[url http://www.physorg.com/news6533.html]
Look, it's the allegro mouse!

First famous for its appearances in the allegro usage examples, it has gone on to be a figurehead for plague-bearing mice everywhere. I'm so proud

... if found quick enough huh... doesn't it start out like the basic flu virus then gets really worse? I can imagine this being a bioterror if it happened. You know you would think that when a devastating virus such as the plague was erradicated and contained in only a few test tubes around the world it would be destroyed forever, but of course science likes to study the virus.. and enhance it if ever a biolocical war ever was decided, I bet terrorists would love to get ahold of that stuff.

Holy moly. I was under the impression that Mysha was an actual mouse--Shawn Hargreaves' pet, perhaps. So she's just a stock photo? This is a sad day for all of us...

Yeah, that's the mysha photo...is it floating around the net and they just grabbed it? Or is it like Gideon says and is just a stock photo?

Anyway, they said there's no threat. Now, that doesn't mean there really isn't a threat, but...ya know...maybe it's cool? shrugs

Oh great, now everyone will have Allegroitis! The only known cure for Mysha's illness is to spend 6 hours a day in Allegro.cc. I hope Matthew's server can handle the pressure.

Wasn't this image featured elsewhere?

I saw that picture back in the early '90s. On cshow (compuserve) i think. It also showed itself on monitors in computer stores when 8-bit colour at 640x480 was something to have wet dreams over. Shawn just lifted it from somewhere.

Hmm... sounds like an episode of 24. I always hated that show...

Maybe Mysha is a clone source. And now his/her descendants are taking revenue or something?

They cloned Shawn's mouse and took a picture of the clone.

That picture makes today the greatest day in all of humanity.

That's just a stock image. It wasn't even me that added it to Allegro in the first place: if I remember right it was Grzegorz Ludorowski that needed it for one of the examples he wrote.

For bonus points, what country would someone called Grzegorz be likely to come from, and what does Mysha mean in that language?

Poland, mouse? Though I read it was Slavic.

Mystery solved, though it's a bit disappointing. I also thought it was your pet.

EDIT: Ok, so Polish is Slavic. Shows how much I know.

Sounds Polish, and mysha means mouse, if I remember correctly.

EDIT: for anyone who is disappointed, I can volunteer a picture of my late cat for distribution with Allegro

I did have a pet hamster when I was younger, but that was long before Allegro :-)

Yea, replace the mouse with a cat. Then maybe for Allegro 5, replace with a dog.

The proper spelling is mysz. Mysha sound like internet slang to me.

So it's Mysha that brought the Hakkar plague to the lands of Azeroth?

Here's a thought. You know how we've recently had a competition to replace the demo game? Why not have a competition to replace the pic of Mysha. Perhaps we could all post pictures of our pets, and the best pet gets to be the new Allegro mascot.

AE.

Yes, I can remember exclaiming over that mouse in amazement when I was in junior high. I saw it on one of these fancy new color monitors. "It looks just like a photograph!" Then I went back home to my Mac Plus with its 9-inch black and white screen. ...it just wasn't the same