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Dos-like: Engine for making things with a MS-DOS feel, but for modern platforms

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Re: Dos-like: Engine for making things with a MS-DOS feel, but for modern platforms

#11

Post by pjmlp »

avidphantasm wrote: post #7

Still don’t quite get the DOS nostalgia. Individual games were good, but the whole ecosystem was finicky and crash-prone by the early- to mid-90s, not to mention deeply ugly (ALL CAPS console, lousy inconsistent GUIs, unnaturally short filenames, etc.). My friends and I couldn’t wait to run Unix, NeXTSTEP, hell even classic MacOS. We only ran DOS/Windows because that’s all we had. Though don’t get me wrong, we still…

Just like I don't get the VT100 nostalgia.

Using XWindows just to manage xterms, with everything in text mode besides the window manager itself?

Welcome to 1994 using DG/UX with X terminals.

Re: Dos-like: Engine for making things with a MS-DOS feel, but for modern platforms

#12

Post by agumonkey »

arduinomancer wrote: post #3

Anyone else love the look of DOS GUIs? https://img.itch.zone/aW1hZ2UvMTIyODU3OC83MTY0MTEyLnBuZw==/o... They have such a cozy feel, reminds me of simpler times. It would be cool if there were a CSS framework where you could make webpages like that.

yes i do, the frugal aspect is extremely appealing to me.

someone made a turbovision (borland turbo pascal ui framework) lib for java https://jexer.sourceforge.io/

Re: Dos-like: Engine for making things with a MS-DOS feel, but for modern platforms

#13

Post by agumonkey »

pjmlp wrote: post #11
avidphantasm wrote: post #7

Still don’t quite get the DOS nostalgia. Individual games were good, but the whole ecosystem was finicky and crash-prone by the early- to mid-90s, not to mention deeply ugly (ALL CAPS console, lousy inconsistent GUIs, unnaturally short filenames, etc.). My friends and I couldn’t wait to run Unix, NeXTSTEP, hell even classic MacOS. We only ran DOS/Windows because that’s all we had. Though don’t get me wrong, we still…

Just like I don't get the VT100 nostalgia. Using XWindows just to manage xterms, with everything in text mode besides the window manager itself? Welcome to 1994 using DG/UX with X terminals.

some analog terminals had hardware smooth scrolling .. pretty superb even by today's standards

Re: Dos-like: Engine for making things with a MS-DOS feel, but for modern platforms

#14

Post by yoz-y »

arduinomancer wrote: post #3

Anyone else love the look of DOS GUIs? https://img.itch.zone/aW1hZ2UvMTIyODU3OC83MTY0MTEyLnBuZw==/o... They have such a cozy feel, reminds me of simpler times. It would be cool if there were a CSS framework where you could make webpages like that.

Shoutout to the https://dosgameclub.com which naturally has all the website and forums done in this style.

Re: Dos-like: Engine for making things with a MS-DOS feel, but for modern platforms

#15

Post by banana_giraffe »

bluedino wrote: post #8
avidphantasm wrote: post #7

Still don’t quite get the DOS nostalgia. Individual games were good, but the whole ecosystem was finicky and crash-prone by the early- to mid-90s, not to mention deeply ugly (ALL CAPS console, lousy inconsistent GUIs, unnaturally short filenames, etc.). My friends and I couldn’t wait to run Unix, NeXTSTEP, hell even classic MacOS. We only ran DOS/Windows because that’s all we had. Though don’t get me wrong, we still…

Try migrating people away from green-screen apps

One of my first jobs involved writing a modern (for the time) GUI app to replace some ancient services that involved logging in a mainframe to use. They needed to updated for a host of technical reasons, but there was also hope that more user-friendly versions would decrease the onboarding time for new employees.

The first version was a fairly literal replacement of the workflows. The users were pissed. They demanded the checkboxes be replaced with "Y" and "N" options to mimic what they were used to. It was interesting to see the reluctance to any change at all.

Re: Dos-like: Engine for making things with a MS-DOS feel, but for modern platforms

#16

Post by zozbot234 »

zetalyrae wrote: post #9
arduinomancer wrote: post #3

Anyone else love the look of DOS GUIs? https://img.itch.zone/aW1hZ2UvMTIyODU3OC83MTY0MTEyLnBuZw==/o... They have such a cozy feel, reminds me of simpler times. It would be cool if there were a CSS framework where you could make webpages like that.

I have fond memories of SETEDIT: http://setedit.sourceforge.net/ It was kind of a complete floating windows GUI in a TUI: http://setedit.sourceforge.net/se1.gif

PsychDOS is a very similar project: https://psychoslinux.gitlab.io/DOS/INDEX.HTM

I wonder if it would be possible to extend a terminal multiplexer to the point of providing such an intuitive interface to existing TUI software on modern *ix systems. I'm sure the effort would be quite non-trivial, but it would help a number of workflows. Adding support for the additional features that are found in these TUI environments (consider e.g. menubars) could then be done via custom terminal extensions.

Re: Dos-like: Engine for making things with a MS-DOS feel, but for modern platforms

#17

Post by brundolf »

avidphantasm wrote: post #7

Still don’t quite get the DOS nostalgia. Individual games were good, but the whole ecosystem was finicky and crash-prone by the early- to mid-90s, not to mention deeply ugly (ALL CAPS console, lousy inconsistent GUIs, unnaturally short filenames, etc.). My friends and I couldn’t wait to run Unix, NeXTSTEP, hell even classic MacOS. We only ran DOS/Windows because that’s all we had. Though don’t get me wrong, we still…

People can have nostalgia about anything; I have nostalgia for lots of things that I know would be totally unappealing without it

Re: Dos-like: Engine for making things with a MS-DOS feel, but for modern platforms

#18

Post by jmspring »

avidphantasm wrote: post #7

Still don’t quite get the DOS nostalgia. Individual games were good, but the whole ecosystem was finicky and crash-prone by the early- to mid-90s, not to mention deeply ugly (ALL CAPS console, lousy inconsistent GUIs, unnaturally short filenames, etc.). My friends and I couldn’t wait to run Unix, NeXTSTEP, hell even classic MacOS. We only ran DOS/Windows because that’s all we had. Though don’t get me wrong, we still…

The OS itself was very basic. Learning to program things like TSRs, dealing with HIGHMEM, BASIC and BASIC assemblers vs C and other tools. It was a complicated environment by the restrictions, but those restrictions when explored taught one a lot about programming.

Michael Abrash's graphics programming tutorials - https://www.jagregory.com/abrash-black-book/

It was a great environment to learn in. I spent time there, on the Amiga, and other systems. I honestly love how easy and powerful systems are now, but miss swap meets and the like for meeting up, talking hardware, software, etc.

Re: Dos-like: Engine for making things with a MS-DOS feel, but for modern platforms

#20

Post by easton »

arduinomancer wrote: post #3

Anyone else love the look of DOS GUIs? https://img.itch.zone/aW1hZ2UvMTIyODU3OC83MTY0MTEyLnBuZw==/o... They have such a cozy feel, reminds me of simpler times. It would be cool if there were a CSS framework where you could make webpages like that.

https://kristopolous.github.io/BOOTSTRA.386/ might be up your alley
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