Retro MacOS desktop blanket trades pixels for wire, and it looks Mac-nificant

Vintage technology is part of our shared cultural heritage, but in the commercial world it is often overshadowed by pop culture memories. Go to any clothing store and you’ll find 1984 He-Man T-shirts, but where are the products that celebrate the 1984 computers? Enter Throwboy, a Seattle-based company that produces throw pillows and blankets based on ancient technology.

Although Throwboy has been in business since 2007, it still comes up with new designs. Aiming at 68K Mac nostalgia, Throwboy just released a 50×60-inch knit blanket based on a modified Mac OS desktop screenshot in all its 1-bit color glory. (It looks like System 7 to us, based on the presence of the Balloon Help icon.)

We haven’t seen the $185 blanket in person — and this isn’t a review or endorsement (although others seem to like their throw pillows) — but the cultural history woven into Throwboy’s products over the years made us wanted to reach out to the founder and CEO, Roberto Hoyos, to ask him about the retro tech inspirations behind his company.

From screens to seams

While browsing the Throwboy website, we noticed a theme: a lot of love for Apple products, including throw pillows shaped like vintage Macs or iPhones, and blankets covered in iPods or Command key symbols. So we asked Hoyos: When was the first time you used a Mac?

“I first started using them when I was in grade school. I vividly remember someone coming to our class and teaching us how a mouse worked and how to cut, copy and paste,” he told us via e-mail. mail. That was many years ago and he has used many Macs since then. Of all the Mac models, the iMac G4 is his favorite. “The design is so outspoken, but still beautiful. I’d love to see a comeback of that swivel neck display.”

While some of the blankets on the Throwboy site appear to be printed designs on flat fleece, the Classic Desktop Knit Cotton Blanket caught our eye because the design is actually woven into the material, which goes well with the Mac’s low-res pixel art. desktop. Apparently, that resemblance is intentional: “I got the idea to make a knit blanket that embraced the gritty look that knit patterns inherently have,” says Hoyos. “We had been making heirloom quality knitted blankets for over a year…I thought, ‘How cool would it be to make one of the classic GUI with as much detail as possible?'”

To create the Classic Desktop Knit Cotton Blanket, Hoyos teamed up with New York-based Mineola Knitting Co. “They use recycled cotton and poly materials to create the knitted patterns you see in the Classic Desktop Knitting Blanket, a durable blanket with a nice weight and quality feel,” he says.

We asked him about the relatively high price of the roll, which is striking in today’s world full of cheap, mass-produced (but often low-quality) goods. According to him, the production technique makes the difference: “[Our knit blankets] are knitted in New York, have a finely sewn detailed edge finish (not a messy frayed edge like some mass-produced knit blankets), and are heirloom quality that will last. We stand behind this like our other products and it is always our goal to create products that people want to keep for life.”

According to Hoyos, Icon Pillow, Throwboy’s best-selling product in its store, is based on the MacOS Finder icon. “That’s been a classic staple of our Throwboy pillow line of plush throw pillows since 2007,” he says. When asked about the risk of trademark complications (since there’s no license to the design), Hoyos says, “It’s important to me that our products are inspired by the engineering design we love, but not one-to-one exact.”

Potential trademark issues aside, Throwboy is apparently doing well enough as a company that Hoyos is currently working on building a “pillow factory” in Seattle. “I started the business by sewing all the pillows myself, but later I focused on outsourcing abroad. My dream has been to bring production back to the US and to my backyard in the Pacific Northwest where Throwboy started, and the time is finally right,” he says. “I’m launching a Kickstarter campaign later this summer to raise money for the machines needed to make pillows in-house.”

Having made pillows in many different designs for 16 years, Hoyos attributes his skill with textiles to an important family connection. “I learned to sew when I was 5 from my grandmother, Delia Cano,” says Hoyos. “I started making clothes for my teddy bears. My grandmother emigrated from Peru in the 1950s and she was a clothing designer who had her own business and sewing factory in Seattle. Until her passing last year, she was a consultant for everything I did at Throw boy.”

Looking ahead, Hoyos says its future fabric plans include many odes to old technology: “More pillows, more blankets, more fun things are always in the pipeline for our beloved tech community.” We hope he makes a 16-color Windows 3.1 desktop blanket next.