What is SpinTime?

WHAT IS SPINTIME?

SpinTime is a system extension that overrides your Mac's normal behavior so that an animated color beach ball with 3D effects appears in place of the usual black and white watch cursor.  In addition to appearing in the Finder, the color ball will apear in most programs that display a black & white animated cursor, such as the America Online , eWorld , and Compuserve  client packages for the Mac where it replaces the black & white beach ball.  The ball does not revolve asynchronously, so you can see the progress of the underlying program just as the programmer intended.

Like any new software program, SpinTime has not had the advantage of testing over a long period of time.  Please read the LIMITATIONS and TERMS sections below before installing SpinTime.

HOW TO INSTALL SPINTIME

Drop the file "SpinTime 1.05" in your System folder and restart.  If installation was successful, the image of a spinning beach ball will appear in color during the startup sequence.   If there was a problem, SpinTime's startup icon will appear crossed-out.

If you have a color or grayscale monitor and SpinTime still appears crossed out at startup, make sure you have set your Mac to display at least 16 colors or levels of gray.  Apple's "Monitors" control panel allows you to set the number of colors your Mac displays.

ADVANTAGES

· Easier to use than other animated cursor programs.  Simply drag SpinTime into the Extensions folder in your System folder and restart.  

· Uses multiple approaches to detecting wait-cursors, so it replaces certain cursors that other programs will miss.

· Runs on PowerPCs.  The current version runs in emulation mode, but, because the code is compact, it should not noticeably slow execution.

· Only spins cursors when the underlying program tells it to spin.  So, you know exactly when your program is running slow or has stalled.  

· SpinTime's cursors do not flicker.

· Takes advantage of new features of the Mac OS available in System 7, and it's effect is targeted and specific to applications that already display animated cursors.    SpinTime does not rely on undocumented features of the Mac OS, and it does not execute at interrupt time.

· Experienced users who know how to replace animated cursors with ResEdit  can install a color animated cursor in programs that ordinarily display a black and white animated cursor.  Almost any application with an 'acur' resource can be customized with a unique, color animated cursor by adding a set of 'crsr' resources with IDs that match those of the original black and white 'acur' frames.  SpinTime's default cursor can also be replaced.

This customization process is not trivial, and those unfamiliar with ResEdit should not attempt it.  A forthcoming Cipherware product in development will allow users to create and replace animated cursors without ResEdit.   

Download SpinTime for Mac

Architecture

Motorola 68K

System Requirements

From Mac OS 7.0 up to Mac OS 9.2

Compatibility notes

Architecture: 68K

Mac OS 7.x - Mac OS 9.2.2

This is an extension.  To install it, drag and drop it onto the System Folder and accept when it asks you to place it in the Extensions folder, then reboot.

 

Emulating this? It could probably run under: Basilisk II