The dogcow, named Clarus, is a

bitmap In computing, a bitmap (also called raster) graphic is an image formed from rows of different colored pixels. A GIF is an example of a graphics image file that uses a bitmap. As a noun, the term "bitmap" is very often used to refer to a partic ...

ped image designed by

Apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

for the demonstration of page layout in the

classic Mac OS Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Mac (computer), Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer, Inc. from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and end ...

. The sound it makes is "Moof!", a

portmanteau In linguistics, a blend—also known as a blend word, lexical blend, or portmanteau—is a word formed by combining the meanings, and parts of the sounds, of two or more words together.

of "moo" and "woof". Clarus became the archetype of surrealistic humor in the corporate culture of the original

Macintosh Mac is a brand of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 1984. The name is short for Macintosh (its official name until 1999), a reference to the McIntosh (apple), McIntosh apple. The current product lineup inclu ...

group, particularly as the mascot of Apple’s Developer Technical Support as officially documented in Technote #31.

History

In 1983, the

dog The dog (''Canis familiaris'' or ''Canis lupus familiaris'') is a domesticated descendant of the gray wolf. Also called the domestic dog, it was selectively bred from a population of wolves during the Late Pleistocene by hunter-gatherers. ...

icon had been created by

Susan Kare Susan Kare ( "care"; born February 5, 1954) is an American artist and graphic designer, who contributed graphical user interface, interface elements and typefaces for the first Apple Inc., Apple Macintosh 128k, Macintosh personal computer from ...

as the

glyph A glyph ( ) is any kind of purposeful mark. In typography, a glyph is "the specific shape, design, or representation of a character". It is a particular graphical representation, in a particular typeface, of an element of written language. A ...

for "z", as part of the ''

Cairo Cairo ( ; , ) is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Egypt and the Cairo Governorate, being home to more than 10 million people. It is also part of the List of urban agglomerations in Africa, largest urban agglomeration in Africa, L ...

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts " Roman" (or "regul ...

. Later, when redesigning the classic Mac OS "Page Setup" print dialog box for the LaserWriter, an example image was required. According to HCI engineer Annette Wagner, The new dog graphic had a more

bovine Bovines (subfamily Bovinae) comprise a diverse group of 10 genera of medium to large-sized ungulates, including Bos, cattle, bison, African buffalo, Bubalus, water buffalos, and the four-horned and spiral-horned antelopes. The members of this gro ...

look. On October 15, 1987, the term "dogcow" was coined by Scott Zimmerman. She was later named Clarus by Mark "The Red" Harlan, as a joking reference to

Claris Claris International Inc., formerly FileMaker Inc., is a computer software development company formed as a subsidiary company of Apple Inc., Apple Computer (now Apple Inc.) in 1987. It was given the source code and copyrights to several program ...

, Apple's business unit for office software at the time. The Clarus icon became one of the giant pieces of pixel art in the Icon Garden in the front yard of the

Apple Campus The Apple Campus is the former corporate headquarters of Apple Inc. from 1993 until 2017. In April 2017, it was largely replaced by Apple Park (aka Apple Campus 2), but is still an Apple office and lab space. The campus is located at 1 Infinite ...

at 1 Infinite Loop; the Icon Garden has since been removed. Apple's ''Developer CD Series'' of the 1980s features a dogcow logo on the discs. The latest references to the dogcow came in the documentation for the

Swift Swift or SWIFT most commonly refers to: * SWIFT, an international organization facilitating transactions between banks ** SWIFT code * Swift (programming language) * Swift (bird), a family of birds It may also refer to: Organizations * SWIF ...

programming language, which uses the word "dogcow" as an example of the use of Unicode characters to name constants and variables; and in a sticker pack in

Messages A message is a unit of communication that conveys information from a sender to a receiver. It can be transmitted through various forms, such as spoken or written words, signals, or electronic data, and can range from simple instructions to co ...

. In the first beta of macOS Ventura, the dogcow returned to the page setup window, and in iOS 16 entering 'Clarus' or 'Moof' results in the keyboard suggesting the 'dog' and 'cow'

Emoji An emoji ( ; plural emoji or emojis; , ) is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram, or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of modern emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from type ...

Overview

The sound she makes is "Moof!", and in early versions of Apple Developer CDs one section was known as "Moof!". The dogcow symbol and "Moof!" were proprietary trademarks of Apple until the registration was cancelled in 1999.

Reception

The disappearance of the Icon Garden and of Clarus from Apple's products is seen by ''MacWorld'' as a symbol of the draining of culture and character from, and an increase in blankness and austerity in, Apple's products over the years. In a 2015 retrospective, the magazine said Clarus "came into being through quirkiness and serendipity, and you could say it has no business in a grown-up, commercial operating system. It makes no real sense, and wasn’t really there on merit or through strategic planning" and represented a company that was "kooky", "idiosyncratic", and not dominated by rules.

External links

Archive of a page of official Apple information on the dogcow
(archived February 4, 2004)
ClarusX2014 - A system utility to install Clarus and other dogcattle into OS X MavericksClarus the Dogcow (Moof!) - A history of Clarus (YouTube video)

References

{{Mac OS Apple Inc. Classic Mac OS Computer folklore Dog mascots Fictional hybrids Fictional dogs Mascots introduced in 1983

History

Overview

Reception

See also

External links

References