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The Windows 95 UI was inspired by NextStep. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTSTEP#/media/File:NeXTSTEP_desktop.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTSTEP#/

The Windows 95 UI was inspired by NextStep. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTSTEP#/media/File:NeXTSTEP_desktop.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NeXTSTEP#/media/File:NeXTSTEP_... Before Windows 95 was released there was CTL3D.DLL which gave a NextStep-like look & feel to Windows 3.1. See this image for the improvement made by CTL3D.DLL: http://www.win3x.org/screens/15nvtbm.gif http://www.win3x.org/screens/15nvtbm.gif

statictype 7y ago
Wow - does this bring back some memories. I remember when CTL3D.dll was all the rage. Good times. To think we used to worry about VB programs needing a separate runtime to distribute them and Delphi programs, while stand-alone, took up almost 200KB for a minimal app!
- thom 7y ago
  Ah, THREED.VBX, good times indeed.
  - dguaraglia 7y ago
    Hahah, yes! I was obsessed with THREED.VBX, but because I was learning C at the time ended up writing a whole library of Windows custom-drawn controls that looked exactly the same. I guess it was only later that I learned there was nothing special about VBX libraries and that you could (with some boilerplate) make them work from C. Kids nowadays have it so easy with their Electrons and QTs...
userbinator 7y ago
I think it improved on NextStep by adding things like the underlines for keyboard accessibility, but the basic style (i.e. buttons that look like buttons) is very similar.
Aeolun 7y ago
That.. doesn’t actually functionally change a whole lot? Though I can see how it would be super cool at the time.
- buboard 7y ago
  most apps didnt, but the consistency was much better with 95. The major user-facing changes was the taskbar and right clicks. It felt really consistent and made sense as a whole remarkably better than previous versions.
mavhc 7y ago
Taskbar was a bad clone of RISC OS's iconbar, but without the separation of Application and Window/Document that made it so much better
- ianetaylor 7y ago
  While RISC OS was influential, the 'app bar' idea mostly came from Windows 1.0 with minimized apps at the bottom of the screen. It went through several iterations and for a while it was a storage location for documents with no apps at all. Eventually the simple app list tested best so that's what stuck. [I worked on parts of the Win95 UI although George Pitt I think did most of the work on the Taskbar itself]
vijucat 7y ago
a) The NextStep UI you post seems nothing special compared to other Unix-es of the time (SGI IRIX, https://www.securitronlinux.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/1491778767840.png https://www.securitronlinux.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/1..., and Sun Solaris and IBM AIX come to mind). I believe that these precede the NextStep. b) The Windows 95 UI looks nothing like NextStep (or SGI IRIX and the other X Windows UIs of the time) to my eyes. In particular, they made a distinct move away from the drab grey look of all Unix UIs, which was a really welcome splash of color. I still find that grey look reminding me of my days in the Unix lab at college, and I find it hard to relate to the enthusiasm of Apple fans for the boring grey look of macOs, which is clearly a '70s Unix look!

statictype 7y ago

Wow - does this bring back some memories. I remember when CTL3D.dll was all the rage. Good times. To think we used to worry about VB programs needing a separate runtime to distribute them and Delphi programs, while stand-alone, took up almost 200KB for a minimal app!

thom 7y ago
Ah, THREED.VBX, good times indeed.
- dguaraglia 7y ago
  Hahah, yes! I was obsessed with THREED.VBX, but because I was learning C at the time ended up writing a whole library of Windows custom-drawn controls that looked exactly the same. I guess it was only later that I learned there was nothing special about VBX libraries and that you could (with some boilerplate) make them work from C. Kids nowadays have it so easy with their Electrons and QTs...

userbinator 7y ago

I think it improved on NextStep by adding things like the underlines for keyboard accessibility, but the basic style (i.e. buttons that look like buttons) is very similar.

Aeolun 7y ago

That.. doesn’t actually functionally change a whole lot? Though I can see how it would be super cool at the time.

buboard 7y ago
most apps didnt, but the consistency was much better with 95. The major user-facing changes was the taskbar and right clicks. It felt really consistent and made sense as a whole remarkably better than previous versions.

mavhc 7y ago

Taskbar was a bad clone of RISC OS's iconbar, but without the separation of Application and Window/Document that made it so much better

ianetaylor 7y ago
While RISC OS was influential, the 'app bar' idea mostly came from Windows 1.0 with minimized apps at the bottom of the screen. It went through several iterations and for a while it was a storage location for documents with no apps at all. Eventually the simple app list tested best so that's what stuck. [I worked on parts of the Win95 UI although George Pitt I think did most of the work on the Taskbar itself]

vijucat 7y ago

a) The NextStep UI you post seems nothing special compared to other Unix-es of the time (SGI IRIX, https://www.securitronlinux.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/1491778767840.png https://www.securitronlinux.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/1..., and Sun Solaris and IBM AIX come to mind). I believe that these precede the NextStep. b) The Windows 95 UI looks nothing like NextStep (or SGI IRIX and the other X Windows UIs of the time) to my eyes. In particular, they made a distinct move away from the drab grey look of all Unix UIs, which was a really welcome splash of color. I still find that grey look reminding me of my days in the Unix lab at college, and I find it hard to relate to the enthusiasm of Apple fans for the boring grey look of macOs, which is clearly a '70s Unix look!