Windows98 Running in the Browser • Hacker News Board

Re: Windows98 Running in the Browser

#191

Post by hnlmorg » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 2:54 PM UTC

dm319 wrote: post #163

hnlmorg wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this was the golden age. So much hope and so much optimism for what could be Funny that because I grew up in the 80s and for me the golden age was 10 to 15 years earlier and I saw Windows 98 as the decline. There was so much variety and experimentation in the 80s, and so much excitement too when GUIs first started appearing on home computers. There was also much more diversity in the computing landscape with differ…

I'm like you - that the Windows era was a low point in computing for me. I used Workbench 3.1 before, and Linux afterwards, and both of those kindled my interest in computers far more than Win 3.1 - XP ever could. On the otherhand I do have some nostalgia for those Windows days - it wasn't all bad, just a little on the boring side. I remember those themes from Win98 with the associated screensavers fondly. I also pos…

I still prefer the pre-ribbon bar era of MS Office :)

Funny you should comment about screensavers, the first thing I did when I loaded the Win98 emulation these comments refer to was the display settings then clicked 'Preview' on the pipes screensaver. I believe there was also one that looked a little like Wolf32?

Re: Windows98 Running in the Browser

#192

Post by coldpie » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 2:56 PM UTC

1ko wrote: post #186

rightbyte wrote: post #138

It's funny how I find Win98 more user friendly and logical than Win10. Just look at the start menu where thing are sorted in folders. No ads optimizations anywhere. Just an annoying shortcut on the desktop for MS Internet. Is it possible to make a program like the sheep.exe nowadays? It is awesome.

Gnome 2 was Windows 95 UI, refined, cleaned of all bloat and with a modern look (for his time). All installed apps were automatically stored is the right sub-menu in the Application button. It was really neat to use.

XFCE basically still is that. No "reinventing the desktop experience" junk, just a rock-solid desktop with all the features you expect.

Re: Windows98 Running in the Browser

#193

Post by coldpie » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 3:00 PM UTC

hnlmorg wrote: post #79

FillardMillmore wrote: post #15

Wow, what a flashback! This was the OS I actually grew up with. I remember being 3 or 4 years old and playing Carnivores 2 on my Dad's Windows 98 PC. Even the slowness and unresponsiveness is there, just like I remember! Yeah...this was the golden age. So much hope and so much optimism for what could be in regards to technology and what it would allow for the general population. I still think we're not there, but we…

> this was the golden age. So much hope and so much optimism for what could be Funny that because I grew up in the 80s and for me the golden age was 10 to 15 years earlier and I saw Windows 98 as the decline. There was so much variety and experimentation in the 80s, and so much excitement too when GUIs first started appearing on home computers. There was also much more diversity in the computing landscape with differ…

It's a well-known fact that the best era of anything was whatever was happening when you were 13 years old, and it's all downhill from there.

Re: Windows98 Running in the Browser

#194

Post by FillardMillmore » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 3:04 PM UTC

hnlmorg wrote: post #79

FillardMillmore wrote: post #15

Wow, what a flashback! This was the OS I actually grew up with. I remember being 3 or 4 years old and playing Carnivores 2 on my Dad's Windows 98 PC. Even the slowness and unresponsiveness is there, just like I remember! Yeah...this was the golden age. So much hope and so much optimism for what could be in regards to technology and what it would allow for the general population. I still think we're not there, but we…

> this was the golden age. So much hope and so much optimism for what could be Funny that because I grew up in the 80s and for me the golden age was 10 to 15 years earlier and I saw Windows 98 as the decline. There was so much variety and experimentation in the 80s, and so much excitement too when GUIs first started appearing on home computers. There was also much more diversity in the computing landscape with differ…

You're definitely right, what each of us individually perceive as "the golden age" is probably driven largely by age and nostalgia.

I think I phrased my initial comment incorrectly - I definitely didn't mean it was the golden age of personal computing, but rather the golden age of the internet.

Certainly, some things have improved. There's been more standardization and a proliferation of knowledge about the 'right' way to design a website (from both a tech and marketing perspective). Back then, there was an excitement and a feeling of freedom I got when browsing the web. Part of it I suppose could just be that I was young and not yet so cynical, but it felt like the wild west to me back then.

Every site looked different, many were ugly and gaudy as hell with bright colors, flashing animations like the Vegas strip, and regularly broken links, but despite this, there was something charming and endearing about it that just isn't present today.

Browsing the internet today is a very contained and sanitized experience. Everything is wrapped in plastic and padded with nerf, and though you may go to different sites, there's a feeling of sameness to it all. Every time I click on something, I'm making someone money. The data I generate while browsing is sold off to the higest bidder. You can assume, like a digital panopticon, the man in the watchtower (NSA, other government alphabet agencies) could be watching you at any given time.

Maybe not all of this is true or framed accurately - browsing the web has definitely become easier and more streamlined and for the average user, that's a good thing. But something's been lost for me - the wild west of the internet has become a guided tour.

Re: Windows98 Running in the Browser

#195

Post by FillardMillmore » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 3:06 PM UTC

TedDoesntTalk wrote: post #32

FillardMillmore wrote: post #15

Wow, what a flashback! This was the OS I actually grew up with. I remember being 3 or 4 years old and playing Carnivores 2 on my Dad's Windows 98 PC. Even the slowness and unresponsiveness is there, just like I remember! Yeah...this was the golden age. So much hope and so much optimism for what could be in regards to technology and what it would allow for the general population. I still think we're not there, but we…

This was really interesting to read. Thanks for sharing your memory. There was a big difference between win98 and win98 “second edition”. Do you know which you used?

Unfortunately I don't remember. :(

Back then, I wasn't so much interested in the computer itself as I was in what I could do with it - as a four year old, that meant hunting and killing pixelated T-Rexes.

Re: Windows98 Running in the Browser

#196

Post by newjersey » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 3:09 PM UTC

MisterTea wrote: post #189

blauditore wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be honest, I think it was not that bad from a usability point-of-view, agnostic of history. People were just not used to a full-screen, search-focused start menu. A similar thing happened with Vista, people were overwhelmed with the wildly different UI. The next version was then a slightly milder version of it, and at the same time people had gotten used to it a bit, so most were happy with Windows 7 and are now h…

> To be honest, I think it was not that bad from a usability point-of-view, agnostic of history. Perhaps in a vacuum it might work. But this is the real world were hypothesis are just that. > A similar thing happened with Vista, people were overwhelmed with the wildly different UI No. People were apparently overwhelmed by system instability and resource hogging (mainly hard drive grinding). I don't remember people co…

> No. People were apparently overwhelmed by system instability and resource hogging (mainly hard drive grinding). I don't remember people complaining about the UI's usability. Though there were UI complaints which were mostly echos of the same complaints leveled at the glossy "Teletubby" XP theme.

The biggest fault of Windows Vista in my opinion was Microsoft made one too many compromise. There were machines that came with Windows Vista pre-installed that should have never gotten Windows Vista. My roommate in college had a Compaq machine on which the screen completely blanked for over three minutes at a time as it tried to display the user access control overlay. Of course, over three minutes later the screen would turn on as if nothing had gone wrong at all. iirc it was something about the processor/integrated graphics being too weak for Windows Display Driver Model. [1]

I think Microsoft is making a similar mistake today by allowing OEMs to ship Windows 10 on new machines with anything less than a SATA SSD (mechanical hard disks or eMMC).

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Display_Driver_Model#:.... Off-topic but if the url looks weird it is because it is a Chrome only thing: more at https://wicg.github.io/scroll-to-text-fragment/

Re: Windows98 Running in the Browser

#197

Post by riquito » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 3:12 PM UTC

mrlala wrote: post #185

rightbyte wrote: post #138

It's funny how I find Win98 more user friendly and logical than Win10. Just look at the start menu where thing are sorted in folders. No ads optimizations anywhere. Just an annoying shortcut on the desktop for MS Internet. Is it possible to make a program like the sheep.exe nowadays? It is awesome.

Honestly how often does anyone use the start menu these days? I am on windows all day long for analysis/development, anything I actually use is just pinned to the taskbar (like osx). And when I do have to use the start menu to find something like newly installed.. not sure how you really think it's that different than win98? The left part is the same thing, it's just sorted alphabetically by program names etc.. and i…

The fact you don't have a resolution of 640x480 and you can lay down big high resolution icons in the taskbar help a lot in not needing to open the start menu

Re: Windows98 Running in the Browser

#198

Post by derefr » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 3:12 PM UTC

rightbyte wrote: post #138

It's funny how I find Win98 more user friendly and logical than Win10. Just look at the start menu where thing are sorted in folders. No ads optimizations anywhere. Just an annoying shortcut on the desktop for MS Internet. Is it possible to make a program like the sheep.exe nowadays? It is awesome.

What is the point of start menu folders? How often do you browse through your programs?

When I want to do something, I hit the launcher key-combination of whatever OS I'm in (the Win/Super key in Win8/10 or GNOME; ⌘Space in macOS) and then type the first few characters of the name of what I want. If I know the search database is up-to-date (i.e. I haven't just installed the program, I then just immediately hit Enter before the dialog even shows results.) The program opens.

I feel like a Start Menu makes a lot of sense... for people for whom using a mouse is somehow a lot easier than using a keyboard. People who can move their fingers easily but whose wrists+forearms are immobile, for example. Or people operating the GUI through a thin-client app on a candybar-style cellphone. Or people using Windows on their TV with one of those Wiimote-like "air mouse" pointing devices, where switching to the keyboard has the friction of flipping the thing over, taking away your ability to move the mouse while you type. Or, for that matter, people using a game controller, ala Steam's Big Picture mode.

But in the regular case, where you have a keyboard and mouse in front of you, and are in a relaxed default position with one hand on one and one on the other? I can't see the benefit—for just launching programs.

-----

Now, for discovering programs... I'd never know about the "accessory" programs that came with an installation if I couldn't browse. I still recall the first time I installed Sim City 2000 and realized it came with a separate program called SCURK (a level+resource editor for the game.)

But it's been a long time since I've installed a program that came with accessory programs that way. These days—probably because of the influence of app-stores—every feature you get from an installation of "an app" is always accessed through the main binary of the app. And if it can't be, then they just don't bother to distribute it. (See also: macOS and the paucity of uninstallers for programs that install LaunchDaemons. You usually have to google for a script!)

Re: Windows98 Running in the Browser

#199

Post by FillardMillmore » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 3:15 PM UTC

saagarjha wrote: post #86

hnlmorg wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> this was the golden age. So much hope and so much optimism for what could be Funny that because I grew up in the 80s and for me the golden age was 10 to 15 years earlier and I saw Windows 98 as the decline. There was so much variety and experimentation in the 80s, and so much excitement too when GUIs first started appearing on home computers. There was also much more diversity in the computing landscape with differ…

I grew up using Windows XP/Vista and browsing the early days of the interactive web, mostly based on Flash. For me of course that was the golden age, and now we’re stuck with huge walled gardens and invasive adtech…iPhone had come out and it was amazing watching the mobile market rapidly advance. I remember seriously suggesting Windows Phone to my parents…Google Docs totally upended how we did assignments in late ele…

I don't think Google Docs was a thing until I was in high school. Still, don't think my schools adopted it quickly. I do have many fond memories of flash games too (and of course, viruses I inadvertently introduced to my parents' computers).

Back when I was learning computers in elementary school, we were taugh to use Yahoo! as our search engine and most of our 'computer' assignments for the day involved drawing butterflies in Microsoft Paint or seeing how many words we could type per minute.

Re: Windows98 Running in the Browser

#200

Post by derefr » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 3:17 PM UTC

ptx wrote: post #69

hyko wrote: post #58

Shame we're limited to 16 colors...miss those title bar gradients :D Was this the pinnacle of UI design, or is nostalgia clouding our judgment?

I think the pinnacle must have been before the title bar gradients were added. They always annoyed me: is the title bar any less of a title bar towards the right? No? Then why does it fade out?

The color is a background for the text. It fades out because the bar stops being about showing the title text, and starts being about showing window controls, that exist as buttons with their own backgrounds and borders.

Sort of like how desktop icons have text with a blur-extruded drop-shadow. It fades out at the point where text is no longer shown.