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MacPaint Art from the Mid-80s Still Looks Great Today

(blog.decryption.net.au)
1033 points decryption | 6 comments | 12 Jul 25 08:45 UTC | HN request time: 1.412s | source | bottom
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seabombs ◴[12 Jul 25 10:57 UTC] No.44541090[source]▶
There's a term I read about a long time ago, I think it was "aesthetic completeness" or something like that. It was used in the context of video games whose art direction was fully realized in the game, i.e. increases in graphics hardware or capabilities wouldn't add anything to the game in an artistic sense. The original Homeworld games were held up as examples.

Anyway, this reminded me of that. Making these pictures in anything but the tools of the time wouldn't just change them, they'd be totally different artworks. The medium is part of the artwork itself.

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lukan ◴[12 Jul 25 11:13 UTC] No.44541180[source]▶
Hm, are you sure that there is not some nostalgia at play here?

To me they look horribly pixelated and at least some would improve aesthetically a lot for me with a higher resolution.

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1. zozbot234 ◴[12 Jul 25 11:20 UTC] No.44541215[source]▶
Even today these pictures have an almost perfect resolution for showing on a compact e-paper display. The viewing area on the original Mac models was not that much bigger, either. They only look "horribly pixelated" when artificially upscaled for a modern big screen.

(A pixel-art specific upscaling filter would mitigate that issue, of course.)

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2. lukan ◴[12 Jul 25 12:15 UTC] No.44541536[source]▶
I was viewing them via a small mobile screen, not high DPI, not fullscreen. And to me, they simply don't look good the way they are.

But if you folks enjoy them, go for it. Otherwise taste is subjective I think.

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3. ◴[12 Jul 25 12:51 UTC] No.44541710[source]▶
4. reconnecting ◴[12 Jul 25 12:53 UTC] No.44541724[source]▶
It's amazing what people achieved with the resources of the '80s, creating fairly enjoyable visuals using extremely limited technology.

Another example from the early '90s is MARS.COM (1) by Tim Clarke (1993). Just 6 kilobytes and 30+ fps on a 12MHZ 286 (2).

1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_zSjpIyMt0k

2. https://github.com/matrix-toolbox/MARS.COM/blob/main/MARS.AS...

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5. lukan ◴[12 Jul 25 14:49 UTC] No.44542461{3}[source]▶
It is definitely amazing what they pioneered and achieved with the given limits.

But that doesn't mean I would enjoy a pixelated image now more than a high resolution image of the same motive.

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6. reconnecting ◴[12 Jul 25 22:59 UTC] No.44545927{4}[source]▶
Taking this parallel further, perhaps oil paintings are not as sharp as digital photos of the same subject.