Pc Demo

PC Demo is a 1996/97 Macintosh novelty game that exists for one purpose: to let the user gleefully demolish IBM-compatible PCs. The PC stands for Personal Computer (the Wintel kind), and the program offers four PC models the player can destroy by four different methods. It is short, silly Mac-tribalism humor in executable form, by Mark Data Works.

Smash the PC

The whole loop is pick a PC, pick a weapon, watch it die. Four target PC models cycle through onscreen, and the player chooses how to dispatch each one with one of four methods: shotgun, missile, 240-volt jolt, or microwave oven. Each method plays its own destruction animation and sound effects.

Tone and audience

The author frames PC Demo as cathartic relief for Mac users tired of being razzed by PC-owning friends in the late-1990s platform wars. The marketing copy promises the player will, after one session, "get revenge on the PC world," feel more confident, be thankful they own a Mac, and "buy another Mac" - a knowing wink at the Mac partisan culture of the era.

Version and developer

This is version 1.5, dated December 1997, copyright 1996/97 MRD (Mark Data Works). The author lists mark@mrdataworks.com and the now-historic mrdataworks.com web site, and signs off with "Long Live Apple!" The game was distributed freely through the Info-Mac archive in the game category.

System requirements

PC Demo requires a Power Macintosh, System 7.5 or later, and at minimum a 14-inch color monitor running 256 colors - thousands of colors is preferred for the destruction effects. It is PowerPC-only; 68k Macs are not supported.