7 ms·

A tangent I know, but looking at those old screenshots really made me miss that era of OS X. The first versions of Aqua with pinstripes were a bit busy for my l

A tangent I know, but looking at those old screenshots really made me miss that era of OS X. The first versions of Aqua with pinstripes were a bit busy for my liking, but by the Mountain Lion time frame it was just lovely. Actual buttons! Soft gradients! Icons that had colour!

mycall 2y ago
If only there was theming available to recreate those old formatting and styles.
- threeseed 2y ago
  Copland the failed OS NeXT was acquired to replace had themes. https://lowendmac.com/2005/apples-copland-project https://lowendmac.com/2005/apples-copland-project
  - ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
    You also had Kaleidoscope[0]. That had some crazy themes[1]. [0] https://www.macintoshrepository.org/1706-kaleidoscope https://www.macintoshrepository.org/1706-kaleidoscope [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20191021204432/https://twitter.com/kaleidoscopemac https://web.archive.org/web/20191021204432/https://twitter.c...
  - fredoralive 2y ago
    Mac OS 8.5 and above technically the theming support as well (presumably salvaged from Copland), but Apple removed the themes from the final version of 8.5, and never released any of them. I'm not sure if many 3rd party ones were made either, as another commentator notes Kaleidoscope was already fairly established as the theming tool for classic Mac OS, and worked with older stuff like System 7.
vintagedave 2y ago
I run an iMac G4 with 10.5 as a home music player. The strange thing is that it feels so easy to use. All the ingredients are the same in modern macOS but the feel is very different. It’s hard to say why. Clarity in the UI is a big one (placement and interaction, not the theme, ie what we’d call UX today). But the look of the UI (colour, depth) really adds something too. Seeing a blue gel button sparks a sense of joy.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
spiderfarmer 2y ago
For me seeing old OS'es always remind me of the bad stuff. Slow CPU's, slow networking, slow disks, limited functionality. Maybe I'm a bit too negative but for example when people romanticise stuff from the middle ages I can't help but think of how it must have smelled.
- lapcat 2y ago
  To me, Finder often seems slower now with SSD and Apple silicon that it was with spinning drives and PPC. And the Mac boots slower!! Apple's software today is poorly optimized. They're depending on hardware to do all the work.
  - wang_li 2y ago
    OS X on a power Mac g4 quicksilver is a far better user experience in terms of responsiveness and consistency than raspberry pi os on a raspberry pi 3 even though the pi benchmarks faster.
- II2II 2y ago
  Those who romanticize the past tend to highlight the best points and gloss over the low points, which is likely better than dismissing it altogether. It's also worth noting that some points mentioned either didn't matter as much, or aren't true in an absolute stuff. Slow networking wasn't as much of an issue since computers as a whole didn't have the capacity to handle huge amounts of data, while limited functionality depends upon the software being used. On the last point, I find a lot of modern consumer applications far more limiting than older consumer applications.
- wpm 2y ago
  Slow networking? Most people’s networking hardware is still only as fast as the best PowerMac you could buy over 20 years ago. Only in the last few years has 2.5GbE become noticeably common.
  - spiderfarmer 2y ago
    20 years ago most people were on ISDN.
keyle 2y ago
Long live Snow Leopard! It made my mac fly. A whole release dedicated to making Leopard better. It was amazing, peak macOS.
- PittleyDunkin 2y ago
  100% agree; if I could revive it to run it on modern arm hardware I would in a heartbeat.
- themadturk 2y ago
  Leopard was my first Mac OS, and Snow Leopard (obviously) my second, and boy was it great. I miss it so much...
deergomoo 2y ago
I am still very sad that the point we started getting high-DPI displays everywhere was about the same time we decided to throw away rich icons and detail in UIs in favour of abstract line art and white-on-white windows. Maybe it was on purpose? Those fancy textures and icons are probably a lot more expensive to produce when they have to look good with 4x the pixels. iOS 4 on an iPhone 4 and OS X whatever-it-was that was on the initial retina MacBook Pros are still very clear in my memory. Everything looked so good it made you want to use the device just for the hell of it.
- mattkevan 2y ago
  It’s because the higher the resolution, the worse those kinds of design effects look. It’s why they’re not much used in print design and look quite tacky when they are. At low resolutions you need quite heavy-handed effects to provide enough contrast between elements, but on better displays you can be much more subtle. It’s also why fonts like Verdana, which were designed to be legible on low resolution displays, don’t look great in print and aren’t used much on retina interfaces.
  - II2II 2y ago
    I don't understand why the effects would look worse at higher resolution, or why how they add contrast. The tacky part I do understand, as well as the point about screen fonts like Verdana. To choose a relevant counter example: the Macintosh System Software prior to version 7 was also very flat. System 7 to 7.5.5 introduced depth in a subtle way and a limited manner. It was only around System 7.6 when they started being heavy handed, something that I always attributed to following the trends in other operating systems.
    - mattkevan 2y ago
      It’s because at higher resolutions you can see the flaws more easily. They’d have to be implemented perfectly every time, otherwise the whole thing becomes a mess. Not everyone will bother to do this. Also, often when creating designs, things look better the more you take away rather than add.
recursivedoubts 2y ago
flat UI was the triumph of mediocre repeatability over humane user interaction
lapcat 2y ago
> by the Mountain Lion time frame it was just lovely. Actual buttons! Soft gradients! Icons that had colour! You may be thinking of Tiger, because Apple already started removing color from Finder icons and such in Leopard. Leopard also introduced a transparent menu bar and 3D Dock.
markus_zhang 2y ago
I disdain the modern UI, especially how it treats the scrollbar. On MacOS, even with "Always Show Scrollbar" turned on, applications and web pages try their worst to hide scrollbars or make them unclickable for the users. Check the webpage of ChatGPT for example. I don't know who the hell had the original idea to do that, but I'll curse in my head for eternity.
- wpm 2y ago
  Not to mention the macOS scrollbars are ugly as sin now.
  - markus_zhang 2y ago
    Yeah, but I'm mostly focused on the functionality: it's too narrow and sometimes not clickable when you are just off by a bit. The Windows one is ugly AF too but at least it's wider.

mycall 2y ago

If only there was theming available to recreate those old formatting and styles.

threeseed 2y ago
Copland the failed OS NeXT was acquired to replace had themes. https://lowendmac.com/2005/apples-copland-project https://lowendmac.com/2005/apples-copland-project
- ChrisMarshallNY 2y ago
  You also had Kaleidoscope[0]. That had some crazy themes[1]. [0] https://www.macintoshrepository.org/1706-kaleidoscope https://www.macintoshrepository.org/1706-kaleidoscope [1] https://web.archive.org/web/20191021204432/https://twitter.com/kaleidoscopemac https://web.archive.org/web/20191021204432/https://twitter.c...
- fredoralive 2y ago
  Mac OS 8.5 and above technically the theming support as well (presumably salvaged from Copland), but Apple removed the themes from the final version of 8.5, and never released any of them. I'm not sure if many 3rd party ones were made either, as another commentator notes Kaleidoscope was already fairly established as the theming tool for classic Mac OS, and worked with older stuff like System 7.

vintagedave 2y ago

I run an iMac G4 with 10.5 as a home music player. The strange thing is that it feels so easy to use. All the ingredients are the same in modern macOS but the feel is very different. It’s hard to say why. Clarity in the UI is a big one (placement and interaction, not the theme, ie what we’d call UX today). But the look of the UI (colour, depth) really adds something too. Seeing a blue gel button sparks a sense of joy.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

spiderfarmer 2y ago

For me seeing old OS'es always remind me of the bad stuff. Slow CPU's, slow networking, slow disks, limited functionality. Maybe I'm a bit too negative but for example when people romanticise stuff from the middle ages I can't help but think of how it must have smelled.

lapcat 2y ago
To me, Finder often seems slower now with SSD and Apple silicon that it was with spinning drives and PPC. And the Mac boots slower!! Apple's software today is poorly optimized. They're depending on hardware to do all the work.
- wang_li 2y ago
  OS X on a power Mac g4 quicksilver is a far better user experience in terms of responsiveness and consistency than raspberry pi os on a raspberry pi 3 even though the pi benchmarks faster.
II2II 2y ago
Those who romanticize the past tend to highlight the best points and gloss over the low points, which is likely better than dismissing it altogether. It's also worth noting that some points mentioned either didn't matter as much, or aren't true in an absolute stuff. Slow networking wasn't as much of an issue since computers as a whole didn't have the capacity to handle huge amounts of data, while limited functionality depends upon the software being used. On the last point, I find a lot of modern consumer applications far more limiting than older consumer applications.
wpm 2y ago
Slow networking? Most people’s networking hardware is still only as fast as the best PowerMac you could buy over 20 years ago. Only in the last few years has 2.5GbE become noticeably common.
- spiderfarmer 2y ago
  20 years ago most people were on ISDN.

keyle 2y ago

Long live Snow Leopard! It made my mac fly. A whole release dedicated to making Leopard better. It was amazing, peak macOS.

PittleyDunkin 2y ago
100% agree; if I could revive it to run it on modern arm hardware I would in a heartbeat.
themadturk 2y ago
Leopard was my first Mac OS, and Snow Leopard (obviously) my second, and boy was it great. I miss it so much...

deergomoo 2y ago

I am still very sad that the point we started getting high-DPI displays everywhere was about the same time we decided to throw away rich icons and detail in UIs in favour of abstract line art and white-on-white windows. Maybe it was on purpose? Those fancy textures and icons are probably a lot more expensive to produce when they have to look good with 4x the pixels. iOS 4 on an iPhone 4 and OS X whatever-it-was that was on the initial retina MacBook Pros are still very clear in my memory. Everything looked so good it made you want to use the device just for the hell of it.

mattkevan 2y ago
It’s because the higher the resolution, the worse those kinds of design effects look. It’s why they’re not much used in print design and look quite tacky when they are. At low resolutions you need quite heavy-handed effects to provide enough contrast between elements, but on better displays you can be much more subtle. It’s also why fonts like Verdana, which were designed to be legible on low resolution displays, don’t look great in print and aren’t used much on retina interfaces.
- II2II 2y ago
  I don't understand why the effects would look worse at higher resolution, or why how they add contrast. The tacky part I do understand, as well as the point about screen fonts like Verdana. To choose a relevant counter example: the Macintosh System Software prior to version 7 was also very flat. System 7 to 7.5.5 introduced depth in a subtle way and a limited manner. It was only around System 7.6 when they started being heavy handed, something that I always attributed to following the trends in other operating systems.
  - mattkevan 2y ago
    It’s because at higher resolutions you can see the flaws more easily. They’d have to be implemented perfectly every time, otherwise the whole thing becomes a mess. Not everyone will bother to do this. Also, often when creating designs, things look better the more you take away rather than add.

recursivedoubts 2y ago

flat UI was the triumph of mediocre repeatability over humane user interaction

lapcat 2y ago

> by the Mountain Lion time frame it was just lovely. Actual buttons! Soft gradients! Icons that had colour! You may be thinking of Tiger, because Apple already started removing color from Finder icons and such in Leopard. Leopard also introduced a transparent menu bar and 3D Dock.

markus_zhang 2y ago

I disdain the modern UI, especially how it treats the scrollbar. On MacOS, even with "Always Show Scrollbar" turned on, applications and web pages try their worst to hide scrollbars or make them unclickable for the users. Check the webpage of ChatGPT for example. I don't know who the hell had the original idea to do that, but I'll curse in my head for eternity.

wpm 2y ago
Not to mention the macOS scrollbars are ugly as sin now.
- markus_zhang 2y ago
  Yeah, but I'm mostly focused on the functionality: it's too narrow and sometimes not clickable when you are just off by a bit. The Windows one is ugly AF too but at least it's wider.