Windows98 Running in the Browser • Hacker News Board

Re: Windows98 Running in the Browser

#251

Post by AshamedCaptain » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 8:48 PM UTC

WorldMaker wrote: post #247

chrismorgan wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the Windows 8 Metro/Win32 split was simply an extremely bad design. I’ve been dealing with a few 8 machines recently, and it’s really, really bad. You want to get between the two worlds? Hope you know about Alt+Tab, because otherwise you’re probably not going to find out how to get there. Seriously. It’s that bad. Windows 8.1 made some improvements, so that users will probably be able to find their way from Win32…

The split made a lot of sense to tiling window manager fans. Admittedly a small niche to accidentally target a mainstream operating system to, so unsurprising it got so much bad press. In 8 the tiling window manager and non-tiling window manager were separate worlds you switched between virtual desktop style. In 8.1 they made the entire non-tiling window manager desktop a "proper" tile. (In 10 they killed the tiling…

It also had the side effect that Windows 10 is very nasty to use on a tablet, compared with 8.1 .

Re: Windows98 Running in the Browser

#252

Post by WorldMaker » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 9:51 PM UTC

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #251

WorldMaker wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The split made a lot of sense to tiling window manager fans. Admittedly a small niche to accidentally target a mainstream operating system to, so unsurprising it got so much bad press. In 8 the tiling window manager and non-tiling window manager were separate worlds you switched between virtual desktop style. In 8.1 they made the entire non-tiling window manager desktop a "proper" tile. (In 10 they killed the tiling…

It also had the side effect that Windows 10 is very nasty to use on a tablet, compared with 8.1 .

Indeed. It should not be a surprise that tiling window managers are probably preferable to every method of input other than mouse. That AU probably would be a good one.

(Keyboard included and especially. Do you know the keyboard shortcuts to move/resize/arrange windows and when was the last time you tried to use them? Part of my love for tiling window managers came from daily use of a laptop with a bad trackpad and wanting to automate more things with the keyboard.)

Re: Windows98 Running in the Browser

#253

Post by ciupicri » Mon, Jun 29, 2020, 9:58 PM UTC

coldpie wrote: post #192

1ko wrote: post #186

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

All features except running on Wayland.

Re: Windows98 Running in the Browser

#254

Post by vel0city » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 1:52 AM UTC

asadlionpk wrote: post #242

vel0city wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Briefcases were supposed to be a tool to easily sync a directory structure with removable storage or a spotty network connection. Say you've got a computer at home and a computer at the office. You do a bit of work on some files over the weekend with your files in your briefcase. When it is time to head to the office on Monday you pop in a floppy disk (or PDA, or some other removable storage) and sync your briefcase…

a floppy-based Dropbox.

Exactly, right? Can't believe people fell for Dropbox when you could build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

Re: Windows98 Running in the Browser

#255

Post by asadlionpk » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 2:22 AM UTC

vel0city wrote: post #254

asadlionpk wrote: post #242

Earlier quoted context omitted.

a floppy-based Dropbox.

Exactly, right? Can't believe people fell for Dropbox when you could build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

Ha! Reminds me of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

Re: Windows98 Running in the Browser

#256

Post by vel0city » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 2:31 AM UTC

asadlionpk wrote: post #255

vel0city wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly, right? Can't believe people fell for Dropbox when you could build such a system yourself quite trivially by getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

Ha! Reminds me of https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9224

Oops, that's what I meant. Thanks!

Re: Windows98 Running in the Browser

#257

Post by perl4ever » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 3:48 AM UTC

znpy wrote: post #104

izietto wrote: post #102

To me, still the best UI/UX OS experience. That menu organization is just perfect. Everything is crystal clear about what is selected or not. No idea why the OS moved from this layout.

yes. in my opinion though, windows 2000 was the pinnacle. it had the user experience of windows 98 but was also a lot more stable.

I think I remember there was a brief period when it was fashionable to hate on XP, which came on most new computers, but you could get Windows 2000 by special request on a ThinkPad.

Re: Windows98 Running in the Browser

#258

Post by abiogenesis » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 6:31 AM UTC

buran77 wrote: post #206

MisterTea wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> and resource hogging Memory usage used to be a major complaint (possibly the biggest) even if it was made clear repeatedly that the OS was simply keeping more stuff in RAM instead of dumping it to disk specifically to improve performance. A mechanism that stuck to these days. That memory isn't marked that obviously in the Task Manager now, and memory is is no longer such a luxury so people don't complain anymore. B…

> "When XP was launched we heard the same grumbles [...] By SP3 people were loving it"

Well, that's because they fixed most of the issues in SP1 and SP2.

Also is there a specific reason you skipped certain versions such as Windows ME, Windows Vista etc? Maybe it's not only "people just can't take change" and some products are legitimately bad?

Re: Windows98 Running in the Browser

#259

Post by chrismorgan » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 7:13 AM UTC

AshamedCaptain wrote: post #251

WorldMaker wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The split made a lot of sense to tiling window manager fans. Admittedly a small niche to accidentally target a mainstream operating system to, so unsurprising it got so much bad press. In 8 the tiling window manager and non-tiling window manager were separate worlds you switched between virtual desktop style. In 8.1 they made the entire non-tiling window manager desktop a "proper" tile. (In 10 they killed the tiling…

It also had the side effect that Windows 10 is very nasty to use on a tablet, compared with 8.1 .

Hmm? I’ve used my Surface Book in tablet mode from time to time and see no particular problems with it. Every window becomes full-screen, swipes from the screen edges do meaningful things that are similar in effect to what Windows 8/8.1 had. I wouldn’t describe it as in any way nasty by comparison. Do you have something particular in mind? (Or were you perhaps unaware of tablet mode?)

Re: Windows98 Running in the Browser

#260

Post by chrismorgan » Tue, Jun 30, 2020, 7:23 AM UTC

WorldMaker wrote: post #247

chrismorgan wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the Windows 8 Metro/Win32 split was simply an extremely bad design. I’ve been dealing with a few 8 machines recently, and it’s really, really bad. You want to get between the two worlds? Hope you know about Alt+Tab, because otherwise you’re probably not going to find out how to get there. Seriously. It’s that bad. Windows 8.1 made some improvements, so that users will probably be able to find their way from Win32…

The split made a lot of sense to tiling window manager fans. Admittedly a small niche to accidentally target a mainstream operating system to, so unsurprising it got so much bad press. In 8 the tiling window manager and non-tiling window manager were separate worlds you switched between virtual desktop style. In 8.1 they made the entire non-tiling window manager desktop a "proper" tile. (In 10 they killed the tiling…

Your comment baffles me. The Metro experience did not behave like a tiling window manager in literally any way I can think of.

I switched to Windows 10 purely for the Surface Book hardware a few years ago. Before that, I was a contented Arch Linux + i3 user. (And my next laptop will probably be back to Arch Linux, with Sway instead of i3 because Wayland > X.)

The split made, and still makes, no sense at all to me as a tiling window manager fan. It maintained two separate worlds that you could not easily switch between, which is fairly antithetical to a tiling window manager. And functionality like, y’know, tiling, was non-existent. (And tiling does exist just a little bit on the other side, with window snapping.)

It was a window-management disaster, wholly unmitigated.