The classic Macintosh startup sequence includes hardware tests which may trigger the startup chimes, Happy Mac, Sad Mac, and Chimes of Death.
The startup sound is enabled by default on
Macs running macOS Big Sur or later, however it can be disabled by the user within System Preferences (Big Sur or Monterey) or System Settings (Ventura and later).[1]
Startup chime
The Macintosh startup chime is played on power-up, before trying to boot an operating system. The sound indicates that diagnostic tests have ran immediately at startup, and have found no hardware or fundamental software problems.[2] The specific sound differs depending on the ROM, which greatly varies depending on Macintosh model. The first sound version in the first three Macintosh models is a simple square-wave "beep", and all subsequent sounds are various chords.
Mark Lentczner created the software that plays the
Power Macintosh 5200–6300 computers (excluding the 5400 and 5500, which have the "bong" chime like the one in the PCI-based Power Macs) use a unique chime, which is also in the television commercials for the Power Macintosh and PowerBook series from 1995 until 1998, and the 20th Anniversary Macintosh
uses another unique sound.
For models built prior to the introduction of the Power Macintosh in 1994, the failure of initial self-diagnostic tests results in a
Sad Mac
icon, an error code, and distinctive Chimes of Death sounds.
The chime for all Mac computers from 1998 to early 2016 is the same chime used first in the iMac G3. The chord is an F-sharp major chord, and was produced by pitch-shifting the 840AV's sound. Since 2012, the Mac startup chime is a
registered trademark in the United States,[5] and is featured in the 2008 Pixar film WALL-E when the titular robot character is fully recharged by solar panels as well as in the 2007 Brad Paisley song "Online".[6]
Starting with the 2016 MacBook Pro, all new Macs were shipped without a startup chime, with the Macs silently booting when powered on.[7] In 2020, the startup chime would be added to these models with the release of macOS Big Sur, which allows it to be enabled or disabled in System Preferences.[8] On the macOS Big Sur 11.0.1 beta, it was discovered that the new lower pitched chime was brought to all older supported Macs. In a firmware update included in the macOS Catalina 2020-001 Security Update, and the macOS Mojave 2020-007 Security Update, the new startup chime in Big Sur is brought to all Big Sur-supported Macs including the unsupported 2013 iMac.
Happy Mac
A Happy Mac is the normal
Apple Macintosh computer running older versions of the Mac operating system. It was designed by Susan Kare in the 1980s, drawing inspiration from the design of the Compact Macintosh series and from the Batman character Two-Face.[9] The logo also shares some similarities to the faces of the 1934 painting Deux personnages (Two Characters) by Pablo Picasso and to the Bauhaus emblem.[10][11] The icon remained unchanged for many years until it and related icons were updated to 8-bit color. The Happy Mac indicates that booting has successfully begun, while a Sad Mac
(along with a "Chimes of Death" melody or one or more beeps) indicates a hardware or software problem.
When a Macintosh boots into the
System 7.5
and earlier), which underwent several stylistic changes, the other significant ones including a progress bar introduced in System 7.5 and extension icons appearing in the bottom left. Mac OS versions 8.6 and later also includes the version number in this splash screen (for example, "Mac OS 9" in big black text).
On early Macs without an internal
Mac OS X 10.2
.
With
version 10.2, the Happy Mac symbol was replaced with the Apple logo. In OS X Lion 10.7, the Apple logo was slightly shrunk and a drop-in shadow was added. In OS X Yosemite 10.10, the white screen with a gray Apple logo was replaced with a black screen with a white Apple logo and the spinning wheel was replaced with a loading bar. However, this only applies to Macs from 2013 and later, including the 2012 Retina MacBook Pros, and requires a firmware update to be applied. All earlier Macs still use the old screen. The shadow on the Apple logo was removed in OS X El Capitan
10.11. In 2016 and later Macs (excluding the Early 2016 MacBook), the Apple logo appears immediately when the screen turns on.
A bomb screen was an error message used on the classic Mac OS in the event of a software error in the operating system. It was replaced with a kernel panic in Mac OS X, which was originally colored white in Mac OS X Jaguar but was changed to black in Mac OS X Panther.
Sad Mac
A Sad Mac is a symbol in older-generation
Happy Mac icon, which indicates that the startup-time hardware tests were successful. In 68k models made after the Macintosh II
, the Chimes of Death are played.
Models prior to the
6300
.
A Sad Mac may be deliberately generated at startup by pressing the
Macintosh
computers that had one installed, or by pressing Command and Power keys shortly after the startup chime. On some Macintoshes such as PowerBook 540c, if the user presses the command and power keys before the boot screen displays, it will play the "chimes of death". Depending on the model, the chimes would play much faster or slower than normal and there is no Sad Mac displayed.
Old World ROM
PCI
architecture do not use a Sad Mac icon and will instead only play the error/car-crash sound on a hardware failure (such as missing or bad memory, unusable CPU, or similar errors).
Mac OS X 10.2 Jaguar and later instead use the Universal "no" symbol to denote a hardware or software error that renders the computer non-bootable.[13][14]
, the Chimes of Death are often accompanied by a Sad Mac icon in the middle of the screen. More information about the Sad Mac is above.
Different Macintosh series have different death
chimes. The Macintosh II is the first to use the death chimes, a loud and eerie upward major arpeggio, with different chimes on many models. The Macintosh Quadra, Centris, Performa (including the 6200 and 6300 which were also Power Macintosh models; only occurring after the screen lights up), LC, and the Macintosh Classic II play a generally softer and lower pitched version of the upward major arpeggio, followed by three or four notes, with slight variations depending on the model of the Macintosh. The PowerBook 5300, 190, and 1400 use the second half of the 8-note arpeggio as found on the Quadra and Centris models, or the entire death chime if the error occurs before the screen lights up. The Macintosh Quadra 660AV and Centris 660AV use a sound of a single pass of Roland D-50's "Digital Native Dance" sample loop, and the NuBus based Power Macintosh models (including 6100,[15] 7100, and 8100) series use a car crash sound. The Power Macintosh and Performa 6200 and 6300 series (before the screen comes on for these models) along with the Power Macintosh (PowerPC) upgrade card use an eerily dramatic 3-note brass fanfare
with a rhythm of drums and cymbals. In the case of the Power Macintosh/Performa 6200 and 6300, it instead plays the 8-note arpeggio used in other Mac models when the screen lights up. The pre-G3 PCI Power Macs, the beige G3 Power Macs, the G3 All-In-One, and the PowerBook 2400, 3400, and G3 all use a sound of glass shattering; these models do not display a Sad Mac icon.
With the introduction of the iMac in 1998, the Chimes of Death are no longer used in favor of a series of tones to indicate hardware errors.