5 ms·

Shouldn't have stolen the color scheme from jwz. Now we have two problems.

by mhb 7y ago

corobo 7y ago
Green on black is a colour scheme from old terminals..
- codazoda 7y ago
  This. The monitors of the time were called monochrome. Most of them came in green or amber.
  - jaclaz 7y ago
    ... and at the time we didn't brag about "dark mode" in "apps", there was only this mode ...
  - perl4ever 7y ago
    But there was also paper white, which was more of a bluish purple in reality.
- superasn 7y ago
  But this site is super hard to read on mobile and really hurts your eyes. I get the nostalgia value but there should be a more usable version for the users just discovering it for the first time.
  - zozbot234 7y ago
    > But this site is super hard to read on mobile Not sure if serious... just rotate the device into landscape. Or stick to old Apple][ / C=64 stuff.
  - corobo 7y ago
    Not really related to my comment but for the record I agree, all sites should be responsive even if they don't look like modern websites. As for hurting your eyes.. that's user preference and this isn't my site. Try reader mode I guess?
- cryptonector 7y ago
  u/mhb was making a joke by referencing a famous jwz, all-purpose joke.
  - corobo 7y ago
    Apologies u/mhb - it went straight over my head
lowtolerance 7y ago
Are you for real? This website has been around and has looked more or less the same since the late 90s. The claim that jwz invented the green and black color scheme is probably the strangest thing I’ll read all day. Also, what’s the first problem?
- the_af 7y ago
  > Also, what’s the first problem? It's a reference to jwz's saying "some people, when they have a problem think 'I know, I'll solve it with regular expressions!'. Now they have two problems" (not an exact quote). The user posting this makes me think the whole post was a joke ;)
  - mhb 7y ago
    Thank you.
tibbon 7y ago
Jason doesn't steal. He archives!
- jhabdas 7y ago
  That fact may cause sites like archive.org to pass over some of the content. Ergo we need to make a P2P mirror of the content. A ZeroNet port seems about right for a site with hundreds of pages and close to 58K textfiles.
gravitas 7y ago
February 1999, textfiles.com colour scheme predates jwz.org. https://web.archive.org/web/19990203134049/http://www.textfiles.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/19990203134049/http://www.textfi... https://web.archive.org/web/19990208014216/http://www.jwz.org/ https://web.archive.org/web/19990208014216/http://www.jwz.or...
pfortuny 7y ago
I used that color scheme before the internet was a thing!
teddyh 7y ago
JWZ took the colors on his web site from the Ann Arbor Ambassador 60 terminal: https://web.archive.org/web/20200214203348/https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/10/export-termaaa-60/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200214203348/https://www.jwz.o... “Sometimes people ask me why my web sites use those colors. This is a thing that people sometimes ask.”
- perl4ever 7y ago
  Reading that takes me back to the mid-80s, when I encountered a port of emacs for the Amiga and I was just bewildered by it - in the age of GUIs, something developed before microcomputers and mice seemed like an pointless atavism.

Shouldn't have stolen the color scheme from jwz. Now we have two problems.

by mhb 7y ago

Shouldn't have stolen the color scheme from jwz. Now we have two problems.

corobo 7y ago

Green on black is a colour scheme from old terminals..

codazoda 7y ago
This. The monitors of the time were called monochrome. Most of them came in green or amber.
- jaclaz 7y ago
  ... and at the time we didn't brag about "dark mode" in "apps", there was only this mode ...
- perl4ever 7y ago
  But there was also paper white, which was more of a bluish purple in reality.
superasn 7y ago
But this site is super hard to read on mobile and really hurts your eyes. I get the nostalgia value but there should be a more usable version for the users just discovering it for the first time.
- zozbot234 7y ago
  > But this site is super hard to read on mobile Not sure if serious... just rotate the device into landscape. Or stick to old Apple][ / C=64 stuff.
- corobo 7y ago
  Not really related to my comment but for the record I agree, all sites should be responsive even if they don't look like modern websites. As for hurting your eyes.. that's user preference and this isn't my site. Try reader mode I guess?
cryptonector 7y ago
u/mhb was making a joke by referencing a famous jwz, all-purpose joke.
- corobo 7y ago
  Apologies u/mhb - it went straight over my head

lowtolerance 7y ago

Are you for real? This website has been around and has looked more or less the same since the late 90s. The claim that jwz invented the green and black color scheme is probably the strangest thing I’ll read all day. Also, what’s the first problem?

the_af 7y ago
> Also, what’s the first problem? It's a reference to jwz's saying "some people, when they have a problem think 'I know, I'll solve it with regular expressions!'. Now they have two problems" (not an exact quote). The user posting this makes me think the whole post was a joke ;)
- mhb 7y ago
  Thank you.

tibbon 7y ago

Jason doesn't steal. He archives!

jhabdas 7y ago
That fact may cause sites like archive.org to pass over some of the content. Ergo we need to make a P2P mirror of the content. A ZeroNet port seems about right for a site with hundreds of pages and close to 58K textfiles.

gravitas 7y ago

February 1999, textfiles.com colour scheme predates jwz.org. https://web.archive.org/web/19990203134049/http://www.textfiles.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/19990203134049/http://www.textfi... https://web.archive.org/web/19990208014216/http://www.jwz.org/ https://web.archive.org/web/19990208014216/http://www.jwz.or...

pfortuny 7y ago

I used that color scheme before the internet was a thing!

teddyh 7y ago

JWZ took the colors on his web site from the Ann Arbor Ambassador 60 terminal: https://web.archive.org/web/20200214203348/https://www.jwz.org/blog/2016/10/export-termaaa-60/ https://web.archive.org/web/20200214203348/https://www.jwz.o... “Sometimes people ask me why my web sites use those colors. This is a thing that people sometimes ask.”

perl4ever 7y ago
Reading that takes me back to the mid-80s, when I encountered a port of emacs for the Amiga and I was just bewildered by it - in the age of GUIs, something developed before microcomputers and mice seemed like an pointless atavism.