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Blue95: a desktop for your childhood home's computer room

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Re: Blue95: a desktop for your childhood home's computer room

#61

Post by exiguus »

brandon272 wrote: post #27
esafak wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft Windows programs hid functionality under layers of menus and the registry. MacOS, at least, surfaces much less functionality, because it offers sensible defaults. I never had to do anything akin to fiddling with the Windows Registry. I did like some Windows things, though, like the ribbon, and reconfigurable UIs. Today's UIs are more immutable, for the worse.

There is an entire ecosystem of free and paid Mac apps meant to augment the Mac experience because MacOS does not provide functionality or configuration needed for a sensible computing experience out of the box.

I think, the main difference of MacOS and Windows is, that Windows allow drivers from 3rd-party. MacOS does not. Drivers means also hardware. So you can build your own PC. Same as with Linux.

This is the Apple secret of success IMO. No 3rd-party drivers and hardware, means, it will just work and no one will blame you for stuff 3rd-parties messed up.

But its also like: There is only a red and blue t-shirt. Choose. No gray, no white, no yellow, no printings.

Re: Blue95: a desktop for your childhood home's computer room

#62

Post by jhbadger »

vardump wrote: post #42

My childhood home's computer said 38911 BYTES FREE.

And mine just said ]▩ as it waited for you to type an Applesoft command. It is always weird when people say something is from "your childhood" as opposed to theirs. I remember the 1990s, sure, but I was already an adult.

Re: Blue95: a desktop for your childhood home's computer room

#63

Post by cosmic_cheese »

exiguus wrote: post #61
brandon272 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is an entire ecosystem of free and paid Mac apps meant to augment the Mac experience because MacOS does not provide functionality or configuration needed for a sensible computing experience out of the box.

I think, the main difference of MacOS and Windows is, that Windows allow drivers from 3rd-party. MacOS does not. Drivers means also hardware. So you can build your own PC. Same as with Linux. This is the Apple secret of success IMO. No 3rd-party drivers and hardware, means, it will just work and no one will blame you for stuff 3rd-parties messed up. But its also like: There is only a red and blue t-shirt. Choose. No…

macOS allows third-party drivers too, Apple just wants vendors to write them in userspace rather than kernelspace. That’s probably not the worst thing, because proprietary driver code is notoriously shoddy and should be run somewhere that limits the blast radius.

Re: Blue95: a desktop for your childhood home's computer room

#64

Post by TacticalCoder »

metadat wrote: post #5

This looks nice and easy to use. My hypothesis is today's "modern" OS user interfaces are objectively worse from a usability perspective, obfuscating key functionality behind layers of confusing menus. It reminds me of these "OS popularity since the 70s" time lapse views: https://youtube.com/watch?v=cTKhqtll5cQ The dominance of Windows is crazy, even today, Mac desktops and laptops are comparatively niche

> The dominance of Windows is crazy, even today, Mac desktops and laptops are comparatively niche

But for whom and to do what? People around me, like my wife and mother in law, are happy with an Android phone. If they use a computer, the only thing they need is a browser.

I wouldn't be surprised if 90%+ of all Windows users would use Windows for one thing: click on a browser icon.

That's why after one malware too many I confiscated my mother-in-law's Windows laptop and got her a Chromebook.

I'd say that's why the shit UI/UX doesn't even matter anymore for most users: the only use a browser anyway.

Re: Blue95: a desktop for your childhood home's computer room

#65

Post by selfhoster11 »

exiguus wrote: post #41
metadat wrote: post #5

This looks nice and easy to use. My hypothesis is today's "modern" OS user interfaces are objectively worse from a usability perspective, obfuscating key functionality behind layers of confusing menus. It reminds me of these "OS popularity since the 70s" time lapse views: https://youtube.com/watch?v=cTKhqtll5cQ The dominance of Windows is crazy, even today, Mac desktops and laptops are comparatively niche

What do you mean exactly? Like the Menu-Issues in Windows 10? Because from a UX perspective, basically nothing has change. UI of course, but UX is the same like in the 90's following "The Design of Everyday Things" by Donald A. I think its more about the change management, expectations. For example in Win XP you had the option to use the NT theme. As a user: "I can decide when to move on to the new design." Usually a…

I'm sorry, but absolutely no. Fuck no. Nothing from Microsoft has even been in the same building as a copy of "The Design of Everyday Things", or as a copy of any old-school UX book from before UX meant "Electron". UX is just as much about the "how" as it is about the "what", and Microsoft has been failing everyone lately on this count.

Re: Blue95: a desktop for your childhood home's computer room

#66

Post by breadwinner »

metadat wrote: post #5

This looks nice and easy to use. My hypothesis is today's "modern" OS user interfaces are objectively worse from a usability perspective, obfuscating key functionality behind layers of confusing menus. It reminds me of these "OS popularity since the 70s" time lapse views: https://youtube.com/watch?v=cTKhqtll5cQ The dominance of Windows is crazy, even today, Mac desktops and laptops are comparatively niche

Agree that "modern" OS user interfaces are objectively worse from a usability perspective. That's thanks to Flat UI, mostly.

In my opinion, nothing beats the 35-year-old NeXTSTEP interface (which W95 is a weak imitation of):

https://www.gnustep.org/carousel/PC_1300x650.png

Re: Blue95: a desktop for your childhood home's computer room

#68

Post by p_l »

zamadatix wrote: post #29
esafak wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Microsoft Windows programs hid functionality under layers of menus and the registry. MacOS, at least, surfaces much less functionality, because it offers sensible defaults. I never had to do anything akin to fiddling with the Windows Registry. I did like some Windows things, though, like the ribbon, and reconfigurable UIs. Today's UIs are more immutable, for the worse.

I'd agree macOS surfaces much less functionality but I feel like it's more "because they don't want you to feel like there is a choice to make in the first place" rather than "because the defaults are ideal for everyone". Over time it feels like "layers of menus" have definitely made their way into Apple's software anyways. The replacement to the registry seems to half be "magic CLI incantations for settings which ca…

And the defaults system is just registry by another name

Re: Blue95: a desktop for your childhood home's computer room

#69

Post by selfhoster11 »

doright wrote: post #19

I like themes like this. The only thing that hampers the authenticity for me, and this isn't the fault of the author really, is the super high resolution fonts compared to what was available back then. There's just something charming about low resolution fonts that are readable enough on screen, probably nostalgia. I think any type of pixel font authentic to a couple decades ago won't look good on a 4K monitor, unfor…

For 4K monitors, why not just pixel-double? Integer scaling will solve many issues introduced by pixel fonts.

Re: Blue95: a desktop for your childhood home's computer room

#70

Post by selfhoster11 »

wobfan wrote: post #34
doright wrote: post #19

I like themes like this. The only thing that hampers the authenticity for me, and this isn't the fault of the author really, is the super high resolution fonts compared to what was available back then. There's just something charming about low resolution fonts that are readable enough on screen, probably nostalgia. I think any type of pixel font authentic to a couple decades ago won't look good on a 4K monitor, unfor…

I actually would think less of this as a look back into the past but hopefully as a real alternative to the current DEs, which obviously then needs to have high res fonts. That would be nice.

I wouldn't say that's so "obvious". I for one would prefer the original pixel fonts, but size adjusted to fit my screen density. By hand, if required.
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