Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

jchw•about 1 hour ago

Probably also worth dropping this here in the off chance someone here will be part of today's lucky 10,000. http://toastytech.com/guis/

At first glance it looks like this is much more breadth over depth. Quite an array of systems here.

darkwater•about 1 hour ago

Let's talk about the HP-9000 as depicted in http://www.typewritten.org/Media/Images/hpwindows-starbase-u...

There is a `man` entry displayed in a terminal window there. The first Unix I've ever touched was HP-UX on an HP-9000 (server series, not the workstation one), and I have this memory that the underlined words you can see in that manpage as well were actually hyperlinks you can select and would bring you to the relevant section of the manpage that discussed that term. Am I fabricating that memory or is it real? I cannot find any info about it on the Internet.

jll29•16 minutes ago

I started with HP-UX 9.03 on a PA-RISC-powered 715-75 (to use Emacs, our whole research group logged into the 735 server to edit there, which was faster than running it locally).

Any unclean pointer fiddling in C, and the process was terminated by the OS, so the machine was wonderful to use as a development box (especially with Purify installed) for software that would later be run on Windows or Linux.

I eventually bought my own refurbished (and using academic discount) 715 (instead of a car), so I had the fastest machine in our student dorm of anyone I knew, undergrad, grad student or professor. I could just write my Master's thesis when everyone else kept re-installing Windows - the HP never crashed in 6.5 years, which has left me with deep respect for the old-schol (pre-Compaq) HP engineers. The machine (21" color CRT) occupied half of my 9 square metre dorm room, but it also kept me warm.

yread•about 1 hour ago

I thought only `info` had hyperlinks

darkwater•20 minutes ago

In the GNU world, indeed. And that's why it makes even harder for me to remember exactly, it was 30 years ago, I was clueless and also Linux was already "big enough" to have some Red Hat installed in some x86 PC in the same lab.

aa-jv•35 minutes ago

My 'first Unix' was MIPS Risc/OS, and it had that feature too.

lynndotpy•about 2 hours ago

I love this kind of thing :) I finally have a second site to bookmark alongside this similar collection: https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots

keyle•13 minutes ago

Irix 5 was so clean!

giamma•about 2 hours ago

No mention of GeOS!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GEOS_(8-bit_operating_system) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berkeley_Softworks

walrus01•28 minutes ago

Or GS/OS for the Apple IIgs, the weird "not exactly Mac OS" GUI.

cout•28 minutes ago

There is the 16-bit Geoworks Ensemble (PC/GEOS), at least.

mananaysiempre•about 1 hour ago

Where did the author get a copy of pre-X-integration NeWS, I wonder (if indeed they did). I haven’t been able to locate one online after a lot of determined searching, but I also can’t bring myself to declare that there isn’t one because the name is so ungoogleable.

jeffreygoesto•about 1 hour ago

https://networkencyclopedia.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/n...

tomhow•about 2 hours ago

Previously:

Historical workstation desktop interface screenshots - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36191713 - June 2023 (55 comments)

Retrotechnology – PC desktop screenshots from 1983-2005 - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15968745 - Dec 2017 (58 comments)

yjftsjthsd-h•about 2 hours ago

It's funny how early some things do and don't look familiar. A decent chunk of unix-family OSs have changed some since then, but also kinda not. CDE 1.0 looks almost exactly like the latest version:)

andsoitis•about 2 hours ago

Year of release for each would be extra awesome.

bsdooby•about 2 hours ago

Even the site with its NeXTStep style (love it).

Terr_•about 2 hours ago

> DECWindows

> /tmp/med_16.sixel

... Is that Sinfest? From before the author went weird? If so, then that's certainly a very different way of feeling old than I expected when clicking the link.

grebc•about 2 hours ago

Amazing resource!

barrenko•about 2 hours ago

"We have learned nothing in 10,000 years."

grebc•about 1 hour ago

Probably more accurately 40-45 years.

WalterGR•about 1 hour ago

I don’t see any pie menus, so I’m leaning towards agreement...

mananaysiempre•about 1 hour ago

Patents are very good at stifling progress and learning, even bogus ones.

Screenshots of Old Desktop OSes

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