5 ms·

Sure, but— The fat borders for the windows and the control strip at the bottom left of the screen took up a lot of space on real monitors of the era. Try runni

Sure, but— The fat borders for the windows and the control strip at the bottom left of the screen took up a lot of space on real monitors of the era. Try running at a more modest 800x600 or 640x480 and it will seem less efficient. Modern Mac OS X is actually quite efficient, with zero-pixel window borders on three sides, and narrower scroll bars. Worse, a bunch of applications had code that would set up window locations with the assumption that the window borders were 1 pixel wide, like they were prior to Mac OS 8. This often meant that controls which were supposed to be visible would be partially covered by another window’s border. I remember the Mac OS 8 era as a bit of “excess” that got cleaned up somewhat with the arrival of Mac OS X. On the other hand, Mac OS 8 came with a fresh batch of standardized widgets (Appearance Manager) which made all the apps look better. These widgets came with guidelines for how they should be sized and placed, something which is missing from a lot of modern UI toolkits.

david422 4y ago
Not a fan of the new trend of zero window borders. I wish there was at least a way to make them customizable.
- natemwilson 4y ago
  You can turn on Increase Contrast from the OSX System Preferences Accessibility section. I do that for this exact reason.
  - david422 4y ago
    Trying it now, thanks!
- klodolph 4y ago
  By “new trend” are you talking about how the borders got eliminated in Mac OS X in 2001? That trend is old enough to buy beer. Although for a while (starting with 10.3?), some windows had a chunky brushed-metal look.
  - Rebelgecko 4y ago
    IIRC it was around 2010 that Apple started getting rid of scroll bars by default
    - lelandfe 4y ago
      That would be 10.7 Lion, in 2011. But I believe OP was talking about the older window borders, which afforded the ability to drag the window from any part of the perimeter.
outworlder 4y ago
Yes, but also keep in mind that the pointing devices in use were very primitive compared to what we have today and that many users were not as proficient. All contemporary operating systems had thick borders and some had very prominent resizing handles.
- sitzkrieg 4y ago
  sure but this trend of tiny/hidden until you magically know to mouse over a 10px wide area on the right to reveal the scrollbar is simply user hostile
- klodolph 4y ago
  The thick borders took up valuable screen space and weren’t necessary. They weren’t present prior to Mac OS 8, and they weren’t present after Mac OS 9. You might consider the era of thick borders as a 5-year blip on the timeline from 1997 to 2002. If anything, modern pointing devices are often less precise. We now commonly use trackpads, touch, and pens. In the 1990s, it was usually the mouse, so you find a lot of 1990s UI elements that are very small. The only reason our modern scrollbars on macOS are so small is because it’s assumed that you can scroll without them, either with a scroll wheel or with a touch gesture. I’m not sure if the list of contemporary operating systems is particularly illuminative. You might look at Windows ’95, CDE (Solaris), or BeOS and find chunky borders. Or you might look at TWM or Window Maker (OpenStep) and see thin borders. The only conclusion I draw is that everyone agreed that you should have borders.
  - II2II 4y ago
    > If anything, modern pointing devices are often less precise. You're discounting the joys of using a dirty mouse, where the mouse would momentarily stick due to gunked up rollers.
    - klodolph 4y ago
      I’ve been using old versions of Mac OS, like Mac OS 8, with both new hardware (modern trackpads) and original hardware (ball mice). The ball mice are much more precise than modern trackpads, when you’re clicking on something. If they stick, it’s frustrating and you have to wiggle the mouse around to get it to land on your click target, but once the cursor is over your click target, you can click on it. When you try to click on something with a trackpad, what happens is you end up moving the pointer during the click.
amadeusz 4y ago
Compared to amount of space wasted in modern applications on margins, padding, etc, I would take Mac OS 9 window borders with rest of the interface. Not to say it was perfect, but overall old computer interfaces were more information dense than todays one.

david422 4y ago

Not a fan of the new trend of zero window borders. I wish there was at least a way to make them customizable.

natemwilson 4y ago
You can turn on Increase Contrast from the OSX System Preferences Accessibility section. I do that for this exact reason.
- david422 4y ago
  Trying it now, thanks!
klodolph 4y ago
By “new trend” are you talking about how the borders got eliminated in Mac OS X in 2001? That trend is old enough to buy beer. Although for a while (starting with 10.3?), some windows had a chunky brushed-metal look.
- Rebelgecko 4y ago
  IIRC it was around 2010 that Apple started getting rid of scroll bars by default
  - lelandfe 4y ago
    That would be 10.7 Lion, in 2011. But I believe OP was talking about the older window borders, which afforded the ability to drag the window from any part of the perimeter.

outworlder 4y ago

Yes, but also keep in mind that the pointing devices in use were very primitive compared to what we have today and that many users were not as proficient. All contemporary operating systems had thick borders and some had very prominent resizing handles.

sitzkrieg 4y ago
sure but this trend of tiny/hidden until you magically know to mouse over a 10px wide area on the right to reveal the scrollbar is simply user hostile
klodolph 4y ago
The thick borders took up valuable screen space and weren’t necessary. They weren’t present prior to Mac OS 8, and they weren’t present after Mac OS 9. You might consider the era of thick borders as a 5-year blip on the timeline from 1997 to 2002. If anything, modern pointing devices are often less precise. We now commonly use trackpads, touch, and pens. In the 1990s, it was usually the mouse, so you find a lot of 1990s UI elements that are very small. The only reason our modern scrollbars on macOS are so small is because it’s assumed that you can scroll without them, either with a scroll wheel or with a touch gesture. I’m not sure if the list of contemporary operating systems is particularly illuminative. You might look at Windows ’95, CDE (Solaris), or BeOS and find chunky borders. Or you might look at TWM or Window Maker (OpenStep) and see thin borders. The only conclusion I draw is that everyone agreed that you should have borders.
- II2II 4y ago
  > If anything, modern pointing devices are often less precise. You're discounting the joys of using a dirty mouse, where the mouse would momentarily stick due to gunked up rollers.
  - klodolph 4y ago
    I’ve been using old versions of Mac OS, like Mac OS 8, with both new hardware (modern trackpads) and original hardware (ball mice). The ball mice are much more precise than modern trackpads, when you’re clicking on something. If they stick, it’s frustrating and you have to wiggle the mouse around to get it to land on your click target, but once the cursor is over your click target, you can click on it. When you try to click on something with a trackpad, what happens is you end up moving the pointer during the click.

amadeusz 4y ago

Compared to amount of space wasted in modern applications on margins, padding, etc, I would take Mac OS 9 window borders with rest of the interface. Not to say it was perfect, but overall old computer interfaces were more information dense than todays one.