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Screenshots from Windows 95

guidebookgallery.org

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Re: Screenshots from Windows 95

#21

Post by squarefoot »

pmontra wrote: post #18
chungy wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Windows 2000 might be the actual peak. It took the good parts of Windows 95 and 98 and combined them into something quite excellent. All downhill ever since.

I agree with the choice of Windows 2000. The reaction to Windows XP was that it was too videogamish with its choice of colors and bezels. Then it lasted for so many years past Vista and in part Windows 8 that it became the reference Windows interface. Then the flat UIs mimicking the web and also the 80s with simple elements (we couldn't do complicated widgets back then, not enough pixels.)

Win XP with classic look was pretty decent and useable. There was an option in system settings to disable all theming, 3D stuff, animations etc. just the basic look of that time and a lot more snappy UX.

Re: Screenshots from Windows 95

#22

Post by stavros »

TillE wrote: post #20
stavros wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you. Buttons were immediately identifiable as such, menus had keyboard shortcuts visible everywhere, all items always looked the same across all apps, and everything was really snappy. We've really gone backwards since.

Aqua (in early versions of OS X) did a fantastic job of combining all this clear usability with a lot of fun visual flair. Even the old Qt/GTK themes which emulated that look were pretty good. It really is incredible how flat and boring modern macOS is.

Ah, I didn't have a Mac back then, but I can definitely believe that.

Re: Screenshots from Windows 95

#27

Post by Umofomia »

> This is the first and only Windows to denote the current time zone on the map. Surprisingly, in the next editions of Windows, the world map simply occupies space and the highlight is nowhere to be seen.

Explained here: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20030822-00/?p=42...

> In early 1995, a border war broke out between Peru and Ecuador and the Peruvian government complained to Microsoft that the border was incorrectly placed. Of course, if we complied and moved the border northward, we’d get an equally angry letter from the Ecuadorian government demanding that we move it back. So we removed the feature altogether.

> The time zone map met a similar fate. The Indian government threatened to ban all Microsoft software from the country because we assigned a disputed region to Pakistan in the time zone map. (Any map that depicts an unfavorable border must bear a government stamp warning the end-user that the borders are incorrect. You can’t stamp software.) We had to make a special version of Windows 95 for them.

Re: Screenshots from Windows 95

#29

Post by Umofomia »

chungy wrote: post #12

This site makes some weird choices. Calendar: "This GUI doesn't have this feature" -- yes it does. Double click the clock. Clock: The old clock application is still part of Windows 95, but it's also in the corner. Address book: Depends on the version of Windows 95. Ones that came with IE3 or IE4 have an address book. CD player: maybe the floppy version lacked it? But Windows 95 definitely has a CD player. Browser: CD…

It looks like some of the omissions you mentioned are instead included on a separate page for the OEM Service Release 2 version of Windows 95: https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/win95osr2

Re: Screenshots from Windows 95

#30

Post by pazimzadeh »

pmontra wrote: post #15
pazimzadeh wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think if you instructed someone to make a UI with greyscale 3D bevels it would look as close to NEXTSTEP as Windows 95 was. There's specific things like the source of light being on the top left, etc, which make them nearly identical.

There is a good reason to have a light source on the top: it's the natural position of the sun and of most artificial light sources. Then it could be straight from the top, but you only get one side lit and furthermore it's not very natural as it happens rarely. Then it's only two choices, from the left or from the right. A coin flip? Actually no. Top left lightning has a long history for some good reasons https://en…

> it could be straight from the top, but you only get one side lit

No, you could have the top highlight be 2 pts deep and the sides be 1 pt and one shade darker, or something like that. There are many other ways to do it.

> and furthermore it's not very natural as it happens rarely

Every day from 10 am to noon (1/3rd of the day), and any time you have your back to the sun?

> we could say it's the only professional and safe choice

Mac OS X has top down lighting and it looks great. I think what you are trying to say is that you can't think of any other ways to design the buttons.

Anyway, top left lighting is not the only detail they copied. BeOS had top-left lighting and still managed not to look like an exact clone of NEXTSTEP.

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