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A comment on HelloSystem – OS with original Mac philosophy with a modern architecture. Parent comment

Re:HelloSystem – OS with original Mac philosophy with a mode... by flohofwoe on Wednesday January 25, 2023 @02:05PM (#34522711)
Fully agree. It's the same 'bubble gum' look as Windows XP. What were they thinking with those buttons and scrollbars?

On the other hand, MacOS9's UI style has aged remarkably well:

https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/macos90

(minus the media player, ugh)

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Re:HelloSystem – OS with original Mac philosophy with a mode... by Doctor_Fegg on Wednesday January 25, 2023 @02:39PM (#34523101)
I spent large parts of my life with System 7/8/9, but looking back on it now, you'd have thought Apple would have designed a better italics...
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Re:HelloSystem – OS with original Mac philosophy with a mode... by flohofwoe on Thursday January 26, 2023 @03:04AM (#34529013)
Hard to do on such low resolution displays where every single pixel stands out. It would have been better to avoid italics completely in most of the UI.
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Re:HelloSystem – OS with original Mac philosophy with a mode... by layer8 on Wednesday January 25, 2023 @02:22PM (#34522907)
Around 2000 was peak usability in terms of UI design for both MacOS and Windows.
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Re:HelloSystem – OS with original Mac philosophy with a mode... by TimTheTinker on Wednesday January 25, 2023 @03:08PM (#34523464)
Modern macOS is remarkably usable compared to that time, especially with a few tweaks in place (Magnet app for window management, three-finger dragging, etc.)

It's really easy to forget how far we've come. Going back to an old OS and trying to get some real work done can be eye-opening.

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Re:HelloSystem – OS with original Mac philosophy with a mode... by guerrilla on Wednesday January 25, 2023 @02:21PM (#34522895)
I'm still waiting desperately for some DE to get back to this. GNOME 4x has in some ways but obviously not in others... Please someone re-make an OS 9-like UI for me.
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Re:HelloSystem – OS with original Mac philosophy with a mode... by hexagonwin on Wednesday January 25, 2023 @03:19PM (#34523599)
mlvwm is available and also works on modern *nix. (worked on gnu linux and freebsd at least) https://github.com/morgant/mlvwm
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Re:HelloSystem – OS with original Mac philosophy with a mode... by cmrdporcupine on Wednesday January 25, 2023 @03:18PM (#34523586)
"lickable" I think was the phrase Steve Jobs used for it.

Remember that Apple had just made a killing selling jelly-bean aesthetic iMacs (running classic Mac OS 9, even). The Aqua stuff matched the physical case design of those machines.

It all goes along with the late 90s / Y2K times, intense colours. "Run Lola Run" and Fifth Element and late 90s club culture and whatnot. Nothing restrained about that era in terms of style. It was boom times end-of-millennium and that aesthetic continued even for a bit after the .com crash and 9/11 deflated the tires.

Also as others have pointed out, it had to do with "we can do this now'; the graphics hardware and the software stack (showing off "Quartz" etc)

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Re:HelloSystem – OS with original Mac philosophy with a mode... by robinsonb5 on Wednesday January 25, 2023 @03:23PM (#34523645)
Funnily enough I was playing with a couple of old PowerMac G4s a couple of weeks ago (actually wiping them for disposal - though I've since decided to keep at least one!)

I realised very quickly that I'd forgotten how good the OS9 interface is, and how well it stands up against today's offerings. Trying out a lookalike theme on Linux [1] is definitely on my todo list:

[1] https://github.com/grassmunk/Platinum9

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