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The X-COPY user interface[1] was very powerful, watching the little squares slowly fill with color while hearing the floppy drive painfully squeaking and grindi

The X-COPY user interface[1] was very powerful, watching the little squares slowly fill with color while hearing the floppy drive painfully squeaking and grinding was an experience in itself. Operating system standardization have killed this kind of creative interface, it's probably for the best, but I'm pretty sure something bold and colorful can still happen and make a difference to users. [1] https://www.datagubbe.se/utildisks/a5003-crop-2302041155-01.png https://www.datagubbe.se/utildisks/a5003-crop-2302041155-01....

GuB-42 3y ago
Besides video games of course, it looks like the only field where people still get creative with their interfaces is in music production software.
reaperducer 3y ago
Operating system standardization have killed this kind of creative interface Clearly there is a yearning among users — even technical users — for more creative, colorful, and interesting interfaces. That's why we have multiple variations on sixels, dozens of libraries for drawing charts in the command line, hundreds of colors were added to terminals, and thousands of tutorials for customizing command prompts.
marginalia_nu 3y ago
I like how all these things emphasize how they're professional tools while having user interfaces would not look out of place in a video game.
whywhywhywhy 3y ago
Spent a lot of my youth staring at this screen. Still remember the bong sounds it used to make
zozbot234 3y ago
> Operating system standardization have killed this kind of creative interface It's coming back with Electron and other frameworks for apps in the browser. Of course these must also be responsive to multiple window sizes and input styles, whereas on home computers you could always rely on a fixed-size screen and standard mouse/keyboard/gamepad as inputs.
- Cthulhu_ 3y ago
  One scene where this may still happen is the pico-8 community, they all work on a single 'device' with fixed dimensions, resolution and capabilities. The demoscene for that one is also pretty impressive. There's a few similar "fantasy consoles" with different amounts of restraints. Oh, and there's the Playdate console, which also seems to have a pretty vibrant community - they're limited to greyscale graphics though.

GuB-42 3y ago

Besides video games of course, it looks like the only field where people still get creative with their interfaces is in music production software.

reaperducer 3y ago

Operating system standardization have killed this kind of creative interface Clearly there is a yearning among users — even technical users — for more creative, colorful, and interesting interfaces. That's why we have multiple variations on sixels, dozens of libraries for drawing charts in the command line, hundreds of colors were added to terminals, and thousands of tutorials for customizing command prompts.

marginalia_nu 3y ago

I like how all these things emphasize how they're professional tools while having user interfaces would not look out of place in a video game.

whywhywhywhy 3y ago

Spent a lot of my youth staring at this screen. Still remember the bong sounds it used to make

zozbot234 3y ago

> Operating system standardization have killed this kind of creative interface It's coming back with Electron and other frameworks for apps in the browser. Of course these must also be responsive to multiple window sizes and input styles, whereas on home computers you could always rely on a fixed-size screen and standard mouse/keyboard/gamepad as inputs.

Cthulhu_ 3y ago
One scene where this may still happen is the pico-8 community, they all work on a single 'device' with fixed dimensions, resolution and capabilities. The demoscene for that one is also pretty impressive. There's a few similar "fantasy consoles" with different amounts of restraints. Oh, and there's the Playdate console, which also seems to have a pretty vibrant community - they're limited to greyscale graphics though.