4 ms·

Cool. Does not support dark mode though.

girvo 4y ago
Honest question, because I don’t remember: does Windows 98? I know you could edit the theme around to set the UI scheme colours to a darker one, but as a kid I could never make it look nice
- MisterTea 4y ago
  I do remember a high contrast mode. Quite garish with white text on black background with bright blues and I think yellow and red too. I think this might be it: https://never-obsolete.tumblr.com/post/180144131029/high-contrast-1 https://never-obsolete.tumblr.com/post/180144131029/high-con... edit: yellow and red is from win 3.1's hotdog mode: https://blog.codinghorror.com/a-tribute-to-the-windows-31-hot-dog-stand-color-scheme/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/a-tribute-to-the-windows-31-ho...
  - metadat 4y ago
    Speaking of yellow and red .. don't forget the noteworthy and stunning specimen, HotDog Linux. https://hotdoglinux.com/ https://hotdoglinux.com/
- dec0dedab0de 4y ago
  There were preset themes. Some were dark.
  - girvo 4y ago
    They certainly weren’t really a “dark mode” in the modern usage though I thought, they had ridiculously high contrast still around parts of it? I don’t remember any of those dark presets being that dark either except for the High Contrast one — but this is going to drive me nuts all day now so I’m going to dig through a Win98 VM and see what I can find! If there’s one that’s a good fit, might be a fun pull request to write for this project :)
- wishfish 4y ago
  You could come close to a proper dark mode, but would fall short. That's with using the color scheme editor in the control panels. I wasted too much time back in '98 trying to make a proper dark mode. Not that we called it that back then. The downfall was a type of text (body text?) which used the same color as the titlebar. It couldn't be independently set. Was a bit frustrating back then. There were the high contrast modes back then, but they were too ugly to use unless you needed the contrast.
  - girvo 4y ago
    Yeah that’s exactly what I remembered: you could make some of the UI dark for sure, but it wasn’t a real dark mode like we expect today; there was still a fair bit of light colouring because it didn’t have enough flexibility?
    - wishfish 4y ago
      Definitely was stuck with either light coloring somewhere, or difficult to read text. I remember experimenting with different shades of gray for either the background or the text, but couldn't find one which would work on both dark and light backgrounds. And you'd always have a light background popping up somewhere. In retrospect, it's a little funny. Apparently the coders & designers at Microsoft in the 90's never anticipated someone wanting a mostly dark desktop. They'd come up with crazy color schemes like Hot Dog, but never any gray & black schemes.
    - iforgotpassword 4y ago
      No, you could do it. There is the limitation GP mentions, but that just meant you were limited in choice. Like you had to pick a text color that would look good on title bars and on window background. There was however no reason software had to adhere to that. You were free to make your app as colorful as possible. Some devs were nice enough to set the text color to black but leave everything else to use the system theme, so with your dark theme you end up with a nice black on black. I think there were even some Microsoft apps that shipped with windows that had parts that were just "hard-coded" to a light theme.
laserdancepony 4y ago
There was no dark mode fad in 1998. Different color schemes for visually impaired people existed, but they were most often not very aesthetic.
- ranger_danger 4y ago
  it's not a fad.
  - tmtvl 4y ago
    Yeah, I do seem te recall dark mode being better for people with... I think it was cataract? Though with that notable exception dark mode is of course entirely superfluous.
- rietta 4y ago
  I remember Encarta being darkmode in 98. Maybe some of the MSN stuff too. Even painted their own titlebars differently.
- wishfish 4y ago
  You are correct. There was no OOTB dark mode in 1998. I remember it well because I wasted some time every now and then trying to make one using the appearance control panel. It was frustrating because I could come very close to a universal dark mode. But I remember certain types of text couldn't have their color independently set. One of them (body text? can't remember) used the same color as title bars. Which would make it unusable in a proper dark mode. I guess I was slightly ahead of my time in wanting system wide dark mode. XP with the theming hacks made me very happy.
  - tjkrusinski 4y ago
    Microsoft did actually make a "dark" XP theme. It was available "officially" available but they didn't really market it and it had limited adoption. I stumbled upon it and thought I was v cool for using it. https://archive.org/details/WindowsXPRoyaleNoirTheme https://archive.org/details/WindowsXPRoyaleNoirTheme
raydiatian 4y ago
DarkReader extension (available on all browsers) makes everything have DarkMode. Unless you’re visiting a website designed by <canvas /> loving sadists, then you’ll need a welding helmet.

Honest question, because I don’t remember: does Windows 98? I know you could edit the theme around to set the UI scheme colours to a darker one, but as a kid I could never make it look nice

MisterTea 4y ago
I do remember a high contrast mode. Quite garish with white text on black background with bright blues and I think yellow and red too. I think this might be it: https://never-obsolete.tumblr.com/post/180144131029/high-contrast-1 https://never-obsolete.tumblr.com/post/180144131029/high-con... edit: yellow and red is from win 3.1's hotdog mode: https://blog.codinghorror.com/a-tribute-to-the-windows-31-hot-dog-stand-color-scheme/ https://blog.codinghorror.com/a-tribute-to-the-windows-31-ho...
- metadat 4y ago
  Speaking of yellow and red .. don't forget the noteworthy and stunning specimen, HotDog Linux. https://hotdoglinux.com/ https://hotdoglinux.com/
dec0dedab0de 4y ago
There were preset themes. Some were dark.
- girvo 4y ago
  They certainly weren’t really a “dark mode” in the modern usage though I thought, they had ridiculously high contrast still around parts of it? I don’t remember any of those dark presets being that dark either except for the High Contrast one — but this is going to drive me nuts all day now so I’m going to dig through a Win98 VM and see what I can find! If there’s one that’s a good fit, might be a fun pull request to write for this project :)
wishfish 4y ago
You could come close to a proper dark mode, but would fall short. That's with using the color scheme editor in the control panels. I wasted too much time back in '98 trying to make a proper dark mode. Not that we called it that back then. The downfall was a type of text (body text?) which used the same color as the titlebar. It couldn't be independently set. Was a bit frustrating back then. There were the high contrast modes back then, but they were too ugly to use unless you needed the contrast.
- girvo 4y ago
  Yeah that’s exactly what I remembered: you could make some of the UI dark for sure, but it wasn’t a real dark mode like we expect today; there was still a fair bit of light colouring because it didn’t have enough flexibility?
  - wishfish 4y ago
    Definitely was stuck with either light coloring somewhere, or difficult to read text. I remember experimenting with different shades of gray for either the background or the text, but couldn't find one which would work on both dark and light backgrounds. And you'd always have a light background popping up somewhere. In retrospect, it's a little funny. Apparently the coders & designers at Microsoft in the 90's never anticipated someone wanting a mostly dark desktop. They'd come up with crazy color schemes like Hot Dog, but never any gray & black schemes.
  - iforgotpassword 4y ago
    No, you could do it. There is the limitation GP mentions, but that just meant you were limited in choice. Like you had to pick a text color that would look good on title bars and on window background. There was however no reason software had to adhere to that. You were free to make your app as colorful as possible. Some devs were nice enough to set the text color to black but leave everything else to use the system theme, so with your dark theme you end up with a nice black on black. I think there were even some Microsoft apps that shipped with windows that had parts that were just "hard-coded" to a light theme.

laserdancepony 4y ago

There was no dark mode fad in 1998. Different color schemes for visually impaired people existed, but they were most often not very aesthetic.

ranger_danger 4y ago
it's not a fad.
- tmtvl 4y ago
  Yeah, I do seem te recall dark mode being better for people with... I think it was cataract? Though with that notable exception dark mode is of course entirely superfluous.
rietta 4y ago
I remember Encarta being darkmode in 98. Maybe some of the MSN stuff too. Even painted their own titlebars differently.
wishfish 4y ago
You are correct. There was no OOTB dark mode in 1998. I remember it well because I wasted some time every now and then trying to make one using the appearance control panel. It was frustrating because I could come very close to a universal dark mode. But I remember certain types of text couldn't have their color independently set. One of them (body text? can't remember) used the same color as title bars. Which would make it unusable in a proper dark mode. I guess I was slightly ahead of my time in wanting system wide dark mode. XP with the theming hacks made me very happy.
- tjkrusinski 4y ago
  Microsoft did actually make a "dark" XP theme. It was available "officially" available but they didn't really market it and it had limited adoption. I stumbled upon it and thought I was v cool for using it. https://archive.org/details/WindowsXPRoyaleNoirTheme https://archive.org/details/WindowsXPRoyaleNoirTheme

raydiatian 4y ago

DarkReader extension (available on all browsers) makes everything have DarkMode. Unless you’re visiting a website designed by <canvas /> loving sadists, then you’ll need a welding helmet.