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Show HN: GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs

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Re: Show HN: GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs

#51

Post by zozbot234 »

luciferin wrote: post #48
nosioptar wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That video's bullshit. People prefer old UIs because modern ui is shit, not because they're not creative. Computer programs are tools. It doesnt do anyone any good if they're unusable in the name of chasing moronic trends.

I think there's a couple of different forces at play in the convergence of GUI design that we're seeing in the past 20 years. First, there's been a huge amount of widely accepted research that shows what the most accessible way to design an interface is. Things like Google's Material Design and Apples Human Interface Guidelines come to mind. Second, the widespread availability of those two specific design guides make…

> First, there's been a huge amount of widely accepted research that shows what the most accessible way to design an interface is.

Focus-group based and UX research was a lot more intense in the 1990s compared to today, and late 1990s UIs are still among the best available.

Re: Show HN: GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs

#52

Post by alterom »

reconnecting wrote: post #40
nosioptar wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That video's bullshit. People prefer old UIs because modern ui is shit, not because they're not creative. Computer programs are tools. It doesnt do anyone any good if they're unusable in the name of chasing moronic trends.

I have a theory that corporations make new UIs to entertain people through them. First, to create the feeling that something is happening, and second, to increase screen time. Old interfaces were far more practical for getting work done, and therefore obviously boring. For me, as someone who is supposed to use technology as a tool and not as a source of amusement, the new interfaces of the major OSes feel unacceptabl…

Not really a theory.

Software makers treat UIs the way auto makers treat paint and body styling.

Re: Show HN: GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs

#54

Post by sixothree »

nosioptar wrote: post #30

I think this is fantastic! I love that the code is so clean my dumb ass can understand it despite not using C much.

The code is cleaner that what I was expecting from a C repo. Also, it's quite a feat to fit this into 4 MB on a 386.

Re: Show HN: GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs

#55

Post by [deleted] »

shevy-java wrote: post #10

> A hobby operating system for vintage 32-bit PCs. I am all in favour of great projects, but why a differentiation between 32-bits or 64-bits? I don't understand that. Is a computer that is 32 bit or 64 bit, either way which, not worthy? Edit: I understand a motivation if it is on simplicity choosing one or the other, but other than that I don't see why that should ever be a goal worthy to be pursued. Software should…

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs

#56

Post by nosioptar »

luciferin wrote: post #48
nosioptar wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That video's bullshit. People prefer old UIs because modern ui is shit, not because they're not creative. Computer programs are tools. It doesnt do anyone any good if they're unusable in the name of chasing moronic trends.

I think there's a couple of different forces at play in the convergence of GUI design that we're seeing in the past 20 years. First, there's been a huge amount of widely accepted research that shows what the most accessible way to design an interface is. Things like Google's Material Design and Apples Human Interface Guidelines come to mind. Second, the widespread availability of those two specific design guides make…

Google's Material Design is fucking awful from an accessibility standpoint. There's no contrast. Clickable items don't look clickable. With a keyboard/remote, you can never tell what's selected.

Material is what made me hate google. It makes everything so difficult. It doesnt even look good. It's a low contrast sea of modern bullshit.

I sincerely hope that the material designers go to hell when they die and are forced to use their own garbage designs for all eternity while those of us who dont suck can use properly designed software.

Re: Show HN: GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs

#57

Post by sandos »

iamnothere wrote: post #3

This is great, thanks for releasing your work. Very impressive. You may get some interest from others in the retrocomputing/permacomputing sphere if you implement an Uxn emulator; it is extremely simple and can run on very limited hardware. https://100r.co/site/uxn.html Vintage hardware would be a great host for Uxn programs, so I suspect this would generate some excitement.

Heh, the "small virtual machine" was NOT a lie! Is that less than 200 lines? Very nice!

Now I feel like integrating that into various things....

Re: Show HN: GentleOS – A pair of hobby OSes for vintage 32-bit and 16-bit PCs

#60

Post by rasz »

Am I crazy or are the "photos" generated? I did have T1800 and it never looked like this. It had a very early very bad grayscale LCD wiht fiddly contrast control, not a perfect crisp vibrant OLED like this page shows.

example how one looks like irl https://allegrolokalnie.pl/oferta/laptop-toshiba-t1800 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sxIc_UVKxvc

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