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- Hacker News
- Alleycat in CGA just hit me hard.
For the people that didn’t live through this time, lining these images up makes it obvious why those that did speak of how visually impressive the Amiga was.
by aidos - Nothing beats a 40 year nostalgia in the morning!
Except missing that sock and falling down into the dog's path and understanding the concept of fighting like cats and dogs.
I just found out that the theme song is on Wikipedia.
by whynotmaybe - The man behind this site is known for his skills of recoverying data from QIC tapes. Looking at the "Software Library" section makes me always wonder if it will be released at some point, since that there is some stuff that isn't on BitSavers or other sites.by DVRC
- I really wish Windows 11 had a Windows 2000 mode. I want a grey, boxy UI, but I also want al the modern technologies Windows has introduced since—DirectStorage, D3D12, fast SSDs, device-independent pixels and vector UIs, all written directly against a Windows API that is modernised, safe, and easy to use. No React, no ads in my weather app; the only browser on my computer will be the browser itself.
- Win2K was peak windows.by sharts
- I dont know about Win11, but in Win10, it is still there. You can see it in MDI apps and, in a few rare circumstances, I have seen the window manager seemingly crash and flash the old Win2000-style boxy design before going back to what it currently does.by pdntspa
- Go with Win 10 LTSC or use Win Server as a daily. Both are crap-less and can be fully debloated in minutes.by 1970-01-01
- > I really wish Windows 11 had a Windows 2000 mode. I want a grey, boxy UI, but I also want al the modern technologies Windows has introduced since—DirectStorage, D3D12, fast SSDs, device-independent pixels and vector UIs, all written directly against a Windows API that is modernised, safe, and easy to use. No React
I know that you said "no React" but you might want to try ReactOS. Of course if you don't need Windows-specific driver support Linux+Wine might suffice for your needs.
by zozbot234 - I would recommend WindowBlinds to achieve the "grey, boxy UI" look. As for a Windows 2000 theme out of the box, I am not sure, but I know it can make your Windows 10/11 UI look and behave like Windows XP.
There is a custom skin editor as well, so you can tailor the look of Windows to anything you choose, so you can probably get very close to the Windows 2000 look you are seeking.
by fraXis - You want Linux.
Hardware features are contained in the kernel. GUI has nothing to do with them.
GUI frameworks provide features for applications to draw their UI.
A selection of numerous windows managers and desktop environments allows you to choose the best GUI shell to work in.
It is somewhat of a bazaar, with different components sometimes not fitting perfectly into each other and there's a constant migration to a best new thing, whether it's systemd, pulseaudio, wayland or pipewire, but generally things work OK and it's not like Windows today offers a significantly different experience.
Windows is beyond salvation at this point.
by vbezhenar - This is like porn for me :)
It's one of my favourite things, looking at and analyzing older interfaces. Some are lovely, some are cute, some are ugly, but most are... "naïve"? I love to think about the effort, the research, the trials and tribulations. I feel I will spend a great deal of time in this page!
- > [..] lovely [..] cute [..] ugly [..] naive...
First and foremost to me those screenshots are somewhat disappointing as they can't match my memories. NeXT, BeOS, Irix, OpenLook, SunOS, Arthur (imagine the diversity)... they were SO awesomely impressive at insanely high multi-sync CRT resolution.
Reality simply can't match the mind's eye, at least not for me.
- Probably also worth dropping this here in the off chance someone here will be part of today's lucky 10,000. http://toastytech.com/guis/
At first glance it looks like this is much more breadth over depth. Quite an array of systems here.
by jchw - Obligatory Link to xkcd [0]
I'll be honest, 1053 might be my favourite xkcd comic ever, purely because it's so encouraging of sharing knowledge and learning new things. Always excided to see the lucky 10,000 mentioned in the wild.
- Thank you for all these links - brought back a ton of memories, especially the Whistler screenshots. I remember running those back in the day.by dallen33
- ToastyTech is wonderful but don't forget GUIdebook, which also is.by lproven
- I love this kind of thing :) I finally have a second site to bookmark alongside this similar collection: https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshotsby lynndotpy
- Irix 5 was so clean!by keyle
- I can't help thinking about how much we have lost. Just finding the scrollbar nowadays can be a challenge. Not to mention if you want to resize a pane - in some applications they seem to have taken extra steps to make it difficult to find the line to grab.by bronlund
- I don't think we've lost these things so much as our preferences have now become a minority where once we were the majority. It seems completely normal. With the barrier to entry dropping, designs now match what is appealing to the largest number. Linux DEs are still quite customizable, and we're fortunate that niche desires can still be met there.by arjie
- I'm curious - how often do you use the scrollbar? For me, almost never (or only as an indication of progress through a document). I'm scrolling only with wheel or arrows or PgUp etc.
Perhaps though this is learned behaviour from scrollbars being tiny. I'd rather have the extra screen space. The scrollbar is usually a nuisance when I accidentally touch it (touchscreen) and the page jumps away.
by Liftyee - I still want alt+underlined letter for menus.
Ubuntu is great for resizing - alt + middle click anywhere on the window. If only other OS'es could do the same.
by CalRobert - It is very difficult for people with impaired vision to find the scrollbars, buttons et.al. on windows 11. The scrollbars are too narrow and often auto hidden. The buttons are flat and not easy to separate from normal text. Tell one window from another is also quite challenge.by infinet
- I agree. There's something about those 80s and 90s interfaces with their visible affordances, grab points, etc., that just makes them instantly comprehensible. Many of them are also beautiful.
The absolute peak, for me, though are those early releases of MacOS X. Cheetah and Puma were both incredible, both in appearance, and in use. They looked fantastic but they still had all the affordances and comprehensibility of earlier interfaces.
One thing that's also very noticeable to me: title bars are title bars and nothing else. It's just easy to grab windows and move them, resize them, etc. Nowadays I really struggle sometimes to find a place in (what should be) the titlebar to drag a window in many application.
We have lost indeed.
by bartread - One of my biggest bugbears is losing the OK/Apply/Cancel concept with dialog boxes or settings windows. If I have a window with lots of settings that I want to experiment with then I've no problem with that setting taking effect immediately, but please give me the ability to back out all the changes I've tentatively made via a Cancel button.by saw-lau
- We also lost clearly identifiable buttons, loading bars (replaced with throbbers), status bars that tell you what you're hovering over and what the program is doing, stable UIs to develop muscle memory, etc.
But we did gain some nice things!
- Tabs.
- Titlebar buttons and other space-saving measures.
- Document editors remembering unsaved changes.
- Forms that validate on focus lost, instead of submission.
- Ctrl+P menus to fuzzy-search all actions and settings (we need more of those).
- Easy syncing (if I open Spotify on any device I'll see the same playlists, my clipboard is shared between phone/desktop/notebook, Immich integrates local and remote media, etc).
- Program-specific URL protocols, so that you can click on a link and have it open in a separate program (like `steam://open/games`).
- Map widgets, a small miracle we take for granted.
- Package managers/app stores that cleanly install and uninstall applications.
by BoppreH - Operating systems of that era were designed based on UX research to help people use the unfamiliar operating system.
Subsequent ones were designed by UI designers, and opinionated senior managers, who already knew how to use them, and took out usability features to make them "look nicer". This sort of worked when the opinionated manager was Steve Jobs. Most managers are not Steve Jobs.
> in some applications they seem to have taken extra steps to make it difficult to find the line to grab
Pet peeve of mine in Windows where the line is at most one pixel now. They also took away the coloured distinction between title bars for the active window, so you don't know where keystrokes are going to go.
by pjc50 - My favorites:
GEM + Ventura Publisher http://www.typewritten.org/Media/Images/ventura-publisher-1....
Viewpoint http://www.typewritten.org/Media/Images/6085-viewpoint-2.0-p...
AUX http://www.typewritten.org/Media/Images/aux-3.0.1.png
It's suprising at first look that GEM tops my preferences but I recall having a very fond time on the Atari ST 520+. It had one of the best b/w monitors and TOS+GEM was orderly and uncluttered.
Only preemptive multitasking and per-window menus were missing. As a plus, the OS was in ROM, so boot times were <1s.
by jll29 - No mention of GeOS!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEOS_(8-bit_operating_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Softworks
by giamma - I only know it existed because on Portugal, Phillips had an option to ship GeoWorks instead of Windows on their PCs, and a guy on our class was very adamant defending it.by pjmlp