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I used to dislike dark backgrounds, but now I have several apps set to dark mode. But going way back to the 80s, terminals were mostly dark mode. CRTs mostly lo

by tlb 7y ago

I used to dislike dark backgrounds, but now I have several apps set to dark mode. But going way back to the 80s, terminals were mostly dark mode. CRTs mostly looked terrible with bright backgrounds until the Mac. I don't know if my own change in preference is due to underlying change in screen technology, or something else. Screen time might affect it too -- maybe people prefer light mode when they're only on-screen a few hours a day, but dark mode is better when using it all day?

silon42 7y ago
There was blue mode for a while. I remember using of Norton Commander, Turbo Pascal, where blue mode was the default and quite popular.
- i_am_proteus 7y ago
  And classic Word Perfect 5.
- vidarh 7y ago
  I suspect a lot of that happened because people started adding color when color monitors became a more common option, and blue being the least offensive of the alternatives available if you wanted to add a background color...
xattt 7y ago
I think about the default IRIX UIs from the mid-90s[1, 2]. These were embraced by a professional subset of users that likely paid attention to detail and wanted minimal distraction from their work, however subtle it might be. Dark UIs likely made ghosting more prominent on CRTs, either because of crosstalk on a D-SUB cable or because of "spillover" of bright elements of a UI into a nearby dark field. I agree with your sentiment that technological change has made this possible. Tangentially, I wanted to mention a hue shift that I've noticed that that all UIs seem to flow through. I will take the evolution of Aqua for example. UIs seem to start off with some variant of lighter blue or green (10.0) that eventually iterates into a darker but more saturated form of itself (10.4). Eventually, we start getting hints of purple (10.5, 10.6). When purple starts to come through, there are really no colours to introduce and designers usually decide it's time for a UI overhaul. I would love to hear others' takes on this. [1] http://i.imgur.com/Lzlbyp9.jpg http://i.imgur.com/Lzlbyp9.jpg [2] http://retronet.altervista.org/retronet/ss/ss_irix_shake.png http://retronet.altervista.org/retronet/ss/ss_irix_shake.png
kps 7y ago
If you had a low-resolution display with visible scan lines, as most text terminals did, then you had a stripy light background, which was pretty bad. But a high-resolution gapless display on a reasonably adjusted CRT was great.

by tlb 7y ago

silon42 7y ago

There was blue mode for a while. I remember using of Norton Commander, Turbo Pascal, where blue mode was the default and quite popular.

i_am_proteus 7y ago
And classic Word Perfect 5.
vidarh 7y ago
I suspect a lot of that happened because people started adding color when color monitors became a more common option, and blue being the least offensive of the alternatives available if you wanted to add a background color...

xattt 7y ago

I think about the default IRIX UIs from the mid-90s[1, 2]. These were embraced by a professional subset of users that likely paid attention to detail and wanted minimal distraction from their work, however subtle it might be. Dark UIs likely made ghosting more prominent on CRTs, either because of crosstalk on a D-SUB cable or because of "spillover" of bright elements of a UI into a nearby dark field. I agree with your sentiment that technological change has made this possible. Tangentially, I wanted to mention a hue shift that I've noticed that that all UIs seem to flow through. I will take the evolution of Aqua for example. UIs seem to start off with some variant of lighter blue or green (10.0) that eventually iterates into a darker but more saturated form of itself (10.4). Eventually, we start getting hints of purple (10.5, 10.6). When purple starts to come through, there are really no colours to introduce and designers usually decide it's time for a UI overhaul. I would love to hear others' takes on this. [1] http://i.imgur.com/Lzlbyp9.jpg http://i.imgur.com/Lzlbyp9.jpg [2] http://retronet.altervista.org/retronet/ss/ss_irix_shake.png http://retronet.altervista.org/retronet/ss/ss_irix_shake.png

kps 7y ago

If you had a low-resolution display with visible scan lines, as most text terminals did, then you had a stripy light background, which was pretty bad. But a high-resolution gapless display on a reasonably adjusted CRT was great.