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Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

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Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#211

Post by whartung »

FergusArgyll wrote: post #61
hermitcrab wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is definitely an element of nostalgia. However, a lot of earlier desktop OS GUIs do seem to be more internally consistent and with more emphasis on usability than the current crop. I think part of the issue is that things that might make sense on a phone have bled into desktop OSes, where they make a lot less sense.

I don't mean this in a dismissive way but based on your profile I'd say you're > 25. I'm curious about the perspective of someone who didn't grow up with the those os's

You have to appreciate that the nostalgia is not necessarily how these looked, but also how they worked.

Also, there's simply the reminiscing back to the era when these were out. When they were NEW, and revolutionary.

All things that cannot be conveyed from a static screenshot.

Consider NeXTStep. Something you cannot see from these images are that when you moved a window on NS, the entire window moved. Not a frame, the entire thing. This was not normal in the day. Or that NS used Display PostScript. "Not only are they moving the entire window, they're using DPS to do it!" PostScript was powerful, and expensive, and for printers. Yet, here it was.

Or how fast BeOS was, and its cool filesystem, and other aspects.

It's certainly an interesting question to ask folks that have opinions simply on the cosmetics of the various images that we see here, but appreciate that for the folks that "were there", at least for me, I'm not just remembering what it looked like, it's much more than that.

I will never forget when the Mac first came out, my friend and I went to see one at a computer store. And my friend just sat there, mouth agape, moving the mouse back and forth across the menubar, seeing them popup and popdown as it moved, and just going "Woooowwww".

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#212

Post by BoppreH »

reaperducer wrote: post #208
BoppreH wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We also lost clearly identifiable buttons, loading bars (replaced with throbbers), status bars that tell you what you're hovering over and what the program is doing, stable UIs to develop muscle memory, etc. But we did gain some nice things! - Tabs. - Titlebar buttons and other space-saving measures. - Document editors remembering unsaved changes. - Forms that validate on focus lost, instead of submission. - Ctrl+P m…

But we did gain some nice things! None of the gains you list have anything to do with user interfaces. They would all or mostly be possible in any of the older desktop environments shown.

The screenshots in the post include many old applications, sometimes jarring to modern sensibilities. I think it's fair to have a discussion here about the evolution of application UI too, no?

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#213

Post by roelschroeven »

tom_ wrote: post #182
pjc50 wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Operating systems of that era were designed based on UX research to help people use the unfamiliar operating system. Subsequent ones were designed by UI designers, and opinionated senior managers, who already knew how to use them, and took out usability features to make them "look nicer". This sort of worked when the opinionated manager was Steve Jobs. Most managers are not Steve Jobs. > in some applications they see…

If you haven't tried it already, I've found it useful to get Windows to use the accent colour in the title bar and window borders: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/personalize-your...

Absolutely, but there are many programs that don't use that accent color, making it less useful than it should be.

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#214

Post by pdntspa »

I hated magenta-blue CGA graphics soooo sooo much as a kid. It was (and still is IMHO) the ugliest thing I ever saw on a computer, by far.

I had a monitor that had a switch in the back that would change those colors to red-yellow-green. It was still awful but at least it was less awful than white-magenta-blue

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#215

Post by nogridbag »

saw-lau wrote: post #77
bronlund wrote: post #32

I can't help thinking about how much we have lost. Just finding the scrollbar nowadays can be a challenge. Not to mention if you want to resize a pane - in some applications they seem to have taken extra steps to make it difficult to find the line to grab.

One of my biggest bugbears is losing the OK/Apply/Cancel concept with dialog boxes or settings windows. If I have a window with lots of settings that I want to experiment with then I've no problem with that setting taking effect immediately, but please give me the ability to back out all the changes I've tentatively made via a Cancel button.

I have a feeling you're in the minority. I've been using computers for 35+ years and I feel like I still don't understand OK/Apply/Cancel buttons. I still click Apply before clicking OK even if I know it's unnecessary.

Plus, I don't believe Cancel reverts changes the user made if they clicked Apply already. So your suggestion would go against how the UX of OK/Apply/Cancel has historically worked.

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#216

Post by roelschroeven »

Liftyee wrote: post #98
bronlund wrote: post #32

I can't help thinking about how much we have lost. Just finding the scrollbar nowadays can be a challenge. Not to mention if you want to resize a pane - in some applications they seem to have taken extra steps to make it difficult to find the line to grab.

I'm curious - how often do you use the scrollbar? For me, almost never (or only as an indication of progress through a document). I'm scrolling only with wheel or arrows or PgUp etc. Perhaps though this is learned behaviour from scrollbars being tiny. I'd rather have the extra screen space. The scrollbar is usually a nuisance when I accidentally touch it (touchscreen) and the page jumps away.

For scrolling large distances in large documents, that's an important use case to me. As an indication of progress is another important use case, but also as an indication to show the size of the document relative to the viewport.

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#217

Post by liendolucas »

NextStep interface still looks sleek and timeless. No doubt a decaying Apple went to acquire them. Having seen some NextStep demos online, it was way ahead of its time. Few weeks ago just started to use WindowMaker again on one of my VMs.

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#218

Post by hermitcrab »

whartung wrote: post #211
FergusArgyll wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't mean this in a dismissive way but based on your profile I'd say you're > 25. I'm curious about the perspective of someone who didn't grow up with the those os's

You have to appreciate that the nostalgia is not necessarily how these looked, but also how they worked. Also, there's simply the reminiscing back to the era when these were out. When they were NEW, and revolutionary. All things that cannot be conveyed from a static screenshot. Consider NeXTStep. Something you cannot see from these images are that when you moved a window on NS, the entire window moved. Not a frame, t…

I remember the shock of using a Mac SE after using DOS on a PC. Despite the tiny screen on the SE, it was an absolute revelation.

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#219

Post by hulitu »

elch wrote: post #156
hermitcrab wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm on Windows and Mac. Not because I love them, but because that is where my customers are. Also I try to keep my computers fairly vanilla, so that they don't look too different to the user's computer when I do videos or screenshots of my software.

Windows: Settings -> Accessibility -> Always show scrollbars.

Which is ignored by most programs.

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#220

Post by pdntspa »

delta_p_delta_x wrote: post #69

I really wish Windows 11 had a Windows 2000 mode. I want a grey, boxy UI, but I also want al the modern technologies Windows has introduced since—DirectStorage, D3D12, fast SSDs, device-independent pixels and vector UIs, all written directly against a Windows API that is modernised, safe, and easy to use. No React, no ads in my weather app; the only browser on my computer will be the browser itself.

I dont know about Win11, but in Win10, it is still there. You can see it in MDI apps and, in a few rare circumstances, I have seen the window manager seemingly crash and flash the old Win2000-style boxy design before going back to what it currently does.
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