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Comment by Dalewyn | Hacker News Reader

My only question is why MacOS initializes the cursor in the top left corner like a neanderthal from the 70s.

No idea what you're talking about. MacOS Monterey initializes it in the center of the primary screen, after which I need to use the keyboard to put the password in. I restarted my macOS to give this very thoughtful and carefully written reply.

This might be different based on model. On a MacBook Pro (Retina, 13-inch, Early 2015) with macOS 12.6.3, the cursor initializes in the top-left at bootup.

I think this started with Monterey, because on Big Sur and earlier, it always initialized in the center.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe NeXTSTEP also initialized the cursor close to the top-left corner. So this might either be an homage to NeXTSTEP (similar to how the Clarus dogcow has reappeared in macOS Ventura), or a bug. My bet is on the latter.

IIRC classic Mac OS also puts the cursor top left at startup.

I have to admit "where the mouse cursor is at startup" is a very minor niggle for myself, as I rarely restart / shut down computers and the password field for the last user is usually selected and will take typing by default anyway (or after Ctrl-Alt-Del on Windows, if you're old school and turn that on). After sleep modes it could be anywhere, so you're going to be reorientating yourself anyway...

No clue. I remember that on Leopard and Snow Leopard it used to be top left corner but I stopped paying attention and now it shows up in the center of a primary screen.

It actually initialises it at one horizontal plane downards if you mark 3 plane divisions on half the screen at the golden intersection from the center to each previous mark.

Couldn't you have just logged out?

> Couldn't you have just logged out?

I preferred the thorough 20s restart approach.

How do neanderthals from the 2020s hold the cursors?

Being old and grumpy, there were very few "mouse cursors" in the 70s. The first ones in general use were in the early 80s.

I actually love that, it's weirdly calming.

Because most people are right-handed

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