
Every default macOS wallpaper, in glorious 5k resolution - whalesalad
https://512pixels.net/projects/default-mac-wallpapers-in-5k/
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tobr
Oh, these are great. I just wish they would have included Quantum Foam, which
was very similar to the Cheetah and Puma one, but in graphite gray and with
more contrast in the highlights. I think it was the default in Mac OS 9.

It’s been very hard to find in decent resolution and quality. I’ve tried to
use various upscaling tools, I’ve tried to do it manually (reconstructing it
with vectors), but I’ve never been quite happy with the result.

~~~
handedness
Agreed. Sage Foam is another all-time favorite.

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yardie
One of the things I hated about clean installing OSX was the previous
wallpapers and user avatars weren't kept in the installer. If you were lucky
enough to upgrade the OS without errors through each major release you got to
hang onto some very important bits of the OS, like Quicktime 7, iPhoto,
iMovie. Once you upgraded the hardware, if you didn't have the foresight to
backup the application and the app support library folder, you were in for a
letdown.

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fossuser
It's the same with iOS too - I've kept the milky way over a snowy mountain top
since whatever version it was released because if you change it you lose it
(well you have to search around and get it back from the internet).

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machello13
Same! That's such a great iPad wallpaper. I've found copies of it online but
they all seem to be lower quality than the one included with the OS.

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saagarjha
If you _really_ want it, you can pull it from the IPSW…

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apearson
10.0 to 10.4 wallpapers have always looked the best IMO. Even more so today in
5k.

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flyrain
Looks boring to me though. I like the galaxy ones better.

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jkrupp
If you like the galaxy photos, the original photographer is Rob Gendler:
[http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/](http://www.robgendlerastropics.com/)

~~~
52-6F-62
Excellent. Thanks for linking this

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mattl
No love for Mac OS X Server 1.0? I have my phone using the same background as
Rhapsody DR2.

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steviedotboston
you must be stepwise

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mattl
Ha, I am. I feel like OPENSTEP and Rhapsody are ignored these days, much in
the same way people think every GeoCities website was in Comic Sans.

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aquova
OS X 10.7 is still my favorite default wallpaper. I was surprised to see the
author didn't care for it. Given the minimal descriptions for 10.10+, I take
it they care more for the abstract blue backgrounds of the earlier releases
than for mountains as well.

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ramenmeal
I miss snow leopard & spaces. Never really figured out how to be productive w/
Mission Control and full screen apps.

~~~
dmix
> Never really figured out how to be productive w/ Mission Control and full
> screen apps

Has anyone? I'd love to see the stats on this. One of those things that looks
prettier than it is useful.

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gbear605
It works wonderfully for me at least, for one counter anecdata. It only works
well because I can swipe back and forth between screens with the touchpad. I
don’t know how I would use a mac without one.

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mehrdadn
Why is "Mac OS X" crossed out with "macOS" written in place of it? Is the
former wrong somehow?

~~~
whalesalad
Sorta. The old name still works, when referring to a proper old release. Going
forward the OS family is referred to as macOS.

~~~
mehrdadn
I see, thanks!

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m463
Here's an interesting apple-related song:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwcCRdTZw0A](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwcCRdTZw0A)

(of course it might diverge from your memory after a moment or two)

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BossingAround
It's kind of a shame that the thumbnails are 1400x1050. I mean, it's a
thumbnail, ~500p would be absolutely fine (probably even less), and the load
times would have been much better.

~~~
whalesalad
The entire purpose of this page is to disseminate high res wallpapers. I think
in this case the small asset size ship has sailed.

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wintorez
Is there a similar site for all the iPhone/iOS wallpapers?

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tekknolagi
Are there similar libraries for the non-default but also-included wallpapers?
I think I liked some of the alternative El Capitan wallpapers more than the
default.

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lonelappde
It's an elegant and damning presentation of how Apple software has gotten more
flashy and less usable over time.

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harrylepotter
what about the tiles for OS8 and OS9?

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duskwuff
There's a pretty decent collection of pre-OS X wallpapers here:

[https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6c8veze05y4dou8/AAABpBWhiGAtqKzOc...](https://www.dropbox.com/sh/6c8veze05y4dou8/AAABpBWhiGAtqKzOcvZozA9Ea?dl=0)

~~~
maxfromua
Thanks! Blue kittens (#139 in your Dropbox) is the best wallpaper I ever had
:)

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mobilio
10.6 is best IMHO

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Wowfunhappy
I don't think the wallpaper by itself is anything special, but I absolutely
love how it makes the window control traffic lights pop.

Here's a Finder window on my computer. I'm running Mavericks, but with some UI
hacks to bring it closer to Snow Leopard. And of course, the Snow Leopard
desktop picture in the background. [https://i.ibb.co/S6hCkhQ/Screen-
Shot-2020-03-24-at-8-07-28-P...](https://i.ibb.co/S6hCkhQ/Screen-
Shot-2020-03-24-at-8-07-28-PM.png)

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d2wa
Whatever happen to copyright … .

~~~
chipotle_coyote
As someone who is probably more supportive of intellectual property rights and
copyright in particular than the median HN user, "how dare someone
nostalgically resize and make available a handful of background wallpapers
that were distributed with obsolete versions of an operating system" strikes
me as one of the tiniest, most pedantic hills to die on I can imagine.

~~~
grecy
I take it you've never paid for food and rent from the income from your
photographs.

I don't know the copyright story of the photos included with the macOS
releases, but I don't think it's wrong for the parent comment to at least ask
the question.

~~~
chipotle_coyote
I appreciate you getting huffy at me in the ostensible defense of
photographers and art creators (seriously, I do), but the only way these
creators could _possibly_ be losing potential income from this site is if
retained the rights to sell these images digitally. I can't swear under oath
that they didn't, but under this particular circumstance, that would be
awfully unusual. (It would be almost unheard of these works to have been
licensed to Apple on a per-unit royalty basis rather than a flat fee, but in
either case the creator would have made all the money they ever would have
from Apple by now anyway. And, it's quite likely these were done either under
a work-for-hire contract, in which Apple retained all the rights, or -- like
"Bliss," the iconic green hill/blue sky image in Windows 95 -- they bought
_all_ the rights to the image for a flat fee.)

~~~
grecy
The point isn't that the photographers don't have rights to these particular
photos.

The point is you criticize a person for even asking the question.

Not everyone has the same insight into the licensing and legal ramifications
of images being distributed with OSes, and there's never a reason to be
condescending and demeaning to someone asking a simple question.

You could have chosen to educate them in a helpful and friendly way, but you
didn't.

~~~
diffeomorphism
> You could have chosen to educate them in a helpful and friendly way, but you
> didn't.

> I take it you've never paid for food and rent from the income from your
> photographs.

Are you talking about yourself being unfriendly and throwing accusations?

~~~
grecy
You're absolutely right that my reply wasn't the friendlies way to go about
things. I bit back to the original comment, and I shouldn't have done that.

~~~
chipotle_coyote
The original comment I was responding to was, in its entirety:

"Whatever happened to copyright..."

And I'm gonna be honest: to me, that is not just asking an innocent question
in a friendly and non-confrontational way. It's implicitly pretty accusatory.

