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Amiga Workbench and GEM [1] icons, fonts and chrome were some of the most aesthetically unpleasant designs ever. The proportions were all stretched out, and the

by wenc 9y ago

Amiga Workbench and GEM [1] icons, fonts and chrome were some of the most aesthetically unpleasant designs ever. The proportions were all stretched out, and the icons were mostly ugly. With Kare's icons, even the pixelation looked cute. [1] I was briefly enchanted with GEM because it made my DOS machine look and feel like a Mac, but when I compared it to an actual Mac it looked horrible. This is what GEM looked like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Environment_Manager#/media/File:Gem1.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphics_Environment_Manager#/... And this is what System 1 (original Mac OS) looked like: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_1#/media/File:Apple_Macintosh_Desktop.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_1#/media/File:Apple_Mac...

jcadam 9y ago
As a child, when I first saw that garish blue and orange color scheme of the pre-2.0 Amiga Workbench, I thought: "Why would anyone do that?"
reaperducer 9y ago
Heck, even GEOS looked better than GEM. The Amiga desktop was such a missed opportunity. Take the first mass-market computer capable of high-resolution graphics in 4,096 colors and make the icons... wait for it... black, white, and orange on a blue background. A friend of mine who was legally blind had an A1000. I sometimes wonder if it was only for the icons.
- bitwize 9y ago
  There's a reason for that color scheme. The OG Mac had a built-in, sharp, monochrome CRT. The Amiga was designed to be usable with whatever TV happened to be lying around. Hence the complementary pairs of black and white, and blue and orange: the only colors that would read well on the oldest, grottiest, junkiest b&w or color TVs. If you were editing HAM images in Deluxe Paint, obviously you'd want a high-quality monitor for that. But if you didn't have a high-quality monitor, the basic system UI would at least degrade well to be usable with what you had. Function over form is a part of the Amiga design. Its graphical shell is called "Workbench" and not "Desktop" -- it was thought of as a computer for engineers and makers who were willing to forgo prettiness for practicality.
- mvdwoord 9y ago
  The moment I found out about magic workbench I never looked back. http://www.binarydevotion.com/?p=87 http://www.binarydevotion.com/?p=87
compiler-guy 9y ago
Kare's icons are so much more simple, and yet convey more detail. GEM tries really hard, but just ends up looking muddy. It's one of the clearest versions of "Less is more" that I have ever seen.

by wenc 9y ago

jcadam 9y ago

As a child, when I first saw that garish blue and orange color scheme of the pre-2.0 Amiga Workbench, I thought: "Why would anyone do that?"

reaperducer 9y ago

Heck, even GEOS looked better than GEM. The Amiga desktop was such a missed opportunity. Take the first mass-market computer capable of high-resolution graphics in 4,096 colors and make the icons... wait for it... black, white, and orange on a blue background. A friend of mine who was legally blind had an A1000. I sometimes wonder if it was only for the icons.

bitwize 9y ago
There's a reason for that color scheme. The OG Mac had a built-in, sharp, monochrome CRT. The Amiga was designed to be usable with whatever TV happened to be lying around. Hence the complementary pairs of black and white, and blue and orange: the only colors that would read well on the oldest, grottiest, junkiest b&w or color TVs. If you were editing HAM images in Deluxe Paint, obviously you'd want a high-quality monitor for that. But if you didn't have a high-quality monitor, the basic system UI would at least degrade well to be usable with what you had. Function over form is a part of the Amiga design. Its graphical shell is called "Workbench" and not "Desktop" -- it was thought of as a computer for engineers and makers who were willing to forgo prettiness for practicality.
mvdwoord 9y ago
The moment I found out about magic workbench I never looked back. http://www.binarydevotion.com/?p=87 http://www.binarydevotion.com/?p=87

compiler-guy 9y ago

Kare's icons are so much more simple, and yet convey more detail. GEM tries really hard, but just ends up looking muddy. It's one of the clearest versions of "Less is more" that I have ever seen.