Clarus, the Dogcow : Moof Museum
A museum dedicated to Clarus, the Dogcow (Apple DTS mascot : she can flip, she can do precise alignment, and she moof!)
A museum dedicated to Clarus, the Dogcow (Apple DTS mascot : she can flip, she can do precise alignment, and she moof!)
Here discover articles, obscure reference and many entry for Dictionnary.
Author: Scott Knaster & Keith Rollin - 1992
Source : book (amazon)
This book about programming macintosh for old system (system 7) has a reference for Clarus on its cover. A dogcow say "Moof!" hitting by a young boy and its skateboard.
Keith Rollin explain in CMSP.
"On the spine is an inverted picture of the dogcow. That's the Anti-dogcow, which
seemed the appropriate logo for two ex-DTS workers (the dogcow is the mascot of
Mac DTS)."
and
"Jess is on a skateboard for no really good reason. On the skateboard with him is
the surfer dude from the cover of Inside Mac VI (he's the icon for the
SurfWriter application alluded to in examples inside IM VI). They've just hit
Clarus the dogcow, which is why he'd flying up in the air. (I actually have a
different theory on why Clarus is in the middle of the air. When I worked in
DTS, the term we used for developers who had just done something really stupid
is "grazing off the cliff." I'm of the feeling that Clarus just grazed off the
edge of the desk.)"
figure 1.1 : Clarus at play
Author: Jim Trudeau - 1995
Source : book (Amazon)
Jim Trudeau wrote a book for beginner in programming for Macintosh.
Beside it was a valuable material, the book contain a section about "Clarus, the Dogcow", the first section of the first chapter.
except (with the permission of Jim, may 2015) :
"Allow me to introduce a friend of mine. I’d like you to meet Clarus, the dogcow. You can see her picture in Figure 1.1. Do not be dismayed by her pixelated appearance. That’s what Clarus looks like. Clarus is, after all, a dogcow.
Clarus is the mascot of Apple’s Developer Technical Support and a trademark of Apple Computer. In fact, everything Clarus has ever said is also a trademark.
Clarus can occasionally be seen grazing the lawn at 1 Infinite Loop in Cupertino, CA[em]the home of Apple’s research and development campus. You have to admire a computer company that not only inspires Clarus, but names the location at which it does its leading-edge development work “Infinite Loop.”
Clarus is an almost mythical figure in the Macintosh developer community. While many have seen her picture, true sightings of our friend are quite rare. It’s rumored that Elvis took lessons from Clarus before going into hiding.
All the same, her presence lives in every Macintosh. Her image was captured by Susan Kare and included in the Cairo font that shipped with the very first Macintosh. She was sighted again and named on October 15, 1987 by Scott “Zz” Zimmerman. He and Mark Harlan made her existence known to the rest of the world.
Since then, Clarus has had important work. If you open the Page Setup dialog for the Laserwriter or some other printers and click the Options button, you’ll find Clarus there. She’s ready to show you how an image will appear on paper when printed. She’ll even stand on her head for you. To quote from official technical documentation, “Like any talented dog, it can do flips. Like any talented cow, it can do precision bitmap alignment.”
It is rumored that she was captured once in a Microsoft advertisement, but she escaped as soon as she could. Scholarly Macintosh programming journals have published articles about Clarus. She has wandered into an official Macintosh technical note. Clarus even has a nest on the internet’s world-wide web where you can hear her speak and become steeped in dogcow lore.
Because she is two-dimensional, Clarus can face predators head-on to avoid being seen. This may explain why Clarus can fit inside your computer. She might even be standing next to you and yet remain invisible. No wonder Elvis consulted her!
Clarus is female, of course, as are all cows. Mark Harlan wrote in develop magazine that “…males would be referred to as dogbulls, but none exist because there are already bulldogs and God doesn’t like to have naming problems.”
You encounter this light-hearted spirit throughout the Macintosh development community. Some have us believe that Clarus is a semi-official creation of a major corporation. Independent Macintosh programmers know that although she is a trademark, Clarus was discovered, not invented."
ATPM was a monthly internet magazine (e-zine) created in 1992. The last issue was 2012... ATPM was focus on Apple Macintosh.
Of course ATPM contain sevral references to Clarus :
Author: janey the crazy - 2004
Source : wikipedia (en)
Jane create dogcow entry in wikipedia on 2nd febrary 2004.
Dogcow also exist in 2 internalized wikipedia :
Author: Tigeba - 2006
Source : tigeba (flickr)
Tigeba design a robot cow that say "moo1"...
Author: Tigeba - 2006
Source : tigeba (flickr)
"What is the square root of moof squared? 42?"
Author: Jan-Yves Ruzicka - 2006
Source : Akchizar (flickr)
Jan-Yan made small comics published on its flickr account. One envolve a strange creature that "moof !"... But the title is explicit it's not a dogcow : "No it's not a dogcow, it just an identity problem"
Author: Tigeba - 2007
Source : tigeba (flickr)
LCD display elo, displaying "Mooooooof!"
Author: Ryan R. Kubasiak - 2007
Source : Mac ForensicsLab
Mr Kubasiak wrote a guide for forensic examination of a macintosh... It describe boot process, target disk boot, daemon and so on.
Very technical document, but Mr Kubasiak seems to be also a Mac geek... The example shown to illustrate envole a mac with an hard drive named "Moof's house", the sample user name is "moof" and an external support is "dogcow".
The guide example how to copy an encrypted user (dogcow) directory it result in a disk image called "dogcow"...
Author: Erica Sadun - 2007
Source : TUAW
Erica wrote a small article about Clarus, but well written.
Author: Amy-Mae Elliott - 2010
Source : mashable
Amy mention 10 facts you didn't know about Apple. Fact #4 is Apple Invented the "Dogcow". No important news
Author: Vanessa White - 2012
Source : n3philim (flickr)
Flickr made an april fool on 2012 : all flickr account were displayed using a strict black & white (1 bit)... Vanessa love this and ask flickr to let this feature active... She was also a clarus fan : "Dear Flickr, I LOVE this April Fool's joke. Please, for the love of the Dogcow, leave it active after today!"
Remember TechNote 31 was dated 1st april 1989 !