thumb|300px|Mac OS system error alert from the System 7 era. These were a common sight, and Mac users of the era might need a paper clip (if the [[Programmer's Key wasn't installed) in order to restart the computer since the onscreen restart button would usually be nonfunctional.]]

The bomb icon (💣), usually depicted as a black sphere with sparking fuse has several different applications in computing, and typically indicates a fatal system error.

In computing

Mac OS

thumb|Mac OS system error "bomb" icon

The bomb icon in Mac OS is a symbol designed by Susan Kare that was displayed inside the System Error alert box when the "classic" Macintosh operating system had a crash which the system decided was unrecoverable. Since the classic Mac OS offered no memory protection, an application crash would often take down the entire system.

The bomb symbol first appeared on the original Macintosh in 1984. This was deemed obscene, and became the "System Error Manager".

Atari ST TOS

right|frame|On the Atari ST, the four bombs indicate that the system error "Illegal Instruction" has occurred.

TOS-based systems, such as the Atari ST, used a row of bombs to indicate a critical system error. The number of bombs displayed revealed information about the occurred error. The error (also called an exception) is reported by the Motorola 68000 microprocessor. The first version of TOS used mushroom clouds.

  • 1 bomb: Reset, Initial PC2
  • 2 bombs: Bus Error
  • 3 bombs: Address Error
  • 4 bombs: Illegal Instruction
  • 5 bombs: Division by zero
  • 6 bombs: CHK Instruction
  • 7 bombs: TRAPV Instruction
  • 8 bombs: Privilege Violation
  • 9 bombs: Trace
  • 10 bombs: Line 1010 Emulator
  • 11 bombs: Line 1111 Emulator
  • 12–13 bombs: Reserved
  • 14 bombs: Format Error
  • 15 bombs: Uninitialized Interrupt Vector
  • 16–23 bombs: Reserved
  • 24 bombs: Spurious Interrupt
  • 25 bombs: Level 1 Interrupt Autovector
  • 26 bombs: Level 2 Interrupt Autovector
  • 27 bombs: Level 3 Interrupt Autovector
  • 28 bombs: Level 4 Interrupt Autovector
  • 29 bombs: Level 5 Interrupt Autovector
  • 30 bombs: Level 6 Interrupt Autovector
  • 31 bombs: Level 7 Interrupt Autovector
  • 32–47 bombs: Trap Instruction Vectors
  • 48–63 bombs: Reserved
  • 64–255 bombs: User Interrupt Vectors

As a dingbat and an emoji

thumb|100x100px|Bomb from [[Noto Emoji set]]Bomb symbol was present in Microsoft Wingdings dingbats font developed in 1990 subsequently added to Miscellaneous Symbols and Pictographs character block in Unicode version 6.0 with code point .

See also

  • Grenade (insignia)
  • Screen of death

References

  • About the System Error Handler