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Something that popped into my head the other day, is that I think we missed a trick going straight from text based UIs with their uniform simplicity to rich, pi

Something that popped into my head the other day, is that I think we missed a trick going straight from text based UIs with their uniform simplicity to rich, pixel-perfect GUIs. Would be interesting to see a design system that somehow sits in-between these two extremes. I've got no idea what that looks like.

janekm 6y ago
I experimented with building something like that (at the time) as a potential graphical BBS interface with low bandwidth requirements. Basically combination of sprite editor / "level editor" to create graphical screens as a grid of entries into the sprite table, the sprite set & graphical screens required very little bandwidth.
buescher 6y ago
Are you imagining something like the PLATO system? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLATO_(computer_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLATO_(computer_system)
- faichai 6y ago
  Not quite. What I envision is something that has a broader colour palette, say 256 colours. Themeable. Perhaps like subpixels, there’s some kind of sub-character addressing mode to give more control aesthetics but not too much. And for contiguous blocks some basic capability to support proportional width text. Same with ability to fill blocks with images. I may have already gone too far with the proportional text.
  - kiwidrew 6y ago
    Yeah, there's something about character-cell displays that makes knocking out a UI prototype really easy, because everything naturally aligns itself to the grid. It's a bit depressing to watch the HTML/CSS users go through huge contortions to set up a reliable cross-browser typographic grid (i.e. a consistent line-height) and equally-spaced 12 column layout. On the VT100 you get all of that for free. :) I don't think I've ever seen anyone explore the concept of mixing proportional fonts with the standard 80-column monospaced character-cell display. One problem to solve is how to inform the program driving the terminal about the font metrics (i.e. width of each character) -- this already rears its head when showing UTF-8 text on a terminal thanks to CJK full-width characters, but in that case the width is always exactly 1.0 (half-width) or 2.0 (full-width) and isn't a property of the terminal's current font.
  - heywire 6y ago
    Kind of reminds me of RIP bbs’ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Imaging_Protocol https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Imaging_Protocol
  - Lammy 6y ago
    Sounds like you're describing an Amiga http://toastytech.com/guis/amiga1.html http://toastytech.com/guis/amiga1.html
rabidrat 6y ago
I agree completely, and I'm actively working on this. There have been many advances in "text-based UIs" and the modern TUI can have both the uniform simplicity you speak of, along with a rich, mouseable, colorful, unicode interface.
anthk 6y ago
plan9/9front/acme.
emmanueloga_ 6y ago
Another good thing of text based UIs is that they can be way faster without the need for a mouse.
sidpatil 6y ago
Sounds like Emacs' GUI mode.

janekm 6y ago

I experimented with building something like that (at the time) as a potential graphical BBS interface with low bandwidth requirements. Basically combination of sprite editor / "level editor" to create graphical screens as a grid of entries into the sprite table, the sprite set & graphical screens required very little bandwidth.

buescher 6y ago

Are you imagining something like the PLATO system? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLATO_(computer_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PLATO_(computer_system)

faichai 6y ago
Not quite. What I envision is something that has a broader colour palette, say 256 colours. Themeable. Perhaps like subpixels, there’s some kind of sub-character addressing mode to give more control aesthetics but not too much. And for contiguous blocks some basic capability to support proportional width text. Same with ability to fill blocks with images. I may have already gone too far with the proportional text.
- kiwidrew 6y ago
  Yeah, there's something about character-cell displays that makes knocking out a UI prototype really easy, because everything naturally aligns itself to the grid. It's a bit depressing to watch the HTML/CSS users go through huge contortions to set up a reliable cross-browser typographic grid (i.e. a consistent line-height) and equally-spaced 12 column layout. On the VT100 you get all of that for free. :) I don't think I've ever seen anyone explore the concept of mixing proportional fonts with the standard 80-column monospaced character-cell display. One problem to solve is how to inform the program driving the terminal about the font metrics (i.e. width of each character) -- this already rears its head when showing UTF-8 text on a terminal thanks to CJK full-width characters, but in that case the width is always exactly 1.0 (half-width) or 2.0 (full-width) and isn't a property of the terminal's current font.
- heywire 6y ago
  Kind of reminds me of RIP bbs’ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Imaging_Protocol https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remote_Imaging_Protocol
- Lammy 6y ago
  Sounds like you're describing an Amiga http://toastytech.com/guis/amiga1.html http://toastytech.com/guis/amiga1.html

rabidrat 6y ago

I agree completely, and I'm actively working on this. There have been many advances in "text-based UIs" and the modern TUI can have both the uniform simplicity you speak of, along with a rich, mouseable, colorful, unicode interface.

anthk 6y ago

plan9/9front/acme.

emmanueloga_ 6y ago

Another good thing of text based UIs is that they can be way faster without the need for a mouse.

sidpatil 6y ago

Sounds like Emacs' GUI mode.