'C:\> FORMAT C:' – relax, it's just a screen saver (fakedos.com)

56 pointsby TheIncredibleCh6 hours ago41 comments

jrmg 2 hours ago

This is cool - but…

It’s an app, not a system-integrated[1] screensaver?

> Installation

> Drag FakeDOS.app into /Applications.

> Double-click to launch. It installs itself as a menu-bar icon.

> Click the menu-bar icon to configure or start manually.

> After the configured idle time (default: 5 min), FakeDOS takes over fullscreen.

> Type EXIT to return to your real desktop.

> Cmd + , opens six pages of pure control: idle time, warp speed, the ghost writer, sound and more. The PC speaker can be silenced. Your co-workers cannot.

[1]: ScreenSaver.framework: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/screensaver

bowsamic an hour ago

I'm surprised that the LLM that was used to vibecode this didn't point it out

kmoser an hour ago

If they had made it as a website, anybody could use it.

Tsarbomb 2 hours ago

Maybe I'm blind, but is this closed source?

creatonez 2 hours ago

Yup. OP wants you to download a sketchy closed source screensaver from an obnoxiously vibecoded website that looks identical to the scourge of phishing pages currently going after random open source projects in a fully automated way.

hollowonepl an hour ago

Finally some comment that actually makes sense here! :)

TheIncredibleCh an hour ago

Things aren't always what they seem. Sometimes it's just for fun.

bigfishrunning 11 minutes ago

Yup, totally worth rolling the die and possibly getting your identity stolen. it's just fun guys!

Gormo 2 hours ago

Reminds me of the 'BSOD' module from Xscreensaver.

owenmarshall 2 hours ago

Still my screensaver of choice after two decades. Even after it's tricked me into a forced reboot two or three times...

ButlerianJihad an hour ago

https://man.archlinux.org/man/extra/xscreensaver/decayscreen...

Decay Screen for X11. Written by David Wald, Vivek Khera, Jamie Zawinski, and Vince Levey; 1993.

teddyh 25 minutes ago

Video: <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YIqbMCfR3r0>

SoftTalker 13 minutes ago

I used to run that at work, but I'd invariably get calls or emails that "your computer is crashing over and over" so I stopped.

edoceo 6 minutes ago

I'm giving a presentation, stuck on this slide for Q&A, xscreensaver kiks in: Gaaa your computer ate a spark! Audible gasp from audience. Tap trakcpad, back to slide. Afterwards I got more questions about that than vesting schedules.

RedShift1 an hour ago

What exactly is this? Site doesn't work for me (ERR_SSL_PROTOCOL_ERROR). Gathering from the other comments, some screensaver that shows a DOS prompt?

rickdeckard 28 minutes ago

> "Gathering from the other comments, some screensaver that shows a DOS prompt?"

Kinda worse. Some Mac application that acts as a screensaver and shows a DOS-prompt when idle...

Either way, I like the idea of getting people to install and configure fun apps which then know exactly when a PC is not in use.

Could be a useful swarm of devices...

rlv-dan an hour ago

Way back I hacked together a VB6 application (don't remember what it did) but after a while it popped up a new window that faked a DOS prompt formatting the c drive. Then I send it to my best bud on April 1st with a message "Hey, check out this new program I made!" :-)

numpad0 4 hours ago

gives me SSL_ERROR_INTERNAL_ERROR_ALERT on Firefox

thehamkercat 4 hours ago

same on Chrome, maybe it's real DOS

tosti 3 hours ago

DOS has been DoS'd

RedShift1 2 hours ago

Doesn't work for me either.

1970-01-01 3 hours ago

The quantum fireball was a nice touch.

Bengalilol 4 hours ago

I was site visitor 0001101 (hit return).

I will get back until counter reaches 01000110 01010010 01001101 01000001 01010100 00100000 01000011 00111010

teddyh 21 minutes ago

I think you mean 01000110 01001111 01010010 01001101 01000001 01010100 00100000 01000011 00111010

breakwaterlabs an hour ago

Things not on my bingo card: Watching Hacker News denizens download, install, and run vibecoded Mac apps from sketchy vibecoded websites with TLS issues.

nathanaldensr an hour ago

It's time to vibedesign a new bingo card!

Boxxed an hour ago

There is also something about this being Mac-only that feels really dumb or really fitting, I can't quite put my finger on it.

kmoser an hour ago

The delicious irony is that it's written for a platform that never ran MS-DOS.

vunderba an hour ago

Anyone else append something like this to AUTOEXEC.BAT as a kid at school? We were a right bunch of bastards.

  @echo off
  echo FORMAT /Q C:
  echo ALL FILES REMOVED 
  SET DIRCMD=0

I think a lot about my poor teachers and this Calvin quote comes to mind.

https://imgur.com/a/eX4UKLk

rickdeckard 32 minutes ago

This would be more trustworthy (and portable) as a website (Would have maybe also needed less tokens to produce)

Instead it's a somewhat sketchy app that by design happens to know exactly when my PC is not in use...

qubex 3 hours ago

You couldn’t run a format command when within the disk you were trying to format. You’d need to (for example) cd A: and then format c:.

Deltree, on the other hand…

foobarian 3 hours ago

There was a secret option at one point 'FORMAT C: /AUTOTEST'

stuaxo 3 hours ago

The favourite of naughty kids in computer shops with Windows 95

qubex 2 hours ago

Yup.

jasomill 2 hours ago

I'll stick with 86Box and DOSBox and try not to run FORMAT C: without backups.

hdgvhicv 4 hours ago

32768MB of ram?

Yeah, that’s wrong.

trollbridge 3 hours ago

FP4 vs FP8 strikes again…

TheIncredibleCh 3 hours ago

Thanks for the hint, and very old bug from the beginning, forgotten in space and time....

Fixed!

snvzz 3 hours ago

Ah. Again[0].

0. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROQSw6jqJO8

fortran77 2 hours ago

It amusing how Mac users yearn for the PC experience. They know they're missing out on something great, but they can't or won't leave their cult.

wtch98 2 hours ago

Except dos isn't the PC experience. It was back in the 90s when you'd edit your config.sys and autoexec.bat to shift your himem settings so you could run a given game with your soundblaster

That world doesn't exist any more, whether you're on a mac, linux, or any other OS.