dell, a built in rattle!
shortrounddev2
Why do apple fanboys think of MORE ports and efficient cooling systems as a bad thing?
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01HNNWZ0MV43FF
> 30 USB ports
> Dragon on the cover
I already said I'm in
refactor_master
How many mainstream laptops with innovative design are there really though?
thewebguyd
There are (were?) other OEMs that at least tried stuff, although not as much anymore. Lenovo has the trackpoint on the keyboard, Microsoft tried a high powered detachable (Surface Book), Asus has that dual screen laptop thing, Lenovo tried the Yoga swivel display/tablet convertible, there's Framework.
shortrounddev2
Before Apple started going back to the well for 15 years straight, apple laptops were pretty cool and innovative
sssilver
Have you seen any viable alternative idea that genuinely improves it?
shortrounddev2
Yeah going back 15 years to when laptops looked good
eviks
> Why are all these things still in the macOS? My guess, modulo the Blue Screen PC, is trademark purposes
Why not the simpler version that they care less about maintenance and cleaning up obscure corners of the OS?
reaperducer
Or the even simpler version that they are still in use.
It's a big world with lots of people doing things other than the median.
omnibrain
A few years ago, before the great System Settings revamp, I saw a post of system settings dialogs that had a 1:1 lineage back to NeXTStep.
> Why are all these things still in the macOS?
The Finder shows these icons for network volumes.
How does the Finder determine the model of the remote host? This is metadata in the _device-info._tcp Bonjour service record that is the server advertises. My Synology helpfully shows up as an Xserve, in fact: