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Frame of preference A history of Mac settings, 1984–2004

aresluna.org

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Re: Frame of preference A history of Mac settings, 1984–2004

#4
It's a very nicely crafted article. It was quite jarring to see a box containing the following text:

> If you open this on a computer instead, you will have a chance to play with some emulators!

Instead of what? I was under the impression that the device I was on is a computer.

Edit: I was curious to understand what caused the site to show that box. From looking at the source and some interacting in the console, it seems to have been due to the 'isiOS' variable having the value 'true'. It was true despite the device not running iOS because '(navigator.maxTouchPoints && navigator.maxTouchPoints > 2)' was truthy, and window.MSStream wasn't. This device, a Surface Pro X, or more precisely the Chrome 139 browser running on it, reports 10 max touch points and doesn't have MSStream defined, and that appears to have been enough for it to be mistaken as a not-a-computer.

By now, after refreshing, I see an extra sentence 'Hey, site, you got it wrong. This is a real computer!' Perhaps the author saw this comment and added it quite quicky? If so, thank you!

Re: Frame of preference A history of Mac settings, 1984–2004

#5
It took me a while to figure out that the nice product shots of Mac computers were actually live, interactive copies of the relevant operating system, running under emulation. Even the laptops with the screen at a weird angle from the camera.

And the emulator tracks whether you've done the things mentioned in the article, like open a particular control panel or tried a particular menu option.

This is amazing.

Re: Frame of preference A history of Mac settings, 1984–2004

#6

It took me a while to figure out that the nice product shots of Mac computers were actually live, interactive copies of the relevant operating system, running under emulation. Even the laptops with the screen at a weird angle from the camera. And the emulator tracks whether you've done the things mentioned in the article, like open a particular control panel or tried a particular menu option. This is amazing .

It took me a minute to realize they're not just videos too. Really outstanding work.

Re: Frame of preference A history of Mac settings, 1984–2004

#7

It took me a while to figure out that the nice product shots of Mac computers were actually live, interactive copies of the relevant operating system, running under emulation. Even the laptops with the screen at a weird angle from the camera. And the emulator tracks whether you've done the things mentioned in the article, like open a particular control panel or tried a particular menu option. This is amazing .

[deleted]

Re: Frame of preference A history of Mac settings, 1984–2004

#9

It took me a while to figure out that the nice product shots of Mac computers were actually live, interactive copies of the relevant operating system, running under emulation. Even the laptops with the screen at a weird angle from the camera. And the emulator tracks whether you've done the things mentioned in the article, like open a particular control panel or tried a particular menu option. This is amazing .

There are even Easter Eggs and additional tasks. If you click on the system description button for each emulator it will give you a list.

I couldn't get the later emulators to work correctly though. My mouse kept flying off to the right of the screen for some reason. Also unfortunate is the scaling and tilting effect makes the screens look real bad on my machine. Just ugly aliasing artifacts everywhere.

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