KeyWack is a game for babies who like to sit at their parent’s Mac and bang the keyboard. KeyWack prevents babies from accidentally opening most programs or documents, and makes banging even more fun by drawing shapes and playing random sounds as the keys are whacked.
You can also click with the mouse to place a shape at a particular location.
If you there is no activity on your computer for 5 minutes KeyWack turns into a screen saver. To get out of screen saver mode hit any key.
To quit KeyWack type “command-Q”. You must then type the word “quit” into the password dialog. A progress bar shows you how much time you have left to type.
If you do not type the password in time (about 10 seconds) KeyWack does not quit. This prevents little ones from renaming your hard drive, files and folders.
After typing “quit” a dialog appears with two buttons. Clicking on the “Bye” quits KeyWack. Clicking on the “Prefs” button brings up the “Preferences” dialog.
The “Preferences” dialog allows you to set the number of shapes drawn before the screen is cleared. Choose “Never clear the screen” if you don’t want the screen cleared.
This program works with any Mac (with System 6.0.2 or higher) but looks best on one with color. The preferences dialog only works on more recent versions of system software. (Version 7.0 or higher, I think.)
KeyWack is shareware ($10 US). All rights are reserved by the author.
*** Not responsible for damage done to keyboards by over-enthusiastic users. ***
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Adding sounds to KeyWack
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You can add sounds to KeyWack using a resource editor (such as ResEdit) as long you set their resource ID number to something greater than 1000.
If you have system 7 you can drop a file containing sound resources onto the KeyWack icon. If the file contains any sound resources they will be played, one at a time, and a dialog will appear asking you if you would like to add the last sound played.
(You may have to rebuild the desktop for this feature to work if you have an older version of KeyWack installed on you Mac.)
Don't add sounds to your original copy of KeyWack — then if something goes wrong you will still have an undamaged copy.
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Revision History
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• Version 1.0.1 Bug fix for pre-system-7 Macs. On older systems KeyWack 1.0 failed to free up the sound channels it used, causing sound to be shut off for other applications.
• Version 1.1 Now draws letters and numbers as well as shapes. New songs. New cursor.
• Version 1.1.1 Small changes in the way letters are drawn on black & white Macs.
• Version 1.2 Now handles command, option, control and shift keys. Added a few more sounds.
• Version 1.3 If you have system 7, drop a file containing sound resources ('snd ') they will be added to KeyWack. Fixed bug that caused sounds to be played continuously when the command, option, control or shift key was held down. Access to the Apple and the Help menus has been removed.
• Version 1.3.2 Fixed some bugs with the drop sounds in feature.
• Version 2.0 Hides menu bar, password needed to quit, user preferences. KeyWack is now shareware ($10 US dollars).
• Version 2.0.1 (Never released) fixes a bug that caused sounds to be turned off the first time KeyWack was started up on some machines. Added background color and "screen saver" mode.
• Version 2.1 eliminates problems caused by the power key in System 7.5.X. (Thanks to Brian Bechtel at Apple for the sample code.) Improved "quit" dialog behavior. Fixed remaining problems with missing icon and sounds (I hope!).
