FakeDOS Turns Your Mac Into a 1990s PC That Only Pretends to Format C:
'C:\> FORMAT C:' – relax, it's just a screen saver
FakeDOS 2.0 is a free macOS screen saver that boots a pixel-perfect AWARD BIOS, counts through 32 MB of RAM, and leaves a blinking C:\> prompt where a ghost types DOS and Linux commands. Type FORMAT C: and it runs a terrifyingly realistic format sequence, but nothing is ever read, written, or deleted. It began in 1991 as a Turbo Pascal prank on a FidoNet BBS.
When you type FORMAT C:, FakeDOS shows a terrifyingly realistic format sequence, complete with percentage counter and head/cylinder display, but your actual drive is perfectly untouched.
- jrmg
This is cool - but…
It’s an app, not a system-integrated[1] screensaver?
> Installation
> Drag FakeDOS.app into /Applications.
> Double-click to launch. It installs itself as a menu-bar icon.
> Click the menu-bar icon to configure or start manually.
> After the configured idle time (default: 5 min), FakeDOS takes over fullscreen.
> Type EXIT to return to your real desktop.
> Cmd + , opens six pages of pure control: idle time, warp speed, the ghost writer, sound and more. The PC speaker can be silenced. Your co-workers cannot.
[1]: ScreenSaver.framework: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/screensaver
- Tsarbomb
Maybe I'm blind, but is this closed source?
- Gormo
Reminds me of the 'BSOD' module from Xscreensaver.
- RedShift1
What exactly is this? Site doesn't work for me (ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR). Gathering from the other comments, some screensaver that shows a DOS prompt?
- rlv-dan
Way back I hacked together a VB6 application (don't remember what it did) but after a while it popped up a new window that faked a DOS prompt formatting the c drive. Then I send it to my best bud on April 1st with a message "Hey, check out this new program I made!" :-)