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Blue95: a desktop for your childhood home's computer room

(github.com)
567 points elvis70 | 3 comments | 30 Mar 25 15:30 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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metadat ◴[30 Mar 25 16:14 UTC] No.43525239[source]▶
This looks nice and easy to use.

My hypothesis is today's "modern" OS user interfaces are objectively worse from a usability perspective, obfuscating key functionality behind layers of confusing menus.

It reminds me of these "OS popularity since the 70s" time lapse views:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=cTKhqtll5cQ

The dominance of Windows is crazy, even today, Mac desktops and laptops are comparatively niche

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esafak ◴[30 Mar 25 16:29 UTC] No.43525364[source]▶
Microsoft Windows programs hid functionality under layers of menus and the registry. MacOS, at least, surfaces much less functionality, because it offers sensible defaults. I never had to do anything akin to fiddling with the Windows Registry.

I did like some Windows things, though, like the ribbon, and reconfigurable UIs. Today's UIs are more immutable, for the worse.

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1. bbqfog ◴[30 Mar 25 16:34 UTC] No.43525417[source]▶
MacOS is pretty cursed. The equivalent to registry fiddling is doing anything in ~/Library/Application Support

It still has "Services" as a hold over from Next that is completely broken and unused (but still present in every app for some reason). Now you also have the joy of diving deep into the Settings every time an app needs some sort of permission.

I'd say something about .DS_Store files, but that's not really UI.

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2. anthk ◴[30 Mar 25 21:57 UTC] No.43528045[source]▶
NeXTStep/GNUStep/Cocoa 'defaults' commands.
3. wpm ◴[01 Apr 25 01:26 UTC] No.43541896[source]▶
I'd much rather work with plain-text human readable property list files with straightforward `defaults` commands than the hive of Hell called the registry.