It's been years now, so I pose the question again:

[hearttimes]

What the hell does that mean, anyway:

Mark Of The Unicorn????

[methezer]

RTFM

[Silicon Beach Studio]

What the hell does that mean, anyway:

Mark Of The Unicorn????

why does it have to mean anything ?

Personally I think it's a pretty naff name for a music software / hardware company, but I guess there must be some esoteric / in-joke reason for it (which I'm sure someone here is clued up about ?) ...

and at least they make decent products !

[Shooshie]

It was a different world back then. Unicorns still roamed the streets. Poets waxed ecstatic on the beauty of the horny horses. Er... you know what I mean. But then someone introduced unicorns to booze. They quit combing their manes. Soon they were on crack. Every dark alley had a pathetic horse back there begging someone to hock its horn for another fix. After a few more years, the last unicorn said, "I'm gonna get myself outa this muck. I'm gonna do something honorable, something great. I'm gonna be a contenda!" so it started a record label. Trouble was, it couldn't sing or play any instruments. So, it hired Mark to write him some software so he could make music on his computer.

Well, you know what happened after that. The Unicorn signed some blonde divas who said, "so, you're a horn man? Could you jazz up our new album?" Suddenly he realized he had all he needed, and he started making billions. When Mark called to say his software was ready, he replied, "I don't need no software, bubba... I'm a contenda now!" Mark asked, "well what am I gonna do with this stuff?" but the unicorn only said "I don't care. Sell it. I'm outa here, baby." And he hopped on his plane with three Mariah Carey lookalikes and disappeared. That was the last unicorn; never seen again. But we understand he was very busy with that horn, wherever he went.

Oh yeah... the software? Mark started a company to sell it. When they asked him the name of it, he said "just use my name." But they said he had to think of something different. So... he called it eMagic, and...

wait a minute... That's illogical. I could have sworn the story ended differently. Maybe someone else knows.


Shooshie

[maintiger]

unicorns were 'big' in the 80's when motu started. It was an underground kind of craze for the kids wher they were scooping up anything 'unicorn'
the reason i know its that i used to have a business that sold framed prints back then (early to mid 80's) and half our business was literally selling unicorn framed prints. After the mid 80's the craze fizzled out like those things usually do, and unicorns were not hot anymore...
I have no idea if the unicorn craze had to do anything with the founding of mutu but the timing was certainly right...

[methezer]

I don't wanna sound like a queer or nothin but I think unicorns are kickass!
(I hope someone else has seen Orgazmo)

[thracks]

At NAMM '05 I asked this very question to the tech guys from MOTU. I also framed it in a way that let them know how nerdy unicorns have become. It's no big deal really. They said it basically translates to "mark of quality" I guess unicorns represented quality to someone at sometime

[blue]

I think they should change the name to "Mark of the Eunuch-horn," since the only thing less masculine than a unicorn is a man without a penis.

[MIDI Life Crisis]

What the hell does that mean, anyway:

Mark Of The Unicorn????

That is when a unicorn pisses on a tree to mark it's turf. As you probably know, many animals do this. It is sometimes known as "marking."

Since there were no unicorns to be found, and the developers already pissed on all the trees in the area, they settled on copyrighting their manual as a way to preserve the "idea" of the a unicorn pissing on a tree. This was particularly appropriate as trees are used to make paper and the book was made of paper. Are you starting to see the pattern now?

That is why when someone asks to buy a DP or MachFive manual or asks for help and they don't have the manual, they are politely told to piss off. Or sometimes not so politely.

[Frodo]

What the hell does that mean, anyway:

Mark Of The Unicorn????

That is when a unicorn pisses on a tree to mark it's turf. As you probably know, many animals do this. It is sometimes known as "marking."

Since there were no unicorns to be found, and the developers already pissed on all the trees in the area, they settled on copyrighting their manual as a way to preserve the "idea" of the a unicorn pissing on a tree. This was particularly appropriate as trees are used to make paper and the book was made of paper. Are you starting to see the pattern now?

That is why when someone asks to buy a DP or MachFive manual or asks for help and they don't have the manual, they are politely told to piss off. Or sometimes not so politely.

So THAT'S where DP's "markers" feature got its inspiration. I'll have to remember to wash my hands after each session!!

[MIDI Life Crisis]

What the hell does that mean, anyway:

Mark Of The Unicorn????

That is when a unicorn pisses on a tree to mark it's turf. As you probably know, many animals do this. It is sometimes known as "marking."

Since there were no unicorns to be found, and the developers already pissed on all the trees in the area, they settled on copyrighting their manual as a way to preserve the "idea" of the a unicorn pissing on a tree. This was particularly appropriate as trees are used to make paper and the book was made of paper. Are you starting to see the pattern now?

That is why when someone asks to buy a DP or MachFive manual or asks for help and they don't have the manual, they are politely told to piss off. Or sometimes not so politely.

So THAT'S where DP's "markers" feature got its inspiration. I'll have to remember to wash my hands after each session!!

OMG! DONOT wash you hands. The program has a special scent detection feature installed. If there is even a hint that you don't that "manual smell" the prog starts issuing -199 errors. These are eventually followed by repeated crashes, ending with the program only booting in "lite" mode, where in all you can do is play a 4:33 loop of silence. At that point, the John Cage estate sends you a bill and MOTU sends you a bill.

So keep that FM handy and even if you never crack it, keep touching and saying ||: There's no place like tome |

[Frodo]

Tome is where the tart is after all--!!

[Silicon Beach Studio]

well there are some interesting theories here, and I've certainly learnt something about Unicorns (all usefull stuff eh ?) ...

but the reality was something more prosaic - like a bunch of nerdy ex hippies (aren't we all ? - "eh shut it - speak for yourself" - ed), were trying to think of an "alternative" name that would be "non corporate" and "creative" - kind of like along the lines of something like "Apple" (man) ... and that's the best they could come up with ... perhaps there was a few substances involved - who knows ...

They're probably deeply embassed by the name now, but at least it's better than "MicroSoft" (yuch), "Steinberg" or "IBM" (borring) ... but not as good as say "Virgin" (hmmm tasty), "E-Magic" (niiiice) ...

so there we have it - better get on with using the bloody program eh

[BobK]

I remembered an old song by XTC that used the phrase 'unicorn and lion.'

So I just did a web search, and found that the unicorn and lion are part of the Royal Coat of Arms of the U.K. The unicorn was historically associated with Scotland. Maybe the founder of MOTU is/was Scottish or of Scottish ancestry.

In fact, one page said: 'both regarded as king of the beasts, the unicorn rules through harmony while the lion rules through might.' So maybe they chose the unicorn because of the association with 'harmony.'

Or maybe not.

If I remember correctly, I asked magicd once and he wouldn't give a serious answer - carefully guarded trade secret, I guess.

[Silicon Beach Studio]

"If I remember correctly, I asked magicd once and he wouldn't give a serious answer - carefully guarded trade secret, I guess." ...

aha, so substances were involved !

ps thanks for the heraldic info