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There's something beautiful and odd about reading the page about how much "Windoze 98" sucks, in 2020, from a computer running Xubuntu with the fabulous Chicago

There's something beautiful and odd about reading the page about how much "Windoze 98" sucks, in 2020, from a computer running Xubuntu with the fabulous Chicago 95 theme[1] that brings back the old aesthetic. [1] https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95 https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95

leonidasv 6y ago
This theme really rocks. I've used it for quite some time. I still miss some gotchas from Windows 95 UX (1 pixel width things, no overuse of shadows/highlights, concise color pallette, etc), and started to respect it even more after reading this article: https://socket3.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/designing-windows-95s-user-interface/ https://socket3.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/designing-windows-9...
Lammy 6y ago
It's very appropriate then that one of Chicago95's demo screenshots is of a browser open to (a different section of) this same website https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95/blob/master/Screenshots/SCREENSHOTS.md https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95/blob/master/Screensho...
anthk 6y ago
Windows 98 with ActiveX was as obnoxious and laggish as a desktop environment made with Electron today. You could disable it in a breeze and get a good boost.
- shrimp_emoji 6y ago
  From article: >Somewhere around this point, people began spewing mindless drivel about how browsers would somehow magically replace operating systems eventually, and how in the future all applications would be "web based". From you: >a desktop environment made with Electron today. A browser DE would be great. ;w; A crossplatform shell with the same tray and file manager and everything? Wherein I can open a browser and play crossplatform browser games[0]? When pls 0: https://wasm.continuation-labs.com/d3demo/ https://wasm.continuation-labs.com/d3demo/
  - anthk 6y ago
    Explorer under W98 was basically IE. Kinda like KDE3 with Kparts, but far more insecure. On your link: Exception thrown, see JavaScript console
  - zrm 6y ago
    What would really be interesting is a library that uses the browser for only the UI, and is otherwise basically language-independent. So like Qt or GTK except let the browser do all the gnarly platform-specific parts. Then the UI is compiled to javascript, which means it's portable and looks the same on every platform, but you can actually write your program in a less brain-damaged language like Rust or Python (or C or whatever you like).
    - cycloptic 6y ago
      The Broadway backend for GTK roughly does that. Qt5 apps can also be compiled to wasm now. https://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/stable/gtk-broadway.html https://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/stable/gtk-broadway.html https://wiki.qt.io/Qt_for_WebAssembly https://wiki.qt.io/Qt_for_WebAssembly
code_duck 6y ago
Windows 98 was good, other than the instability, inconsistency and lack of significant improvement from 95.
- masswerk 6y ago
  However, at least in Win 98 SE, PostScript drivers finally worked… sort of… Fun fact: Up to NS4 / IE4, you couldn't print a JavaScript generated HTML output, which was a major restriction in the days, when "the Internet" was commonly printed by a assistant for the benefit of a higher echelon, for whom the Web mostly came on paper. However, for whatever reasons, with a PostScript printer you could. (Generally speaking, pages were reloaded and reflowed for printing and JS generated content didn't work well with printer drivers which did also RIPping. Apparently, the process was somewhat different with PS printers.)
  - coribuci 6y ago
    > However, at least in Win 98 SE, PostScript drivers finally worked… sort of… > Fun fact: Up to NS4 / IE4, you couldn't print a JavaScript generated HTML output, which was a major restriction in the days, when "the Internet" was commonly printed by a assistant for the benefit of a higher echelon... Fun fact: printing web pages today is a PITA. The only browser which some years ago made a decent job was Opera. Firefox, Chrome and IE are total disasters.
  - code_duck 6y ago
    There are probably a lot of period specific things that only worked in ~90s Windows due to the lack of alternatives and therefore the specificity of development for Windows. I mean, that's why there was a successful antitrust lawsuit levied against Microsoft.

leonidasv 6y ago

This theme really rocks. I've used it for quite some time. I still miss some gotchas from Windows 95 UX (1 pixel width things, no overuse of shadows/highlights, concise color pallette, etc), and started to respect it even more after reading this article: https://socket3.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/designing-windows-95s-user-interface/ https://socket3.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/designing-windows-9...

Lammy 6y ago

It's very appropriate then that one of Chicago95's demo screenshots is of a browser open to (a different section of) this same website https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95/blob/master/Screenshots/SCREENSHOTS.md https://github.com/grassmunk/Chicago95/blob/master/Screensho...

anthk 6y ago

Windows 98 with ActiveX was as obnoxious and laggish as a desktop environment made with Electron today. You could disable it in a breeze and get a good boost.

shrimp_emoji 6y ago
From article: >Somewhere around this point, people began spewing mindless drivel about how browsers would somehow magically replace operating systems eventually, and how in the future all applications would be "web based". From you: >a desktop environment made with Electron today. A browser DE would be great. ;w; A crossplatform shell with the same tray and file manager and everything? Wherein I can open a browser and play crossplatform browser games[0]? When pls 0: https://wasm.continuation-labs.com/d3demo/ https://wasm.continuation-labs.com/d3demo/
- anthk 6y ago
  Explorer under W98 was basically IE. Kinda like KDE3 with Kparts, but far more insecure. On your link: Exception thrown, see JavaScript console
- zrm 6y ago
  What would really be interesting is a library that uses the browser for only the UI, and is otherwise basically language-independent. So like Qt or GTK except let the browser do all the gnarly platform-specific parts. Then the UI is compiled to javascript, which means it's portable and looks the same on every platform, but you can actually write your program in a less brain-damaged language like Rust or Python (or C or whatever you like).
  - cycloptic 6y ago
    The Broadway backend for GTK roughly does that. Qt5 apps can also be compiled to wasm now. https://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/stable/gtk-broadway.html https://developer.gnome.org/gtk3/stable/gtk-broadway.html https://wiki.qt.io/Qt_for_WebAssembly https://wiki.qt.io/Qt_for_WebAssembly

code_duck 6y ago

Windows 98 was good, other than the instability, inconsistency and lack of significant improvement from 95.

masswerk 6y ago
However, at least in Win 98 SE, PostScript drivers finally worked… sort of… Fun fact: Up to NS4 / IE4, you couldn't print a JavaScript generated HTML output, which was a major restriction in the days, when "the Internet" was commonly printed by a assistant for the benefit of a higher echelon, for whom the Web mostly came on paper. However, for whatever reasons, with a PostScript printer you could. (Generally speaking, pages were reloaded and reflowed for printing and JS generated content didn't work well with printer drivers which did also RIPping. Apparently, the process was somewhat different with PS printers.)
- coribuci 6y ago
  > However, at least in Win 98 SE, PostScript drivers finally worked… sort of… > Fun fact: Up to NS4 / IE4, you couldn't print a JavaScript generated HTML output, which was a major restriction in the days, when "the Internet" was commonly printed by a assistant for the benefit of a higher echelon... Fun fact: printing web pages today is a PITA. The only browser which some years ago made a decent job was Opera. Firefox, Chrome and IE are total disasters.
- code_duck 6y ago
  There are probably a lot of period specific things that only worked in ~90s Windows due to the lack of alternatives and therefore the specificity of development for Windows. I mean, that's why there was a successful antitrust lawsuit levied against Microsoft.