There was this while concept at the time that digital interfaces should mirror familiar physical interfaces in order to be easily understood by users, and it's fascinating and honestly not without value.
Skeuomorphism
I've had LCARS as my phone interface for years and people are horrified when they see all the buttons.
Oh look, my grandparents PC circa 2005
I was in the hospital in 2015 and was talking to the person next to me. He realised I was in IT and as he turned his laptop to me he's like I can't seem to view websites anymore with toolbars up the wazoo. It was already a throwback even at that time
Edit: wording
Banzai Buddy!
My neighbor intentionally installed that shit on his family PC when we were like 15.
*bonzi buddy
A lot of people installed this shit. Because they’re visiting fuckmybeaniebabies.net and a popup is like “Install our spam bar for a chance to win herpes!” And they happily click ok.
How'd you get a screenshot of my mom's desktop as I found it when I'd be home from college, cir. 2003?
I feel like some of the old cluttered WoW UIs might be an example of maximalism, by trying to show as much information as possible.
Eve players: noooo... It's not just a spreadsheet
Veteran WoW players: hmm... I can still see the actual gameplay, lemme add another stat display
That's not so bad. I have more than this, but with a larger screen you have more space.
So this is a healer. They barely need to see anything anyways.
The 15 FPS indicator is the icing on the cake.
The standards we used to put up with...
This looks like when you first discover that your Linux desktop environment supports adding infinite taskbars
(Is there some open source media player with this kind of skins?)
Winamp has been open sourced https://github.com/alexfreud/winamp
Read their license. It does not meet the definition of open source.
Wow, they prohibit forking and distributing changes, that fucking blows.
Also, doesn't look like it supports Linux natively, which is a shame.
Is there a Linux distro or program that would allow me to do this to my desktop?
If you find one, I want to know too. This would be a fun customization.
I remember people writing 3D Wayland window compositors, where you can walk around a room/maze and put application windows on walls.
Maybe it was this: https://github.com/capisce/mazecompositor
Having trouble finding it but I swear my PNY Nvidia GeForce FX 5200 (I think?) circa 2003 came with a Linux 3D desktop/launcher software that sounds like this. (X11 based I guess.)
Not sure if it was bundled with the card, came with the Nvidia drivers, or what...but it worked just fine with Linux at the time (probably Slackware, not positive what I was running then).
AND JESUS WEPT!
TBH I prefer the modern minimal UIs. It is easy to understand. Although I don’t mind having an option.
It's time to bring back skeumorphism
That is probably what the image in the post is about, really.
It's supposed to make the program more accessible for those who are not used to the concept of computer programs at all.
Is that Truespace?
Bryce 3d
Cheers. Brought back memories, even if they were wrong ones 😉
And you just know the globe rotates when you hover over Habitats, and the drawers pull out when you hover over those
I had this as a kid. It absolutely did all of those things, and the intro cutscene showed this menu as just one nook in a giant museum with other things to see. I had a few of their other games as well.
I can all but guarantee that a lot of the curiosity and enthusiasm for learning that I had as a kid was directly thanks to these edutainment games. Compared to my overwhelming adult apathy it really stands out.
Packard Bell Navigator. I really tried to make it work when I was a kid, but it was all style and not much function. I miss it, though. It was ambitious.
Seeing this helps me understand older sci-fi better, the ones where people access the computer as a virtual reality office which leads to other things. It makes sense that the authors would assume VR as the natural progression of a UI like this.
It seems like when personal computers were new they tried to replicate the familiar to ease new users in, but now that we're all very used to them we've abandoned the concept almost entirely. I feel like we might be in the beginning of a trend back to it though, now that our internet connections and graphical abilities are more up to the task.
Man the eyewitness learning games were fantastic - I loved the dinosaur one where you'd find bones in the museum and reassemble them and then have them wander round the otherwise empty liminal space of the museum.
Gorgeous
Peak skeuomorphism.
Smartphones and mobile phones used to be inventive too.
I can practically hear my external CD drive spinning up just looking at these. Makes me want to play a Sierra game real bad.
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