The most surprising thing about these is the stark reminder of Microsoft's dominance during this era. Whether it's the terminal emulator running on NT4 or Internet Explorer being the only sensible browser on a Mac, Microsoft has fallen far with this crowd.
Screenshots from developers and Unix people taken in 2002
41–50 of 241 posts
Re: Screenshots from developers and Unix people taken in 2002
#42You know you've made it when you can casually say “I don’t know how to make a screenshot, because I normally use my computer in text-mode.” Badass Richard.
He also tends not to view websites like HN, GitHub, etc., at least as of a few years ago. I'm not sure if it is because he is still in text mode all the time, because he disagrees with using sites that might somehow involve something that isn't free source, or because he just delegates to others the task of surfing the web and getting information for him. He definitely spends a lot of time emailing though. I admire h…
He also tends not to view websites like HN, GitHub, etc.,
at least as of a few years ago. I'm not sure if it is
because he is still in text mode all the time
at least for vim, there's a nice plugin [0] for reading HN. most probably there would be something for his emacs/org-mode as well.
Re: Screenshots from developers and Unix people taken in 2002
#43A good old Russian site linux.org.ru has a huge archive of Linux screenshots (1999-), you should check it out http://www.linux.org.ru/gallery/archive/
This is where I got started using Linux. Oh the memories. I even have some of my (terrible) screenshots on there and had submitted a bunch of news articles and hundreds of comments. Now I don't even remember my username.
Re: Screenshots from developers and Unix people taken in 2002
#44The tiling window manager wasn't invented yet? All of these screenshots look like floating window hell. Thank god we live in the future!
The first version of Windows used a tiling window manager (or whatever that sort of thing is called on Windows.)
Re: Screenshots from developers and Unix people taken in 2002
#45I really liked these. This makes me feel old. I look at those desktops (particularly the Windows 95 one) and think they look clean and neat, with few distractions. I also know that they ran speedily on rubbish hardware. After ditching my BBC B (I was poor), I remember using Win 3.1 on a 386SX with 4MB RAM that someone had thrown out and installing software to take over program manager and make it look like Win95 beca…
> clean and neat
Really? You miss that special "concrete gray and primary blue" feel?
I think I used every MS operating system starting with DOS, and I miss exactly none of the "historic" interfaces. To the extent I get annoyed when institutional IT departments force you to use the "classic" theme on modern windows boxes ("It's faster!" - no, it isn't to any human perceptible degree, and I appreciate not having to stare at beige rectangles all day).
I think engineers have a lot of nostalgia for this old stuff, but it's misplaced - interface design has moved foward in huge strides in the last decades, learning from mistakes. We've given up excessive skeumorphism, but we've kept improvements in design, layout, graphics, and perhaps most importantly we've learned that you need someone with serious visual and UX design skills to make an interface.
Re: Screenshots from developers and Unix people taken in 2002
#46That smoking spy icon in Ritchie's screenshot gives me flashbacks to mid-90s childhood. I remember seeing it around quite a bit for a while, but can't remember where. Anyone know where it's from?
Re: Screenshots from developers and Unix people taken in 2002
#47The itunes interface hasn't changed much in the last 13 years. Not many software products go that long without a major reskin, especially seeing as it came from a company that prides itself on it's progressive design.
As soon as I saw that, my first thought was that the interface has gotten worse. I realize they've crammed a lot more stuff into it, so maybe I'm being too critical. I'm pretty sure Apple can do better though.
I have an iPod Touch and I wanted to listen to Beats One in iTunes. I had to go to Google to figure out where it is. Hint: it isn't part of internet radio.
Re: Screenshots from developers and Unix people taken in 2002
#48You know you've made it when you can casually say “I don’t know how to make a screenshot, because I normally use my computer in text-mode.” Badass Richard.
In case anyone is wondering, on Linux you can take a screenshot of the current virtual console by reading from /dev/vcs. The numbered devices allow you to read from a specific virtual console, and each device has a 'vcsa' counterpart that includes colour and cursor information.
Re: Screenshots from developers and Unix people taken in 2002
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
He also tends not to view websites like HN, GitHub, etc., at least as of a few years ago. I'm not sure if it is because he is still in text mode all the time, because he disagrees with using sites that might somehow involve something that isn't free source, or because he just delegates to others the task of surfing the web and getting information for him. He definitely spends a lot of time emailing though. I admire h…
He also tends not to view websites like HN, GitHub, etc., at least as of a few years ago. I'm not sure if it is because he is still in text mode all the time just as a side note, not that I think he's wasting his precious time like us anyway: at least for vim, there's a nice plugin [0] for reading HN. most probably there would be something for his emacs/org-mode as well. [0] https://github.com/ryanss/vim-hackernews
This is the very last thing I need.
Re: Screenshots from developers and Unix people taken in 2002
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
I quite miss the brushed metal look. It is interesting that you could take OSX from back then and put it in front of someone today and it'll behave mostly the same. Sadly the same could not be sad about mainstream Linux environments (GNOME3, Unity etc.) or Windows 8/10. Windows 10 you can to some extent. Thought provoking.
> Windows 10 you can to some extent. Only compared to Windows 7 or Vista maybe. Definitely no compared to, NT4/Me/2000/XP from back then. > Sadly the same could not be sad about mainstream Linux environments I'm still wondering what the Unity/Gnome/KDE devs smoke. From what I've gathered from Gnome users, the only way to make it bearable is by ripping out half its functionality and replacing it with (Gnome-specific)…
That's the thing with Linux - if you don't like the default DE/WM because it changes too much, then use one which doesn't. User friendly distros pack things like Openbox or i3 with some sensible defaults.
I am always "sudo apt-get install i3" and "git clone dotfiles" away from a configured tiling window manager if that's what I'm after.