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Show HN: Desktopcolors.com – A museum for solid background colors of classic OS

desktopcolors.com

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Re: Show HN: Desktopcolors.com – A museum for solid background colors of classic OS

#21

Post by vlowrian »

rideontime wrote: post #7
flowercalled wrote: post #6

I can understand using an llm to build your website. But I can't understand using it to write copy, especially when it's so unnecessary here.

Seconded. The "personality" it tries to add is trite and tiresome and everybody immediately sees it for what it is, especially for a case like this where there's only so many ways to say "this is the default desktop color of an operating system." Not only that, but it's confusing - is "Windows Classic blue" a real thing, or just an attempt at a cute phrase? Just label the colors and be done with it.

It's actually not so easy to pick a speaking name for each color, since many colors are used in different OSs. I tried to use neutral and standard color names were they exist. Things like Windows Classic blue are probably always description-slop, though.

Another user suggested to use media quotes etc. on OSs, which I think is actually a pretty good idea. I might swap the LLM generated placeholders for something like that.

Re: Show HN: Desktopcolors.com – A museum for solid background colors of classic OS

#22

Post by vlowrian »

cimi_ wrote: post #19
vlowrian wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. A bit of context on that: I wanted to add some fun facts or relevant information to some of the colors, OSs, etc. and I wrote this in German and let the LLM do the translation. However,it looked pretty weird when navigating through the page and most colors and roughly half of the OSs did show up with an empty label. So it was a visual decision to let the LLM fill in the gaps. But you're right. It's damaging t…

I like the website, great work! The LLM descriptions are terrible though :) here's the one for Windows 98: > Windows 98 refined the 95 formula, folding the web into the shell with Active Desktop while keeping the familiar look. Its Display Properties carried over the same grid of basic swatches and named schemes — teal still the Windows Standard default — with the classic reserved system colors tuned to their canonic…

That's actually a pretty cool idea, noted. Thanks!

Re: Show HN: Desktopcolors.com – A museum for solid background colors of classic OS

#23

Post by vlowrian »

danirod wrote: post #5

One nerdy detail about old operating systems and graphics cards: due to the way the VGA color palette works, the teal background used in Windows 98 and earlier versions of Windows was actually lighter than #008080 if the computer was configured to use 16 colors (not 256 colors): https://twitter.com/bakertechsrvcs/status/162629846037367193... https://xcancel.com/bakertechsrvcs/status/162629846037367193... Another nerd…

That's cool, thanks for sharing. I like the idea of adding XP as an anniversary gift ;)

Re: Show HN: Desktopcolors.com – A museum for solid background colors of classic OS

#24

Post by millerm »

danirod wrote: post #5

One nerdy detail about old operating systems and graphics cards: due to the way the VGA color palette works, the teal background used in Windows 98 and earlier versions of Windows was actually lighter than #008080 if the computer was configured to use 16 colors (not 256 colors): https://twitter.com/bakertechsrvcs/status/162629846037367193... https://xcancel.com/bakertechsrvcs/status/162629846037367193... Another nerd…

I remember that good feeling when getting a new windows 9x machine up and running or installing a new video card, updating the graphics driver to get the display into 16M colors, and enjoying the darker teal. The color itself felt like an upgrade. When that brighter teal appeared you knew you didn't have the driver set, even before seeing any icons.

Man, I wish I could have the 90s back. I absolutely despise where we went with tech in the past decade. I suppose that's a me problem.

Re: Show HN: Desktopcolors.com – A museum for solid background colors of classic OS

#27

Post by cosmic_cheese »

torh wrote: post #16

My favorite was the blue in Windows 2000. Never cared much for the green in Windows 95/98. When installing Windows 98 later (because games) I would try to set up the same blue. Instead of getting it correct, I guessed, and ended up with #336699 which was easy to remember and "close enough". I see now that it's closer to Haiku (almost perfect, #336698) than Windows 2000.

Same. The lighter gray 2000 uses compared to 9x is also much more pleasant.

It might sound ridiculous but using 9x with the default theme felt a bit depressing. It conjures images of being stuck in a building with that awful fluorescent overhead lighting on a day where it’s dark and dreary outside.

2000 on the other hand is about as refreshing as a gray 3D beveled OS theme can look, on par with Mac OS platinum and maybe slightly edged out by the bright colorful sunny tab titlebars of BeOS.

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