BeOS... but modernized. Haiku doesn’t hit the right notes and BeOS was so freaking amazing for its time.
Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?
311–320 of 837 posts
Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?
#312Re-Volt Classic on iOS. It was a very high quality and authentic port of one of my all time favorite childhood games.
They released it in 2012 as a 32-bit iOS app. By the time 64-bit became a requirement for iOS apps, the publisher abandoned it and it never got updated. :(
Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?
#313HyperCard. It's been decades and I've still never found a better way to make simple GUI applications.
It's an absolute mystery to me why this hasn't happened even through the open source community.
For a tour down memory lane: https://blog.archive.org/2017/08/11/hypercard-on-the-archive...
Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?
#314* Windows Phone. We need a third viable option in the mobile space. This week we are concerned about the loss of a browser engine, recognizing this is unhealthy for the market. Windows Phone was terrific in many ways and recent concepts by fans such as @boxnwhisker (Harry Dohyun Kim) [1] show how beautiful the Metro design could be today. * Microsoft Image Composer. A little known sprite-oriented graphic arts program…
Windyws Phone's tile setup is still the best home screen setup for mobile. As I peep at my Android home with pretty wallpaper with acres of bhank space and uninformative icons, I pine for the informative, intelligent WP tiles. Ms Image Composer was unbeatable for digital and web stuff back then. Photoshop was rather clumsy in comparison. As for email clients, I do keep wondering how Thunderbird can be so slow , how i…
> I do keep wondering how Thunderbird can be so slow
This is a frequently heard complaint, but I can't imagine under what circumstances this would happen. I have hundreds of thousands of mails in tbird, in various accounts and folders. It's never struck me as slow. And its search (one of the features i use most) is simply fast.
Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?
#315Adobe Fireworks Jagged Alliance 2 Settlers 2 Heroes of Might and Magic
Game-wise, Warcraft 2, 3 and Dune 2 remakes. Tho I also loved C&C. I guess nostalgia or not yet feeling burned out by the RTS genre (which nowadays is irrelevant due to MOBA). (Oh, and yeah, Settlers 2 was amazing.)
WC3, C&C and RA are getting 4K-resolution remakes soon -
https://www.inquisitr.com/5163752/ea-to-remake-the-first-two...
https://www.denofgeek.com/us/games/warcraft/277402/warcraft-...
Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?
#316Turbo Delphi Explorer. It was a free version of Delphi 6. They still do have a Starter Edition, of course, with some restrictions, which TDE had too. But IIRC, TDE was available in both Win 32 and .NET versions. Borland Sidekick, a pop-up TSR productivity utility. Turbo C 2.x MS QuickC Probably a few others I need to remember.
Have you tried FreePascal/Lazarus[0]? It seems like a spiritual successor to Delphi.
Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?
#317Old-school visual basic, but maybe powered by python or another modern scripting language.
What do you mean by old school? Isn’t it powered by .NET, why would you change that? Genuinely curious, I don’t know much about msft’s developer tools.
No, Visual Basic was its own development stack direct to the OS. It had some pretty nice tooling for creating GUIs in a drag and drop manner. The last version was 6 and that was initially released in 1998.
That being said, the VB6 runtime is STILL in Windows 10, and therefore will be officially supported to a degree for at least 5-8 more years. How’s that for backwards compatibility.
Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?
#318Is no one going to mention Pebble? It's the only smartwatch I've ever wanted, and I was so sad that it got bought and died right when I had enough money to spend some on a smart watch. It just had the perfect combo of good design, long battery life, and usability.
although its no pebble, the amazfit bip is the closest contender available today
What does data security/privacy look like?
I used to be big into those dorky digital watches when I was growing up, and I've been tempted by fitness trackers. My concerns are:
A) Is the Bluetooth connection secure? Are they taking steps to make it so the Bluetooth connection isn't easily trackable? How easy is it, for instance, for me to set rules to turn off the Bluetooth when the watch isn't actively syncing?
B) Does the watch send any data to someone else's remote servers, at all? Do I need to go through a 3rd party to get access to my own data (ie. what Fitbit does)?
I already have a Smartphone, I don't want my watch to act like one. I don't want to have to do a bunch of syncing through a 3rd-party server that will get shut down and sold off with all of my data someday. I'd pay a lot of money for a device that uses my Smartphone as an access-point/hub, but that largely just works offline and independently.
Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?
#319* Windows Phone. We need a third viable option in the mobile space. This week we are concerned about the loss of a browser engine, recognizing this is unhealthy for the market. Windows Phone was terrific in many ways and recent concepts by fans such as @boxnwhisker (Harry Dohyun Kim) [1] show how beautiful the Metro design could be today. * Microsoft Image Composer. A little known sprite-oriented graphic arts program…
It is pretty telling of just how successful Yahoo, Google and Microsoft (and others) have been with webmail that the best client for multiple email accounts available is Thunderbird. It isn't awful, it works, but it is also kind of sluggish and pauses in the interfaces all the time.
Re: Ask HN: Which abandoned proprietary software would you resurrect?
#320Earlier quoted context omitted.
What do you mean by old school? Isn’t it powered by .NET, why would you change that? Genuinely curious, I don’t know much about msft’s developer tools.
No, Visual Basic was its own development stack direct to the OS. It had some pretty nice tooling for creating GUIs in a drag and drop manner. The last version was 6 and that was initially released in 1998. That being said, the VB6 runtime is STILL in Windows 10, and therefore will be officially supported to a degree for at least 5-8 more years. How’s that for backwards compatibility.
In the early 2000 MSFT released VB .NET (a different language and platform) as a successor, which is what you are thinking of. What the OP misses is the tooling surrounding VB6