5 ms·

Version Museum: A Visual History of Your Favorite Technology

80 points by laech 3y ago

midenginedcoupe 3y ago
Fab. Fascinating to see how clunky apple.com looks even relatively recently.
tech-historian 3y ago
Creator of the site here. Thanks for posting! I've been meaning to update things with newer screenshots. Life gets in the way sometimes.
- qingcharles 3y ago
  Really appreciate the amount of work that's gone into this! Is this a better quality version of the Amazon homepage? https://web.archive.org/web/20040715235459im_/http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/banners/upf/amzn-original-gateway.gif https://web.archive.org/web/20040715235459im_/http://g-image... Does anyone know how the headings were done in smallcaps like that? I remember my sites had the same in the mid-90s, so it must have been some simple feature of HTML, but I can't find it in the spec. I am sure this is pre-CSS.
- qingcharles 3y ago
  Also, your text might predate the revelations about YouTube launching as a dating site. https://youtu.be/La29ZDSzCqk?t=44 https://youtu.be/La29ZDSzCqk?t=44 The founders confirmed it a few years back.
tivert 3y ago
This is kind of neat from a nostalgia standpoint, but I wish there was some kind of "Encyclopedia of Operating System UI," that broke UI features and paradigms down into their smallest units, described their mechanics, and tracked them across different operating systems and versions. Probably with a particular emphasis on defunct systems when there was a lot more diversity and innovation (e.g. the Canon Cat Leap Keys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_TlE_U_X3c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_TlE_U_X3c)
- thfuran 3y ago
  Well, now I want a new keyboard.
  - tivert 3y ago
    > Well, now I want a new keyboard. Good luck. I've kinda wished there was some company that would sell custom keyboard where you could have switches in new places. But unfortunately, "custom keyboard" almost always means custom keycaps, and keyboard fads seem to mainly be about having fewer and fewer keys. Pretty soon, I'm sure we'll see minimalist keyboards with only one key where you have to type in scan-codes manually in binary, Morse-code style. I've dreamed about having a custom keyboard with two leap keys (but spaces on the outer ends of the spacebar instead of the middle) and a couple custom shift keys.
mepian 3y ago
There is an older, more complete gallery of operating systems and their versions: http://toastytech.com/guis/index.html http://toastytech.com/guis/index.html
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- a1o 3y ago
  Is it just me or is the screenshots of The Apple II Desktop more squished (horizontally) than they were? Or were the monitor pixels not that square at the time? Also the winshell list is missing that file organizer shell that was used in some versions of the Compaq Presario all in one computer. :/

80 points by laech 3y ago

Fab. Fascinating to see how clunky apple.com looks even relatively recently.

Creator of the site here. Thanks for posting! I've been meaning to update things with newer screenshots. Life gets in the way sometimes.

qingcharles 3y ago
Really appreciate the amount of work that's gone into this! Is this a better quality version of the Amazon homepage? https://web.archive.org/web/20040715235459im_/http://g-images.amazon.com/images/G/01/banners/upf/amzn-original-gateway.gif https://web.archive.org/web/20040715235459im_/http://g-image... Does anyone know how the headings were done in smallcaps like that? I remember my sites had the same in the mid-90s, so it must have been some simple feature of HTML, but I can't find it in the spec. I am sure this is pre-CSS.
qingcharles 3y ago
Also, your text might predate the revelations about YouTube launching as a dating site. https://youtu.be/La29ZDSzCqk?t=44 https://youtu.be/La29ZDSzCqk?t=44 The founders confirmed it a few years back.

tivert 3y ago

This is kind of neat from a nostalgia standpoint, but I wish there was some kind of "Encyclopedia of Operating System UI," that broke UI features and paradigms down into their smallest units, described their mechanics, and tracked them across different operating systems and versions. Probably with a particular emphasis on defunct systems when there was a lot more diversity and innovation (e.g. the Canon Cat Leap Keys: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_TlE_U_X3c https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_TlE_U_X3c)

thfuran 3y ago
Well, now I want a new keyboard.
- tivert 3y ago
  > Well, now I want a new keyboard. Good luck. I've kinda wished there was some company that would sell custom keyboard where you could have switches in new places. But unfortunately, "custom keyboard" almost always means custom keycaps, and keyboard fads seem to mainly be about having fewer and fewer keys. Pretty soon, I'm sure we'll see minimalist keyboards with only one key where you have to type in scan-codes manually in binary, Morse-code style. I've dreamed about having a custom keyboard with two leap keys (but spaces on the outer ends of the spacebar instead of the middle) and a couple custom shift keys.

mepian 3y ago

There is an older, more complete gallery of operating systems and their versions: http://toastytech.com/guis/index.html http://toastytech.com/guis/index.html

deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
a1o 3y ago
Is it just me or is the screenshots of The Apple II Desktop more squished (horizontally) than they were? Or were the monitor pixels not that square at the time? Also the winshell list is missing that file organizer shell that was used in some versions of the Compaq Presario all in one computer. :/