Installing this preference file will reenable the startup and invokation sounds that were present in ObiWan 4 but disappeared in ObiWan 5.
Installation
To install the sounds, follow these easy steps:
• First install ObiWan 5.0.1. [This procedure won’t work with any earlier versions.]
• Then drag this file to the Preferences folder, replacing the existing preferences file.
• Now reconfigure ObiWan. Because this is a preferences file you’ll inherit my preferences for such things as the parse proc and the default database. The extra two buttons (the ones with the speaker icons) let you selectively enable the startup and invokation sound.
Alternatively:
• use ResEdit to copy the 'snd ' resources into the ObiWan Preference files in your Preferences folder.
The History of ObiWan (in 9 and a half chapters)
In the beginning there was OnBase and it was way cool. Unfortunately it never got updated to include System 7 features and programmers began to stray from its coolness away to evils such as Think Reference and MPW 411.
To fix this problem Pete sat down one Christmas break to rewrite it as a freeware program. The original program was known as “OB”, after the initials of OnBase. This was pronounced “oh-bee” and eventually someone had the bright idea of putting a 1 after it, to become “OB1”, or indeed ObiWan.
This name was really cool ’cause it lead to a really cool icon, namely the R2D2 that we know and love. Eventually things got out of hand, with the database maintenance tool being called Master Yoda and the primary programming database being called the Force.
Somewhere along the line the idea of it playing the “Help me ObiWan Kenobi, you’re my only hope.” sound during invokation came about. Whenever we’d use ObiWan it was traditional to mouth this prayer to the great god of interface files. I kept pestering Pete to include code to play the sounds and he eventually gave in and said “Well if you record the sounds I’ll put them in.” So I did… and he did.
The time delay while it chanted “Help me ObiWan…” got a bit annoying and so Pete got the pleasure of learning how to play asynchronous sounds. Also the fact that Princess Leia spoke every time was a bit annoying so Pete inserted a delay, so that she wouldn’t show up more than once a minute.
I’m not entirely sure where the startup sound idea came from but in for a penny, in for a pound as they say. It most probably had something to do with the name of the Force.
Several years later and ObiWan has been through a number of major revisions, including the latest ObiWan 5 release, which is based on Text Services Manager. This was really useful because the old method was not quite as compatible with the Display Manager as we would have liked it to be.
The Force database itself had a chequered history. Originally it was derived from the MPW 411 PInterfaces.help file but that file never got revised and another Christmas break later the new Force was unveiled, this time with the data parsed out of the new Inside Macintosh DocViewer files. And don’t mention SW.LICENCE@applelink.apple.com to Pete or he’ll start to whimper.
Because ObiWan was to be distributed on the CodeWarrior CDs (and because he’s getting conservative in his old age) Pete didn’t want to take the heat for the possible copyright violations associated with these sounds. So he yanked the sounds but left support for them in the program.
Because I was the person who badgered Pete to put them in in the first place (and I’m still young at heart) I’m quite prepared to ship this file.
[The decision as to which chapter is the half chapter is left as an exercise to the reader.]
Credits
Oh um, both of these sounds are direct thefts from the movie “Star Wars”. Please don’t sue me 20th Century Fox! Princess Leia was recorded by me and ObiWan was found on the net.
Contacts
ObiWan was written by Peter N Lewis <peter@kagi.com>
AKA The Man With the Ever-Changing Email address.
The correct spelling for the name of the old Jedi knight featured in Star Wars is Obi-Wan Kenobi.
You can FTP the latest versions of all my stuff from:
