5 ms·

I'm not sure if the author of the linked post was being sarcastic but, as one of the rare Macintosh users of the era, I feel like I have to jump in here and poi

I'm not sure if the author of the linked post was being sarcastic but, as one of the rare Macintosh users of the era, I feel like I have to jump in here and point out that a lot of those original features weren't particularly original. The old-school macOS of the time (System 7, which was not based on BSD) had a lot of similar features in its UI. Those included things like the desktop hard disk icon (called "Untitled" by default I think?), "Trash", the Apple icon menu, maximize buttons on windows, and others. Windows 95 definitely had some unique stuff and was a nice OS to use. But I remember at the time it seemed pretty derivative.

JohnHaugeland 4y ago
None of the counterexamples you tried to give are actually in the article.
- chipotle_coyote 4y ago
  Well, the article was making the case that Windows 95 was some singularly unique UI, and the comment was suggesting that it really wasn't. Among Mac users at the time this wasn't exactly an uncommon belief; the joke "Windows 95 = Mac 89" was pretty prevalent, even making it to bumper stickers, IIRC. (Although former Apple engineer Erich Ringewald later observed, that while was largely true, the real problem was that Mac 95 = Mac 89 was also true.)
  - bitwize 4y ago
    I was at the 1995 MacWorld. I saw a lot of "Windows 95 = Mac '84" and "C:\ONGRTLNS.W95" T-shirts about. Then again, the first machine I saw actually running Windows 95 was a Mac, I believed equipped with SoftPC, at that same expo.
- guerrilla 4y ago
  Yes they were... Apple Menu = Start Menu, Hard Disk Icon = My Computer, etc. You can't just not do the translations. Everything Microsoft did was stolen from other places, including Macs.
  - smoldesu 4y ago
    Good, serves them right. Apple shamelessly stole their interface from Xerox, so I don't see why we have to put everyone on blast here. Steve Jobs said it himself: "Good artists copy; great artists steal" Hell, arguably Apple wouldn't exist as it does today if they hadn't brazenly appropriated companies that worked in fields they were interested in. There's nothing new (or shameful) about stealing UI motifs if they're effective.
    - bitwize 4y ago
      Apple licensed the interface design from Xerox. The only thievery involved was on Microsoft's part. They should have gotten smacked down in that lawsuit.
    - davesque 4y ago
      Well, there's nothing new under the sun really. And I should have framed it differently because, even though I was a Mac user, I wasn't exactly a fanboi. I don't care so much to champion Apple products as I do to point out that claiming the UI features of Windows 95 were original is inaccurate. And also that they weren't seen as being original at the time they arrived on the scene by certain cohorts.
    - lproven 4y ago
      Apple took resizable overlapping windows from Xerox; in return, Xerox got shares in Apple. Not stole: bought, with stock. Then, on the Lisa, Apple invented from scratch: Standarised dialog boxes; a global menu bar; window title bars with global controls on them; standardised icons and functions and buttons (OK, Cancel, etc). None of this stuff was in Xerox Smalltalk. Xerox invented 3 things: overlapping resizable windows; an object-oriented programming language to create and manipulate them; ubiquitous networking to connect the machines. Apple took the windows, missed the rest. Source: Steve Jobs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHaTRWRj8G0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHaTRWRj8G0 But Apple invented most of the standard GUI controls that we all know and use today. They weren't in the original Xerox system at all.
      - 4y ago
lproven 4y ago
I wrote the article. I was a Mac user then too, from System 6. You may forget but there was a graphical desktop for DOS PCs before MS Windows. It was called GEM, by Digital Research. Apple sued Digital Research and forced DR to cripple its GEM desktop on the PC, by obliging it to remove features deemed derivative of classic MacOS: desktop drive icons, drop-down menus, etc. So, for instance, DR moved drive icons into a window. This is why Win95 has "My Computer" and "Network Neighbourhood" and so on instead: because it wasn't allowed to put drive icons on the desktop, but folders with drive icons in was OK because it didn't infringe.

JohnHaugeland 4y ago

None of the counterexamples you tried to give are actually in the article.

chipotle_coyote 4y ago
Well, the article was making the case that Windows 95 was some singularly unique UI, and the comment was suggesting that it really wasn't. Among Mac users at the time this wasn't exactly an uncommon belief; the joke "Windows 95 = Mac 89" was pretty prevalent, even making it to bumper stickers, IIRC. (Although former Apple engineer Erich Ringewald later observed, that while was largely true, the real problem was that Mac 95 = Mac 89 was also true.)
- bitwize 4y ago
  I was at the 1995 MacWorld. I saw a lot of "Windows 95 = Mac '84" and "C:\ONGRTLNS.W95" T-shirts about. Then again, the first machine I saw actually running Windows 95 was a Mac, I believed equipped with SoftPC, at that same expo.
guerrilla 4y ago
Yes they were... Apple Menu = Start Menu, Hard Disk Icon = My Computer, etc. You can't just not do the translations. Everything Microsoft did was stolen from other places, including Macs.
- smoldesu 4y ago
  Good, serves them right. Apple shamelessly stole their interface from Xerox, so I don't see why we have to put everyone on blast here. Steve Jobs said it himself: "Good artists copy; great artists steal" Hell, arguably Apple wouldn't exist as it does today if they hadn't brazenly appropriated companies that worked in fields they were interested in. There's nothing new (or shameful) about stealing UI motifs if they're effective.
  - bitwize 4y ago
    Apple licensed the interface design from Xerox. The only thievery involved was on Microsoft's part. They should have gotten smacked down in that lawsuit.
  - davesque 4y ago
    Well, there's nothing new under the sun really. And I should have framed it differently because, even though I was a Mac user, I wasn't exactly a fanboi. I don't care so much to champion Apple products as I do to point out that claiming the UI features of Windows 95 were original is inaccurate. And also that they weren't seen as being original at the time they arrived on the scene by certain cohorts.
  - lproven 4y ago
    Apple took resizable overlapping windows from Xerox; in return, Xerox got shares in Apple. Not stole: bought, with stock. Then, on the Lisa, Apple invented from scratch: Standarised dialog boxes; a global menu bar; window title bars with global controls on them; standardised icons and functions and buttons (OK, Cancel, etc). None of this stuff was in Xerox Smalltalk. Xerox invented 3 things: overlapping resizable windows; an object-oriented programming language to create and manipulate them; ubiquitous networking to connect the machines. Apple took the windows, missed the rest. Source: Steve Jobs. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHaTRWRj8G0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nHaTRWRj8G0 But Apple invented most of the standard GUI controls that we all know and use today. They weren't in the original Xerox system at all.
    - 4y ago

lproven 4y ago

I wrote the article. I was a Mac user then too, from System 6. You may forget but there was a graphical desktop for DOS PCs before MS Windows. It was called GEM, by Digital Research. Apple sued Digital Research and forced DR to cripple its GEM desktop on the PC, by obliging it to remove features deemed derivative of classic MacOS: desktop drive icons, drop-down menus, etc. So, for instance, DR moved drive icons into a window. This is why Win95 has "My Computer" and "Network Neighbourhood" and so on instead: because it wasn't allowed to put drive icons on the desktop, but folders with drive icons in was OK because it didn't infringe.