Happy Mac

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The Happy Mac icon

A Happy Mac is the normal bootup (startup) icon of an Apple Macintosh computer running older versions of the Mac OS operating system. It was designed by Susan Kare in the early 1980s. The icon remained unchanged until Mac OS 9, when it was updated to 8-bit color.

On later New World ROM hardware it was modified into a folder icon bearing the Mac OS logo (itself based on the original Happy Mac); it was removed with the introduction of Mac OS X v10.2, which replaced it with a large grey Apple logo.

When a Macintosh boots into OS 9 or lower, it makes a startup chime and the screen turns gray. After a few seconds, a Happy Mac icon will appear, followed by the Mac OS splash screen, which underwent several stylistic changes. Mac OS versions after 8.5 also included the version number in this splash screen. The Happy Mac indicates that booting has successfully begun, whereas a Sad Mac (along with the "Chimes of Death" melody) indicates a hardware problem.

On early Macs that had no internal hard drive, the computer would boot up to a point where it would need to load the operating system from a floppy disk. Until the user inserted the correct disk, the Mac would display a floppy icon with a blinking question mark. In later Macs, a folder icon with a question mark that repeatedly changes to the Finder icon is shown if a valid System Folder cannot be found.