The raccoons who made computer magazine ads great • Hacker News Board

Re: The raccoons who made computer magazine ads great

#41

Post by cafard » Wed, Apr 23, 2025, 2:54 PM UTC

agarren wrote: post #35

AST had raccoons on one or two of his books, earlier editions of “ Operating Systems Design and Implementation” iirc. I always thought cartoon raccoons on the cover of a technical text book seemed like an odd choice. I wonder if there’s a connection?

I think you're right. I'll check when I get home this evening.

Re: The raccoons who made computer magazine ads great

#42

Post by pcdoodle » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 2:13 PM UTC

I love the ones where they're sitting outside or in a window.

Finally we're getting screens bright enough (1,000+ Nits) in laptops. The dream has always been to liberate ourselves to a better work/play environment.

Re: The raccoons who made computer magazine ads great

#43

Post by cafard » Thu, Apr 24, 2025, 11:46 PM UTC

cafard wrote: post #41

agarren wrote: post #35

AST had raccoons on one or two of his books, earlier editions of “ Operating Systems Design and Implementation” iirc. I always thought cartoon raccoons on the cover of a technical text book seemed like an odd choice. I wonder if there’s a connection?

I think you're right. I'll check when I get home this evening.

I just checked my copy of Operating Systems: Design and Implementation, copyright 1987, and find that I was wrong: it does not have a raccoon on the cover. This is of course not to say that you are wrong--you may have had a different edition.

Re: The raccoons who made computer magazine ads great

#44

Post by musicale » Fri, Apr 25, 2025, 5:06 AM UTC

These are wonderful illustrations, and (in addition to the marketing, metaphors and puns) they emphasize that the PC is a handy tool that can be useful in many contexts - home, work, school, recreation - but the context and the people (er, animals) are what is important, not the PC.