mac os spinning beach ball mouse pointer

In my case, I accidentally suspended the machine, and when I unsuspended it, I found the mouse and keyboard to be broken. I made a little application that spawns processes to invoke a beachball, it’s called Wait.I'm experiencing this same problem. This identifies that it’s the application’s problem, not Apple’s.Īnother tactic for controlling the impression of lag within the OS, is not allowing the beachball to be screen recorded. In OSX 10.6 (I haven’t tested on 10.5) the beachball has been quarantined to only display while atop the flooded application. The indication of a system hanging has potential to cast a negative light on the OS, and subsequently, the corporation that profits from it. It was upped to 5 seconds in later versions. In versions prior to 10.4 it was 2 seconds. The beachball is displayed by the OS if an application takes too long to process the events in the queue. In OSX, each application has an event queue that gets feedback from the OS, including the mouse and keyboard.

It metaphysically spins past the context of the desktop, the computer, and even death to expose endless realities of forking pathways and processes.įolks watching the remote broadcast Plugin Beachball Success outside the auditorium at transmediale 2K12Īs the meaning of the beachball has changed over the years, from psychedelic-rainbow-wheel to beachball-of-death, so has its representation in the OS. The beachball transcends the user beyond time and space to a realm where a halt, a process, or a glitch is only a tick on the cosmic clock. The intention of the beachball is to take the user on a hypnotic trip. In the book What the Dormouse Said: How the 60s Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer, John Markoff quotes Steve Jobs as saying that: “Doing LSD was one of the two or three most important things I have done in my life.” I believe Job’s psychedelic experimentations gave him an understanding of the state of consciousness in which a person (or OS) loses the power of voluntary action. Outside of Mac OS, a spinning rainbow beachball or pinwheel hardly says: “Wait, I’m busy.” But, maybe, that’s the point… Icons are suppose to immediately convey meaning in order to give feedback to the user. (realtime scrolling, system-wide drag and drop, & the Dock) I find the beachball to be a particularly interesting choice for a waiting cursor.

The icon originates from the NeXTSTEP Operating System, as do many other OSX elements.

Mac os spinning beach ball mouse pointer