Interesting software ideas

Interesting software ideas

The group shared their favorites. Windows that crack or melt into a slag heap. The MacIntosh IBM DOS emulator that, when fired up, begins to put up a zippy MacIntosh screen, stops halfway down the screen to declare, "Oops? Sorry. You wanted 1950s technology." It then goes into command line mode. The supposed unused ROM hook in the Mac that would have caused a monkey to dance across the screen ONCE upon the 7698th (or whatever) boot of the machine. Insects crawling around the screen.

As you read this, project programmers in ski-masks are already coding up:

Elusive menu:

When the mouse cursor enters such menus, the menus dodge away while insulting the user with appropriate language and gestures. Somebody informed us this is just like the Mac Bomb program.

Crashing windows:

You begin to move a window. Suddenly it accelerates out of your control up toward the corner of the screen. When it reaches the corner, it smashes to pieces, falling to the bottom of the screen. Appropriate sounds effects are heard. Email is sent to the site manager blaming you for the broken window.

Aerobic menu:

You begin to move a window and suddenly it accelerates out of your control bouncing around the screen faster and faster. It finally slows down an sits on your screen off in the direction you were moving it, but huffing and puffing, sort of expanding in and out. You begin working again, its breathing slows and stops after a few moments.

People inside the monitor:

You get an error. A large face leans in from the left, gives you a "Lettermanesque look," like he's got a horrible flavor on his tongue, and then leans back out of the monitor.

Gigantic screen-filling body part mouse cursor icons:

You can move them no more than a half inch in each direction. Need the Interface-esE liberation Army say more?

From hill@HI.MCC.COM (Will Hill) publicist for The Humor Interface Project, Alias "Humor In Your Face," "Humid Interface" And "Interface-Ese liberation Army (EYEEE-EEE-AHHH...