| Date | 1986–2004 |
|---|---|
| Location | |
| Organized by | Expotech, Inc |
MacHack was a Macintosh software developers conference first held in 1986 in Ann Arbor, Michigan in partnership with the University of Michigan. The conference was organized and operated by Expotech, Inc. The final (18th) MacHack conference took place on June 19–21, 2003. In 2004 the conference was renamed ADHOC (The Advanced Developers Hands On Conference). 2005 was the last year of the ADHOC conference.
The conference was atypical of computer conferences in many ways. Keynotes were generally delivered at midnight. The focus of the conference was less on attending sessions and more on developing "hacks": displays of programming, scripting, configuration, or other techie prowess. Hacks were presented in a raucous Friday night show and recognized at a Saturday banquet. The best-received hacks were those developed on-site during the three-day conference, and those that embodied both remarkable technical skill and utter impracticality. Hacks that were perceived as having some utility value were penalized.
Rather than being held in a vibrant or popular location, the first MacHacks were held in the Holidome in Ann Arbor, Michigan. After a few years, the conference tried one year at what has become known as the MacHack from Hell in Southfield, Michigan. Subsequent MacHacks were held in an indistinct Holiday Inn Fairlane-Dearborn at the corner of the Southfield Freeway and Ford Road in Detroit, Michigan (not far from Ford Headquarters and Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan).
One of the key events each year was Bash Apple, typically involving one or more representatives from Apple taking feedback from the angry mob, at times, for many hours. Jordan Mattson, an Apple representative, who engaged regularly and earnestly made the phrase, "It's all Jordan's fault" became a mantra of MacHack.
The MacHax Group held the First Annual MacHax Group Best Hack Contest at the second MacHack in 1987. The Hack Show generally started at midnight, and ran as late as 6 AM (Eric Raymond in 2000). Prizes were awarded to many of the contestants, generally inexpensive and tangentially related to the name or nature of the hack. Unbeknownst to most of the attendees, a key goal of prize selection was to see just how outrageous items could be and still have contestants being willing to take them home. During the final years, the official and beloved hardware store and key purveyor to the contest organizers was Duke's Hardware in Dearborn. Winners were selected by ballot at lunch later that same day, and awards awarded at dinner. The top prize was the coveted Victor-brand rat trap modified to say "A-trap". A-trap is a reference to the Motorola 68000 A-trap exception mechanism which Apple used to great effect in the creation of Macintosh and provided the foundation for much of the hacking enjoyed by attendees.
MacHack's small, informal ethic, and on-site coding challenges have been carried on by a number of conferences; for example, the C4 conference was explicitly created as an attempt to fill the void left by the end of MacHack.
Complete list of 1999's hacks and a conference report.
Hacks that don't demo well seldom win, even if they're incredibly cool. Hacks that actually have some value usually lose votes for being "useful".