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Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

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Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#361

Post by cryo32 »

Sophira wrote: post #354
cryo32 wrote: post #333

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep even the later ones. I used to sit in front of a Solaris CDE desktop locked in a basement. Made me want to slit my wrists. The colour scheme, how it worked, the peformance. All horrible. I used RISC OS at home. Was wonderful to come back to that.

Ooo, a rare fellow home RISC OS user! I had an A3000 at home myself so I didn't have the benefit of using RISC OS with a hard drive, and we never upgraded to an ARM3, but we did use both RISC OS 2 and 3. Still love the old Acorn machines. I mostly use Arculator[0] nowadays for that nostalgia though. [0] https://b-em.bbcmicro.com/arculator/

Brilliant. Yeah there were a few of us back in the day! Had an A440 then a RiscPC 700 here. Hard disk made all the difference even if it was only a 40MB one!

There's a nice emulator here, a WebAssembly RiscPC one. Works quite well: https://rpcemu.m-h.org.uk/

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#362

Post by felixding »

liendolucas wrote: post #217

NextStep interface still looks sleek and timeless. No doubt a decaying Apple went to acquire them. Having seen some NextStep demos online, it was way ahead of its time. Few weeks ago just started to use WindowMaker again on one of my VMs.

Absolutely!

I wish projects like nextspace could get more love.

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#364

Post by pjmlp »

Quitschquat wrote: post #314

You might be looking at these old Unix GUIs thinking they're shit compared to now, but actually, at the time, they were shit too.

Actually no, CDE, NeWS and NeXTSTEP are my favourite UNIX GUIs.

On FOSS side, I would vote for afterstep, windowmaker, original GNOME with sawmill, and KDE.

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#365

Post by pjmlp »

giamma wrote: post #11

No mention of GeOS! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEOS_(8-bit_operating_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Softworks

I only know it existed because on Portugal, Phillips had an option to ship GeoWorks instead of Windows on their PCs, and a guy on our class was very adamant defending it.

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#367

Post by lproven »

plun9 wrote: post #359
lproven wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

ToastyTech is wonderful but don't forget GUIdebook, which also is. https://guidebookgallery.org/

http://nixon-development.com/guis

Thanks!

Is it me or do 3/4 of the pages not load any images?

The title took me a moment to work out. I suppose it was written by someone who speaks in an accent where "OS-some" sounds like "awesome". It does not to me.

It was 20 or 30 years after the last time I saw a Hauppuage TV card that I saw an explanation of how it's meant to be pronounced:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hauppauge_Computer_Works

Then some years later, I mentioned this to someone, and he said it aloud and I realised that my mental effort to pronounce "HAWP-og" was completely wrong. To me, it sounds something more like "whore-porg".

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#368

Post by lproven »

cryo32 wrote: post #333
Quitschquat wrote: post #314

You might be looking at these old Unix GUIs thinking they're shit compared to now, but actually, at the time, they were shit too.

Yep even the later ones. I used to sit in front of a Solaris CDE desktop locked in a basement. Made me want to slit my wrists. The colour scheme, how it worked, the peformance. All horrible. I used RISC OS at home. Was wonderful to come back to that.

> I used RISC OS at home. Was wonderful to come back to that.

Same here.

Windows 2 and Mac System 6 at work, RISC OS 2 at home -- faster, more responsive, more capable and flexible, and much better looking.

Some of my friends had Amigas and to me, oh wow was AmigaOS 1.x fugly.

40 years later, KDE still is.

GNOME is beautiful but it's so limited it feels like trying to operate a mouse and keyboard with my feet while sitting on my hands.

COSMIC feels fast and powerful, but it is not easy on the eyes, and the keyboard UI is poor.

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#369

Post by lproven »

Quitschquat wrote: post #322
mc32 wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No bloat was good! Snappy responsiveness on early CPUs.

Even xterm on a sun sparcstation running openlook was sluggish at the time. cde made it hopeless.

Relevant:

"Trust Me, You Want SunOS 4.1.4 on Your Older Sun Boxes"

(May 4, 2026)

https://oldsilicon.com/technologies/sunos-414-older-sun-boxe...

Re: Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

#370

Post by chiph »

tom_ wrote: post #182
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…

If you haven't tried it already, I've found it useful to get Windows to use the accent colour in the title bar and window borders: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/personalize-your...

Thank you for posting this. I have enabled them at home and work. I am really tired of having to look for a window's shadow to resize it. Which is problematic when you run a black desktop.

Having to resize a window by grabbing it just outside the visible border is so wrong.

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