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Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

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Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#121

Post by zozbot234 »

Unai wrote: post #83
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.

Have you been unable to find a DE or a DE theme with that type of UI/UX? I haven't looked into it, since I don't have these issues and prefer a more modern look, but surely there must be options out there if that's what you want.

SerenityOS is the most well known but it's a fully custom operating system of its own. For Linux you can install the chicago95 theme (includes a widget set for GTK+3) and the b00merang GTK+4 theme (doesn't help with excess padding unfortunately, but it still has proper high-contrast 3D for the widgets and color for the headerbar. The mobile-friendly responsive UX of new GTK+4 apps actually works great with the traditional 3D look.)

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#122

Post by 3form »

It's nice to see some of these things and finally make out any contents! I've felt hurt by Wikipedia's somewhat odd and sad screenshot policy, which makes it impossible to see any details of the things I've been looking at recently, like early Windows NT.

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#123

Post by criddell »

FergusArgyll wrote: post #50

There's a lot of nostalgia in the comments here. I wonder if any reader under say 25 is willing to comment; do you think OS's today are a regression? do those look better? To me they look unwieldy, heavy and overwhelming and I can't help but think the love for them is just the love for youth or whatever

For some of these, you have to use them on the actual hardware to understand why so many of us are bummed about what we have lost. The latency of modern systems is kind of bonkers. Even though the machines were incredibly slow they feel faster than modern machines. Some musicians used Atari STs for years after they were discontinued because of the stable timing.

For others, the hardware wasn't important, but some of the functionality isn't apparent in a static screenshot. For example, I loved OS/2 and the Workplace Shell. It had functionality similar to Windows COM or CORBA in that everything on the system exposed an interface that could be easily scripted or used by other applications. The built-in scripting language was Rexx which I feel could have played the role Python does now if only OS/2 had taken off. Using OS/2 from 1.3 onwards felt like you were using a computer from the future.

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#124

Post by doubled112 »

AlienRobot wrote: post #104
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…

For the brief time I used Windows 11 the amount of times I placed a window over another and then clicked on the wrong window because I couldn't tell at first glance where one started and the other ended was absolutely ridiculous. I'm afraid that the core of the problem is something far more simple and fundamental. The people designing desktop apps today simply never learned the conventions that make desktop applicati…

> couldn't tell at first glance where one started and the other ended

This was even worse in an RDP session. No drop shadows. I'm not sure who thought "everything should be flat and white" was a good idea.

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#125

Post by ben_w »

pjc50 wrote: post #52
adrianwaj wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am starting to think the top half of the screen should be the desktop, the bottom half should be the start menu but already activated and full of programs. No conventional bottom panel-bar with a start button. A right-most column should exist that fills up with a list of opened windows. [1] When I first saw Win95 with a cleared desktop, I immediately thought - where has everything gone? Why is this empty? Decades l…

Screen real estate is precious unless on the very largest screens. Especially vertical. I'm a big fan of being able to put the app list/bar on the right, keeping the maximum vertical space available and allowing its captions to be readable horizontally. > Maybe use voice recognition that uses lip-reading through a camera to launch or modify? This feels like the result of a competition to design the worst possible use…

> This feels like the result of a competition to design the worst possible user interface. To about 5% of people it might be an accessibility feature, to everyone else it's worse, and people with beards, marks, or dark skinned faces are going to find it a disaster.

You say that, but I have seen in the wild a scroll gesture to increase or decrease the value of a telephone number.

Wasn't even capped at zero, so I could scroll to a negative (phone) number.

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#127

Post by infinet »

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.

It is very difficult for people with impaired vision to find the scrollbars, buttons et.al. on windows 11. The scrollbars are too narrow and often auto hidden. The buttons are flat and not easy to separate from normal text. Tell one window from another is also quite challenge.

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#128

Post by skydhash »

BoppreH wrote: post #75
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.

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…

> Ctrl+P menus to fuzzy-search all actions and settings

Wasn’t that in Emacs for decades?

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#129

Post by zozbot234 »

doubled112 wrote: post #124
AlienRobot wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For the brief time I used Windows 11 the amount of times I placed a window over another and then clicked on the wrong window because I couldn't tell at first glance where one started and the other ended was absolutely ridiculous. I'm afraid that the core of the problem is something far more simple and fundamental. The people designing desktop apps today simply never learned the conventions that make desktop applicati…

> couldn't tell at first glance where one started and the other ended This was even worse in an RDP session. No drop shadows. I'm not sure who thought "everything should be flat and white" was a good idea.

> I'm not sure who thought "everything should be flat and white" was a good idea.

It's just the old Windows 2.0 look.

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#130

Post by zozbot234 »

3form wrote: post #122

It's nice to see some of these things and finally make out any contents! I've felt hurt by Wikipedia's somewhat odd and sad screenshot policy, which makes it impossible to see any details of the things I've been looking at recently, like early Windows NT.

They do that on purpose with proprietary apps to avoid copyright complaints.
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