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I like that this is also called "futuristic". This is the future if we projected it out in the 90s. (I think the popularity says something about the average ag

I like that this is also called "futuristic". This is the future if we projected it out in the 90s. (I think the popularity says something about the average age of HN users). However, if we had projected the future in the 80s or 70s or 00s, we would see different interfaces. Speaking of cyberpunk, I recommend the William Gibson short story Gernsback Continuum that explores this "projected future" concept in more detail.

tiborsaas 6y ago
The React version of Her would be a bit too minimalistic :) Edit: I wanted to check if I was right and it's all voice, and found this playlist on Sci-fi UI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7WtNgesVbQ&list=PLAT7Dwp-tD1cz08CU6DLxgw3443sYmqy_&index=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7WtNgesVbQ&list=PLAT7Dwp-tD...
j4pe 6y ago
And in particular, the protagonist of that short story who is so happy he lives in his grim and grotty but real cyberpunk future, instead of the sterile, facile utopia imagined by the retro-futurism aesthetic. It's an interesting idea! You can learn a lot about a decade by studying what they thought their future would look like. And in the 90s we were definitely thinking it would involve neon translucency.
pvg 6y ago
A lot of the elements of 'the future' used are a lot older (and weirdly persistent!) - the notions that a 'computer' or some piece of gear outputs text slowly, makes noises while doing so and prints in a special font were themselves once real artifacts of what was then seen as futuristic technology.
anthk 6y ago
>This is the future if we projected it out in the 90s. I have to break some myths, but Mac OS9 in movies and MacOSX specially since Panther was THE dreamt interface from the 90's. It was so sucessful that even Fluxbox nerds wrote OSX like themes. Even for FVWM!!! Metallic themes were a thing in late 90's, among with the bloat and bling bling from E16. But OSX was a mix between art, skeumorphing and UNIX zealotism being built-in replacing the OS9 ahem... scrap.

tiborsaas 6y ago

The React version of Her would be a bit too minimalistic :) Edit: I wanted to check if I was right and it's all voice, and found this playlist on Sci-fi UI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7WtNgesVbQ&list=PLAT7Dwp-tD1cz08CU6DLxgw3443sYmqy_&index=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m7WtNgesVbQ&list=PLAT7Dwp-tD...

j4pe 6y ago

And in particular, the protagonist of that short story who is so happy he lives in his grim and grotty but real cyberpunk future, instead of the sterile, facile utopia imagined by the retro-futurism aesthetic. It's an interesting idea! You can learn a lot about a decade by studying what they thought their future would look like. And in the 90s we were definitely thinking it would involve neon translucency.

pvg 6y ago

A lot of the elements of 'the future' used are a lot older (and weirdly persistent!) - the notions that a 'computer' or some piece of gear outputs text slowly, makes noises while doing so and prints in a special font were themselves once real artifacts of what was then seen as futuristic technology.

anthk 6y ago

>This is the future if we projected it out in the 90s. I have to break some myths, but Mac OS9 in movies and MacOSX specially since Panther was THE dreamt interface from the 90's. It was so sucessful that even Fluxbox nerds wrote OSX like themes. Even for FVWM!!! Metallic themes were a thing in late 90's, among with the bloat and bling bling from E16. But OSX was a mix between art, skeumorphing and UNIX zealotism being built-in replacing the OS9 ahem... scrap.