in 2020. The Macintosh startup chime is played on power-up, before booting into an operating system. The sound indicates that diagnostic tests were run immediately at startup and have found no hardware or fundamental software problems. The specific sound differs depending on the ROM, which greatly varies depending on Macintosh model. For models built prior to the introduction of the Power Macintosh in 1994, the failure of initial self-diagnostic tests results in a
Sad Mac icon, an error code, and (later) the distinctive Chimes of Death sounds. The startup chime used in the first three Macintosh models is a simple square-wave "beep" generated at 600 Hz that was programmed in software by
Andy Hertzfeld, utilizing the computers' onboard
MOS 6522 VIA chip. Variations of this sound were employed until Apple sound designer
Jim Reekes created the startup chime used in the
Quadra 700 through the
Quadra 800. Reekes said, "The startup sound was done in my home studio on a
Korg Wavestation EX. It's a C major chord, played with both hands stretched out as wide as possible (with 3rd at the top, if I recall)." He recalls that Apple did not give him permission to change the sound and that he secretly snuck the sound into the computers with the help of engineers who were in charge of the ROM chips. When Apple discovered this, he refused to change it, using various claims in order to keep the sound intact. He is also the creator of the iconic (or "earconic", as he calls it) "bong" startup chime used in most Macintoshes since the
Quadra 840AV. It was created with multiple synthesizers, one of them being Reekes' Wavestation using a modified version of the "Sandman" preset and another being an Oberheim Matrix-6. A slightly lower-pitched version of this chime is used in all PCI-based
Power Macs until the
iMac G3. On the other hand, the
Macintosh LC, LC II, and
Macintosh Classic II do not use the Reekes chime, instead using a software-programmed F major
fifth chord that simply produces a "ding" sound. The first generation Power Macintosh computers also do not use the Reekes chime, instead using a chord strummed by jazz guitarist
Stanley Jordan on an
Ovation (sometimes incorrectly attributed as a
Yamaha in some sources)
steel-string acoustic guitar using the
finger tapping technique. Furthermore, the
Power Macintosh 5200–6300 computers use a unique chime (excluding the
5400 and
5500, which uses the same "bong" chime used in all PCI-based Power Macs) that was composed on the
Fairlight CMI, which is also used in television commercials for the Power Macintosh and PowerBook series from 1995 until 1998. The
20th Anniversary Macintosh uses another unique chime, which was also composed on a Korg Wavestation using a modified version of a preset found on one of its sound expansion cards. The chime used for all Mac computers from 1998 to early 2016 is the same chime that was first introduced in the iMac G3. It was produced by pitch-shifting the 840AV's startup chime, making it an F-sharp major chord. Since 2012, the Mac startup chime has been a
registered trademark in the United States, and is also featured in the 2008
Pixar film
WALL-E when the titular robot character is fully recharged by
solar panels as well as in the 2007 Brad Paisley song "
Online". Starting with the 2016 MacBook Pro, all new Macs were shipped without a startup chime, with the Macs silently booting when powered on. The startup chime would later be added to these models (and all subsequent models since) with the release of
macOS Big Sur in 2020, which can be enabled or disabled in System Preferences. The new startup chime introduced with Big Sur is similar to the previous chime except it was pitch-shifted down one semitone, producing an F major chord instead of an F-sharp one. The sound mixing of the new startup chime is also noticeably different from that of the previous chime. Prior to Big Sur's release, a similar-sounding variant of this startup chime was used during the "Simplicity Shootout" commercial shown at the iMac G3's introduction in 1998. Initially, the new startup chime from Big Sur was only used on Intel-based Macs equipped with a
T2 security chip, with most other Macs at the time (including older ones) still using the previous chime (even when upgraded to Big Sur prior to the 2020 Mojave and Catalina security updates). Eventually, the new startup chime was brought over to all older supported Macs starting with the macOS Big Sur 11.0.1 beta, and a firmware update included in the macOS Catalina 2020-001 Security Update and the macOS Mojave 2020-007 Security Update brought the new startup chime in Big Sur to all Macs that support Big Sur, including the Late 2013 iMac (despite not officially supported by Apple to run Big Sur). == Happy Mac and Apple logo ==