Clippy, or Clippit, from Microsoft Office.

Hey, Clippy, take note. No one actually misses you.

The infamous, virtual, and often annoying animated paperclip assistant, released by Microsoft for Office in 1997 and demoted by Microsoft four years later, has resurfaced as an application for Apple’s MacOS. CNBC reported on the staggering software development Monday, after a developer named Devran “Cosmo” Ünal released Clippy on GitHub last week.

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Even Steven Sinofsky, the former Microsoft Windows president who had a hand in the creation of Clippy (whose actual name was Clippit) had something to say about the resurfacing.

Sinofsky called it “so much fun” in a comment on Product Hunt, a site where users discuss the latest tech creations. Sinofsky is now a partner at the investment firm Andreessen Horowitz. If you’ve got more than an hour to kill, he even takes part in a documentary about Clippy, which showed up on YouTube in April.

Originally bundled into Office 97, Clippy’s intent was to pop up and help computer users navigate through programs such as Word or Excel. Instead, the pop ups proved distracting.

A Microsoft spokesperson told CNBC that while “Clippy is flattered by the attention” there are no plans by the software giant to bring him out of retirement.

(GitHub GIF)
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