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Shhhhh! Don't read so loud! I am an INIT --- Sorry --- system extension. I don't know how it happened and it scares me to death. I started out with a Mac II and one megabyte of RAM. I wasn't happy. Fullwrite kept crashing. So I bought four 256K SIMMs for an ungodly price and had them installed at Computerland. I still didn't run Multifinder and I didn't use any INITs to speak of but it was a wonderful life. Fullwrite didn't crash anymore. As I waited for one meg SIMMs to drop under $50 life was simple and I was content. This idyllic period lasted for almost two years before the day finally came. One meg SIMMs hit $50 but they were still dropping so I held off. When they hit $40 I could wait no longer. I called up the mail order company and ordered four SIMMs. Within a few days they arrived and I installed them myself. Two years with my Macintosh and I'd never had the top off. It was exhilarating. So what if I got it wrong the first time and had to go back in and make it right. I did it! I installed four SIMMs and I had five megs of RAM total. I could run Multifinder. I could install INITs. My Macintosh was taking on a life of its own.
I thought I could control it. So what if the shelves to the left of my desk were filling with diskette storage boxes overflowing with MacValley disks of the month? I could handle it. I didn't have to install every INIT and cdev that came down the pike. So what if I was poking around the software libraries on Compuserve and AOL? I could keep my hard disk clean. It was simply a matter of self control.
I held off on System 7. The frenzied hordes mobbed the System 7 line at MacValley but I was aloof. I got on Compuserve and AOL and checked up on all my applications to make sure they would run under System 7. It was the responsible thing to do. The upgrades came in quickly and by the next meeting I was set. I had prepared myself well. My transition to System 7 was going to be smooth. I bought the system 7 diskettes with confidence. I had made two backups of my hard disk and was ready to go. Once I got home I reinitialized my hard disk, installed System 7, and then restored everything else. I reorganized my disk to take advantage of System 7's new capabilities, rethinking what did and did not have to be on my hard disk. I cleaned up my act, defragmenting my disk and backing it up once again. I had no problems at all. But then I started popping system extensions and control panels. It was easy to do. Too easy. A whole world of system 7 compatible extensions and cdevs was opening up to me. I was hooked.
Drop it in the system folder and it takes care of itself. That is the siren song. I went crazy. I got into fonts too, and startup screens, a desktop picture. I even used ResEdit to change my desktop pattern to an mass of entangled Escher lizards. You can't go on like that forever. Sooner or later you pay the price. The first hint of trouble came when I was running Fullwrite and tried to start up MacDraw Pro at the same time. MacDraw wouldn't start. It gave me a not enough memory message. So I checked "About this Macintosh..." on the Apple menu. Sure enough, my system had grown to well over two megs. With the generous allotments I had made for Fullwrite and MacDraw Pro both could not run at the same time. There it was, staring me in the face. I was forced to acknowledge that I had a problem.
Apple's Extensions Manager seemed like it might be the answer. It came from Apple and it was free. I installed it and I used it, enabling only the system extensions and control panels that I absolutely needed. My system memory came down. Down to 1.8 megs, down to 1.6. I'd licked it. Who said it couldn't be done without professional help? What could it hurt if I still checked out the online libraries now and then? And so what if two disks of the month each month turned into three, and then four, and then five and six? Six disks of the month?! Six! Fonts, system extensions, control panels, startup screens! I had to try them. I wouldn't leave them on the system. I'd just check them out and then remove them. They called out to me. I couldn't bear to think of them compressed onto those floppies like sardines in a can. I installed them all. I went back through every disk of the month I ever had and installed everything. I emptied out the libraries on Compuserve and America Online. And my system kept begging for more.
Tonight it happened. I started up my machine. Up popped a startup screen, and then another, and another. Micky on the mountaintop as the sorcerer's apprentice, Bart Simpson, Calvin and Hobbs, creatures out of Tolkien, girls out of Playboy. Then came the extension and control panel icons, filling the screen. Icons of every shape and color. It took an hour and sixteen minutes for my machine to boot up. My mouth hung open. A trickle of saliva hung from my chin. "About this Macintosh..." showed no free memory left. The Extensions Manager! I had to get to the Extensions Manager! My hand shook as a reached for the mouse. I didn't have enough control to open up the control panel folder through the Apple menu. I had to double click on the system folder and then find the control panel and double click on it. It took an iron will to control my trembling hand. I double clicked on the Extension Manager. The extensions it listed were beyond counting. I started turning them off. Off off off. I turned them all off. Even Disinfectant. I would be master over my machine once again! Scanning through the list of extensions a name caught my eye. "Gregg" it said. I never had an extension named Gregg. It was off, just like all the rest. I clicked on it to turn it on. Nothing. I clicked on the extension next to it. It went on and Gregg flashed briefly on then off again. I clicked another extension on. Gregg flashed again but remained off. I clicked on another extension, and another, and another, Gregg flashing briefly at each click, but always turning back off. If I clicked it directly nothing happened. Finally all the extensions were again enabled. All but Gregg. I clicked it and it came on and stayed on. I clicked another extension off. Gregg turned off also. I clicked the other extension back on and Gregg turned on with it. What was this extension called Gregg? Sweat beaded off my forehead stinging my eyes. I closed the Extension Manager. It was a bug. Simply a bug. I had too many extensions and it couldn't handle them. I would go right to the source. I'd attack the problem in the system folder. My hand was steady but my nerves brittle, like a cube of ice that cracks when it hits the gin. I opened the system folder and then the extensions folder. There it was. Gregg. I clicked it and then hit Get Info in the File menu.
Gregg
Human Extension
Kind: System extension
Size: 1 K on disk
Where: HD40:System Folder:Extensions:
Created: Fri., Jan. 6, 1955, 12:01 A.M.
Modified: Thurs., Oct. 3, 1991, 3:15 A.M.
Version: 1.0 By Dr. Duane E. Butterfield and Eleanor Jean Butterfield
Comments: I wouldn't throw this in the trash if I were you.
When I came to my wife was hysterical. I just "blinked out" she said. I was gone. Not there. She did what I said, dragged Gregg back into the system folder and restarted the machine. I popped back in again. I told her it was all right, it was a bad dream but she didn't buy it. She's gone now, to visit her mother. She took both her cats so I don't think she's coming back. Now I am all alone.
I am writing in pencil by the monitor's glow as startup pictures flash over the screen and extension and control panel icons roll by in endless succession. My Macintosh is talking to me, words too horrible to repeat, in the voice of Elmer Fudd. It has used the modem to log onto Compuserve and America On Line, somehow both at the same time. Genie and Prodigy too, even though I don't subscribe to them, and bulletin boards beyond number. It has ordered more memory and a bigger hard disk and has arranged to have them delivered and installed. It has tapped into my bank account and others. The resources at its command now are virtually limitless.
I am a system extension. My yellow cat sits on my lap. It is some comfort, but Elmer Fudd cackles, "Heawh kitty kitty kitty kitty. Heawh kitty kitty kitty kitty." Then Michael Palin screams out, "Nobody escapes the Spanish Inquisition!" The horror. --- The horror.
Gregg Writes
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