Playing an Animated GIF in a System 7 About Box, Built in THINK C over the AppleBridge

Sun, 05 Jul 2026 16:16:49 +0200

A companion note to MacNetScan, where an animated About-box logo was promised and then defeated: every decoder on the host refused the supplied GIF, so the motion was faked in QuickDraw over a static picture. This note records the sequel. A decodable copy of the same artwork finally arrived, and the animation was done for real — sixteen true frames of a pixel-art title card, decoded and packed on the host, blitted frame by frame inside the About box of a System 7 application that was itself written and compiled in a 1994 THINK C IDE, driven end to end across the AppleBridge with no hands on the keyboard.

QuickDraw on Defender TD5

Playing an Animated GIF in a System 7 About Box, Built in THINK C over the AppleBridge