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MacHack

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Unbeknownst to most of the attendees, a key goal of prize selection was to see just how outrageous items could be and still have contestants being willing to take them home. During the Dearborn years, the official and beloved hardware store and key purveyor to the contest organizers was Duke's Hardware. Winners were selected by ballot at lunch later that same day, and awards awarded at dinner. The top prize was the coveted Victor-brand rat trap modified to say "A-trap". A-trap is a reference to the
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The MacHax Group held the First Annual MacHax Group Best Hack Contest at the second MacHack in 1987. The Hack Show generally started at midnight, and ran as late as 5AM. Prizes were awarded to many of the contestants, generally inexpensive and tangentially related to the name or nature of the hack.
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The conference was atypical of computer conferences in many ways. Keynotes were generally delivered at midnight. The focus of the conference was less on attending sessions and more on developing "hacks": displays of programming, scripting, configuration, or other techie prowess. Hacks were presented
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in a raucous Friday night show and recognized at a Saturday banquet. The best-received hacks were those developed on-site during the three-day conference, and those that embodied both remarkable technical skill and utter impracticality. Hacks that were perceived as having some
78:. The conference was organized and operated by Expotech, Inc. The final (18th) MacHack conference took place on June 19–21, 2003. In 2004 the conference was renamed ADHOC (The Advanced Developers Hands On Conference). 2005 was the last year of the ADHOC conference. 172:
Original Macintosh development team reunion: Andy Hertzfeld, Randy Wiggington, Daniel Kottke, Caroline Rose, Jef Raskin and Bill Atkinson - 2001 Scheduled to appear, but unable to attend: Guy 'Bud' Tribble, Bruce
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The Best Hack Implemented in a Nonexistent Product by Darin Adler, Mitch Adler, Leonard Rosenthal, and Paul Snively. It was written using HyperCard, at the time an unreleased product codenamed WildCard.
113:, sometimes for hours on end. Jordan Mattson was one such Apple representative, engaging so regularly and earnestly that the phrase "It's all Jordan's fault" became a mantra of MacHack. 98:. After a few years, the conference tried one year at what has become known as the MacHack from Hell. Subsequent MacHacks were held in an indistinct Holiday Inn along the 121:
A-trap exception mechanism which Apple used to great effect in the creation of Macintosh and provided the foundation for much of the hacking enjoyed by attendees.
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Scroll Plate - Hold a paper plate with an up-pointing red or down-pointing green arrow on it in front of the webcam and your Mac will scroll in that direction.
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Stupid Shell Tricks 2004 - A bunch of shell scripts that do fun things, like one that would open/close the CD tray on Macs in the next room in a choreography.
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EtherPEGCocoa - A program that showed any JPEG images coming across the network (even by other users) in a window. A screensaver version was also produced.
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EULB Extension Program - A program that simulates a 2004-era iBook logic board error that results in screen flashing on Macs that don't have that issue.
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Hacks that don't demo well seldom win, even if they're incredibly cool. Hacks that actually have some value usually lose votes for being "useful".
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Unsummarize - A service plugin that takes a piece of text and makes it longer, seemingly doing the reverse of the system's "summarize" service.
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MacHack's small, informal ethic, and on-site coding challenges have been carried on by a number of conferences; for example, the
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One of the key events each year was Bash Apple, typically involving one or more brave souls from Apple taking feedback from the
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1st place and winner of the coveted A-Trap award: FEZ by Doug McKenna, demonstrates an advanced set of ZoomRect techniques.
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The Institute (IEEE, Piscataway, New Jersey); Volume 18 number 6, September 1994; page 16, "After 5" column
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5th place: Metwowerks New & Improved, an addition to Metrowerks Code Warrior development environment.
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Rather than being held in a vibrant or popular location, the first MacHacks were held in the Holidome in
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2nd place: POArk, Pong Open Architecture; supports any number of players on different operating systems.
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This article is about the Macintosh software developers conference. For the computer chess program, see
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Best Power Hack by Mother Nature and NASA. A lightning strike unexpectedly launched three missiles.
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1st place and winner of the coveted A-Trap award: asciiMac by Alexandra Ellwood and Miro Jurisic
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3rd place: NewTablet, which turns a Newton into a mouse replacement for a Macintosh.
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ExposéHopper - Turn on Expose and jump from window to window with a little figure.
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was explicitly created as an attempt to fill the void left by the end of MacHack.
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1st place and winner of the coveted A-Trap award: Unfinder by Lisa Lippincott
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MegaManEffect - Shows the mega man intro whenever you start an application
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Unstoppable Progress: Causes a progress bar to be filled with
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animations and ran a conversation between them in a window.
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P.D. Magnus' brilliant historical examination, circa 1998.
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Complete list of 1999's hacks and a conference report.
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software developers conference first held in 1986 in
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was built at MacHack but not demonstrated as a hack
318:4th place: MacJive by Ned Holbrook and Jorg Brown. 16:Defunct Macintosh software developers' conference 1369: 1361:Coverage of MacHack from 1998 through 2005 from 1275:"MacTech | the journal of Apple technology" 334: 240: 822: 618: 362: 324:2nd place: Out of Context Menus by Eric Traut 231:(who may still be speaking in the Savoy Room) 1114:Dave Feldt MacHack conference report, 1987 477:ImageToHtml (transformed an image into an 271:4th place: Stargate arcade game emulation. 1211:"Mac Creators Debate OS X - ExtremeTech" 321:3rd place: Desktop Doubler by Ed Wynne. 1370: 1135: 1031:Talkicity - An app that used various 340:Doggie-Style Windows (best yoot hack) 315:5th place: PatchMaker by Paul Baxter. 131: 1163:C4: Chicago Mac Developer Conference 1088:Dave Winer MacHack conference report 246:Animated Icon in Finder by Roy Leban 1247:"MacHack Conference opens tomorrow" 1183:"MacHack Conference opens tomorrow" 156: 13: 980:Mostly Complete list of 2004 hacks 14: 1394: 1334: 343:L33t like Jeff K (best OS X hack) 309: 284: 262: 1316:1999 hacks and conference report 1101:Talking Back to Apple at MacHack 235: 137:Sleep is for the weak and sickly 1309: 1303:"Moof on the Hoof: MacHack '98" 1295: 1281: 1267: 1253: 1239: 1217: 1203: 929:Desktop Control Panel Extension 893:X-MENu 2 Unexpected End of File 848:Desktop Control Panel Extension 574:Saton Vs. Little Red RidingHood 459:Hackable AirPort Network Seeker 1189: 1175: 1155: 1129: 1125:1987 MacHack conference report 1118: 1107: 1092: 1081: 1064: 1: 1058: 670:Dude, You're Getting a DogCow 604:Tricycle (Lego Mindstorm(tm)) 601:TiVo(tm) for QuickTime TV(tm) 335:Incomplete list of 2000 hacks 241:Incomplete list of 1987 hacks 772:InformedChoiceChooserFacelft 481:composed of 1x1 pixel cells) 299:3rd place: 180 Years of Hack 7: 1343:note the ironic catchphrase 1046: 823:Complete list of 2003 hacks 745:Utility Scoring Stye (pres) 619:Complete list of 2002 hacks 435:Dr. Cheshire's PPPoE Server 363:Complete list of 2001 hacks 189:- 2000 "open source sermon" 10: 1399: 1349:last updated April 7, 2003 249:HeapInit by Fritz Anderson 152:72 Hours Caffeine and Code 81: 18: 851:Secret Life of Apple Logo 402:Carol Goodell's Hack 2001 49: 39: 31: 944:iTunes Location Launcher 730:aurport extender blender 487:iTunes Dock Dance Plugin 252:SetPaths by Paul Snively 74:in partnership with the 962:Packet the Magic Dragon 923:Spinning Clock of Death 760:Jini Network Technology 757:VideoFinder (not on CD) 643:Carol Goodell Hack 2002 143:It's all Jordan's fault 1383:Apple Inc. conferences 1138:"Cut, Paste and Crash" 514:Max's MADLIB from Hell 508:Mac OS X Patching Docs 290:6th place: Switcher 98 91:value were penalized. 76:University of Michigan 724:Airport Security 2002 721:MOOF through the ROOF 296:4th place: Phaseshift 1172:, September 08, 2006 293:5th place: Spotlight 146:Who makes the rules? 1378:Apple Inc. software 1359:Will Hack for Food! 1161:Jonathan Rentzsch, 932:Size Doesn't Matter 905:Interface UnBuilder 881:DecryptErrorMessage 712:penguin gear (pres) 655:BreakoutLevelEditor 349:Los Alamos Security 96:Ann Arbor, Michigan 44:Ann Arbor, Michigan 28: 1229:www.linuxtoday.com 1168:2010-01-06 at the 1013:NotTheSameOldTrash 805:RCX Remote Control 607:Unprotected Memory 474:iBook turbo switch 441:Eudora Stat Server 423:CSFinalHack Module 414:Chris Page's Hacks 132:Conference mantras 104:Dearborn, Michigan 100:Southfield Freeway 26: 1353:180 Years of Hack 1136:Hertzfeld, Andy. 811:dukeshardware.com 787:APPLE VIDEO SAVER 688:Billy Carnage 1.0 372:Airport Radar(tm) 302:2nd place: OFPong 140:Kill Dean's INITs 57: 56: 1390: 1318: 1313: 1307: 1306: 1299: 1293: 1292: 1285: 1279: 1278: 1271: 1265: 1264: 1257: 1251: 1250: 1243: 1237: 1236: 1231:. Archived from 1221: 1215: 1214: 1207: 1201: 1200: 1193: 1187: 1186: 1179: 1173: 1159: 1153: 1152: 1150: 1148: 1133: 1127: 1122: 1116: 1111: 1105: 1096: 1090: 1085: 1079: 1078: 1068: 911:Script Adventure 799:Depth Perception 532:NotEnoughSecrets 520:More Prefs 1.0 ƒ 157:Keynote notables 29: 25: 1398: 1397: 1393: 1392: 1391: 1389: 1388: 1387: 1368: 1367: 1337: 1321: 1314: 1310: 1301: 1300: 1296: 1287: 1286: 1282: 1273: 1272: 1268: 1259: 1258: 1254: 1245: 1244: 1240: 1223: 1222: 1218: 1209: 1208: 1204: 1195: 1194: 1190: 1181: 1180: 1176: 1170:Wayback Machine 1160: 1156: 1146: 1144: 1134: 1130: 1123: 1119: 1112: 1108: 1097: 1093: 1086: 1082: 1070: 1069: 1065: 1061: 1053:C4 (conference) 1049: 1044: 1038:Temporary Items 982: 977: 896:WTA Death Watch 878:underthedesktop 825: 820: 796:IconHunter IV ƒ 661:Clarus all over 621: 616: 583:SpellCompositor 559:PigLatin Folder 484:iTunes (HACKED) 390:asciishopsource 369:99 Bottles Hack 365: 352:Monitor Doubler 337: 312: 287: 265: 243: 238: 159: 134: 84: 24: 17: 12: 11: 5: 1396: 1386: 1385: 1380: 1366: 1365: 1356: 1350: 1344: 1336: 1335:External links 1333: 1332: 1331: 1328: 1320: 1319: 1308: 1305:. 6 July 1998. 1294: 1280: 1266: 1252: 1238: 1235:on 2004-08-23. 1216: 1202: 1188: 1174: 1154: 1128: 1117: 1106: 1091: 1080: 1062: 1060: 1057: 1056: 1055: 1048: 1045: 1043: 1042: 1039: 1036: 1029: 1026: 1023: 1020: 1017: 1014: 1011: 1008: 1005: 1002: 999: 996: 993: 990: 987: 983: 981: 978: 976: 975: 969: 966: 963: 960: 957: 954: 951: 948: 945: 942: 941:iTunes Control 939: 936: 933: 930: 927: 924: 921: 920:iPod Adventure 918: 915: 914:MagicLocalizer 912: 909: 906: 903: 900: 897: 894: 891: 888: 885: 882: 879: 876: 873: 870: 867: 864: 861: 858: 855: 854:Stinkin Badges 852: 849: 846: 839: 836: 833: 830: 826: 824: 821: 819: 818: 815: 812: 809: 806: 803: 802:Claris Coaster 800: 797: 794: 791: 788: 785: 782: 779: 776: 773: 770: 767: 764: 761: 758: 755: 752: 749: 748:Little Brother 746: 743: 740: 737: 734: 731: 728: 725: 722: 719: 716: 713: 710: 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239: 237: 234: 233: 232: 226: 224:Jordan Hubbard 221: 216: 211: 206: 200: 195: 190: 184: 179: 174: 170: 165: 158: 155: 154: 153: 150: 147: 144: 141: 138: 133: 130: 119:Motorola 68000 83: 80: 55: 54: 51: 47: 46: 41: 37: 36: 33: 15: 9: 6: 4: 3: 2: 1395: 1384: 1381: 1379: 1376: 1375: 1373: 1364: 1360: 1357: 1354: 1351: 1348: 1345: 1342: 1341:Official Site 1339: 1338: 1329: 1326: 1323: 1322: 1317: 1312: 1304: 1298: 1290: 1284: 1276: 1270: 1262: 1256: 1248: 1242: 1234: 1230: 1226: 1220: 1212: 1206: 1198: 1192: 1184: 1178: 1171: 1167: 1164: 1158: 1143: 1139: 1132: 1126: 1121: 1115: 1110: 1104: 1103:, 13 Sep 1999 1102: 1095: 1089: 1084: 1077: 1073: 1072:"MacHack FAQ" 1067: 1063: 1054: 1051: 1050: 1040: 1037: 1034: 1033:Talking Moose 1030: 1027: 1024: 1021: 1018: 1015: 1012: 1009: 1006: 1004:MailToOnCrash 1003: 1000: 997: 994: 991: 988: 985: 984: 973: 970: 967: 964: 961: 958: 955: 952: 949: 946: 943: 940: 937: 934: 931: 928: 926:Cocoa DocTour 925: 922: 919: 916: 913: 910: 907: 904: 901: 898: 895: 892: 889: 886: 883: 880: 877: 874: 872:ClickAndAHalf 871: 868: 865: 862: 859: 857:SPOD was here 856: 853: 850: 847: 844: 840: 837: 834: 831: 829:Editable SPOD 828: 827: 817:OldSchoolEdit 816: 813: 810: 807: 804: 801: 798: 795: 792: 789: 786: 783: 780: 777: 774: 771: 769:JITObjectiveC 768: 765: 762: 759: 756: 753: 750: 747: 744: 741: 738: 736:Ye Olde Movie 735: 732: 729: 726: 723: 720: 717: 715:Dock Invaders 714: 711: 709:The Iron Hack 708: 705: 702: 699: 696: 693: 690: 687: 684: 682:Dock&Roll 681: 678: 675: 672: 669: 666: 663: 660: 657: 654: 651: 648: 645: 642: 639: 636: 633: 630: 628:DockDockGoose 627: 625:HaikuReporter 624: 623: 612: 609: 606: 603: 600: 597: 594: 591: 588: 586:Talking Steve 585: 582: 580:Spear Britney 579: 576: 573: 570: 567: 564: 561: 558: 555: 552: 549: 546: 544:Palm Finder 2 543: 540: 537: 534: 531: 529:Network Alias 528: 526:musicPrompter 525: 522: 519: 516: 513: 510: 507: 505:Light Sleeper 504: 502:King of Swing 501: 498: 495: 492: 490:iTunes Remote 489: 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Index

Mac Hack
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Macintosh
Ann Arbor
Michigan
University of Michigan
utility
Ann Arbor, Michigan
Southfield Freeway
Dearborn, Michigan
angry mob
Motorola 68000
C4 conference
Doug Clapp
Scott Knaster
John Warnock
Cory Doctorow
Eric Raymond
Dave Winer
Andy Ihnatko
Steve Wozniak
Rob Malda
Tim O'Reilly
Ken Arnold
Jordan Hubbard
Ted Nelson
HTML table
water
iPodRip
Talking Moose

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