#31: The Dogcow
Written by: Mark "The Red" Harlan April 1989
Recently we've been getting a lot of questions about the dogcow in DTS.
The purpose of this Technical Note is to clear up any confusion that you
may have, and more importantly, to get you to quit bugging me about it.
What is a Dogcow?
I wish I had a nickel for every time I've heard this question--by now I'd
have enough money to buy a "Changing the world, one person at a time"
bumper sticker. Dogcows, by their nature, are not all dog, nor are they
all cow, but they are a special genetic hybrid. They are rarely seen in
the wild. Since dogcows are two dimensional, they will stand facing a viewer
"on edge" to avoid being seen.
The dogcow has no natural enemies, but the meager population manages to
keep itself in check through its own stupidity. They have a nasty tendency
to graze off cliffs (in fact, there are no known "cliff-dwelling dogcows"
left in existence) and to get lost in the weeds. You've probably noticed
that when you cut very high grass, you tend to get a lot of "paper"
in the grass clippings; closer examination would show that much of it is
actually dogcow. When a mower approaches, dogcows often actually change
their hide to resemble newspaper as a final line of defense--hence the famous
expression, "black and white and read all over."
But What Does This Have to do With the Macintosh?
There is a life-size picture of a dogcow conveniently located in the Finder.
Look under "Page Setup..." Now look under "Options."
Walla [sic], there is the dogcow in all it's raging glory. Like any talented
dog, it can do flips. Like any talented cow, it can do precision bitmap
alignment. The reason that the dogcow can invert has to do with the fact
that it's genes have about as much order as the crowd at a Sex Pistols concert.
The dogcow has a name, and it's not Myria. The dogcow's name is Clarus.
Several people have said to me, "Mark, you handsome devil, I think
I've heard that name, or something similar, somewhere before." I always
tell them, "No, you're hallucinating again. You never remember anything."
The dogcow's name is Clarus for the same reason you call a table a "table."
Make sure to note that Miss Manners says:
Gentle Reader,
You should only address a dogcow by name, and then only after it
has spoken to you. Miss Manners would not consider "Moof!"a
term of affection.
Whether or not the animal in the Macintosh dialog is just a picture
of a dogcow or an actual dogcow has been widely debated, mostly by
people who were procrastinating getting their real work done. I personally
would argue that it is just a picture, but I'm sure a large sum of money
could change my mind.
A Little History Perhaps?
A picture of the dogcow first appeared in the Cairo font in the original
Macintosh. As the font became, dare I say, endangered, the dogcow has moved
over into LaserWriter driver 4.0, and no one's been able to get rid of it
yet.
At this point, it should be noted that dogcows are notorious for brainwashing
people, and it's likely that a dogcow would make someone "think"
that they added its picture to a dialog of their own free will, when the
dogcow actually had complete control. Moofo the "psychic dogcow"
is the best example of dogcows and mind control.[1] This
mind control explains behavior like dogcow buttons appearing and disappearing
in different copies of the same ad. The weaker a subject's mind, the more
power a dogcow will have over that subject.
Scott "ZZ" Zimmerman of MacDTS was the person who actually coined
the term "dogcow," on October 15, 1987. Prior to that, it was
referred to scientifically by biologists as, "that weird looking thing,"
and by computer geeks as "the doggie dialog." Just like the space
program gave you the advanced technology for teflon, Apple has fathered
the research in dogcow biology.
Upon closer examination, I discovered that dogcows actually "speak."
In a very excited condition, like being near an open can of Mountain Dew[2
], dogcows will say "Boo Woo! Moof!" But it is much more common
to hear them just say, "Moof!" [3
]
The dogcow is the mascot ("icon" for you gear heads) of DTS. It
was not created here, but it was turned loose on the world for us to support.
The dogcow was kicked around, laughed at, and virtually orphaned from everyone's
memory. We decided that we should take it under our roof. It's a monument
to every developer who's ever gone running off through the weeds with an
idea or seen their program grazing off the cliff. It represents every member
of Developer Technical Support because it has roughly the same IQ.
Of course, now the dogcow is very popular, you may see someone outside of
DTS with a dogcow button or shirt. Just ask them, "Where were you when
people were picking on the dogcow?" When they lie to you and say they've
been a fan of the dogcow for years, tell them, "Sure, and I bet you're
going to tell me you voted for McGovern too."
Okay, So How Do I Draw a Dogcow?
There is actually a mathematical way to do it. Any cycloid in the intersection
of the Bovine and Canine coordinate systems will give you a dogcow. As you
would suspect, the bigger the cycloid, the more personality the dogcow.
For those of you that don't have a Ph.D. in mathematics, it's probably better
if I give you a picture so you can trace lines. 
I Was Told There Would be No Math!
Too bad.
Aanal, Enacku Naiimadu Kaanali!
The reason that you can't see the dogcow is probably due to the fact that
you are running an Arabic System. The Options dialog in Arabic Systems has
a horse instead, sorry.
Are You Finished Yet?
Almost. Really I'm surprised that you've made it this far in life without
knowing more about dogcows. I'm even surprised that you've made it this
far in the Technical Note without throwing it away. I think it's only appropriate
to close with a quote from the Poetry Muse:
A dogcow is what I want to be.
Pictured in dialogs,
Running through the weeds,
In and out of advertisements,
Loving my naughty deeds.
Feeling in black and white.
Over the edge of cliffs,
Out with the tide in the sea.
Living life to the fullest,
Sweet survival in 2 D.
[1] Apologies to Penn and Teller.
[2] Mountain Dew is a registered trademark of
Pepsico, Inc.
[3] See the Technical Note Stack for an example.
