The HFS Pixel
Encyclopedia Macintosh (p. 65, via Alex Rosenberg, rezmason):
HFS and MFS disks can be distinguished by the presence or absence of the HFS pixel. You can tell if a drive or disk is formatted as HFS or MFS by looking for the “HFS pixel” in the upper-left corner of any window from the drive or disk. If this pixel is on, the drive or volume uses the HFS; if it is off, the drive or volume uses the MFS.
[…]
The HFS pixel can be seen in the left window between the two horizontal lines just above the folder icon. In the center window it is not present. An enlargement of the pixel is presented at right.
This reminds me of Norton Disk Light, which used a single flashing pixel in the top-left corner of the display (back when the menu bar was rounded) to indicate disk activity.
Looks it went away in System 7, even with the B&W window frame.
Seems equally likely they didn’t carry over the feature when rewriting the Finder in C++ for System 7.
MFS was so ignored in the Finder’s System 7 rewrite that the Finder crashed if you mounted a MFS volume with a long volume name. I found and reported that bug when learning about the File Manager when I switched from Apple II to Macintosh Developer Technical Support.
Update (2025-01-06): Josh Justice:
Who remembers positioning the cursor in System 7 so that it showed 1 pixel between it and the progress bar, so you could tell if it had progressed?
Who remembers trying this in Mac OS 8+ and being frustrated that the beautiful gradient made it harder to tell if there was progress? 😄
Update (2025-01-07): HACKTRIX (via Josh Hrach):
The XYZZY code is a simple cheat code for Minesweeper that helps you find the mines without clicking on the cells. To use this code, open Minesweeper, then type the letters xyzzy and hold the shift button for three seconds. Then minimize all open programs and look closely in the top left corner of your monitor screen. You will see a single pixel turned white.
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I've been interested in the Mac for a very long time, and never heard a whisper about this HFS pixel. Thanks, Michael, for maintaining such a consistently interesting blog, and happy new year!
