A History of Every GUI Ever

An anonymous reader writes "I stumbled upon this site - GUIdebook, that offers a history of every GUI, from command prompts, to GEOS for the commodore 64, through Mac OSX. It's an interesting stroll down memory lane."

Comments

http://www.oldos.org/

[jmays]

Don't forget about Old OS. Also an interesting site!

Includes the tragedy that is Microsoft BOB!

Slashdotted

[LGagnon]

Here's the Google cache.

Re:Slashdotted

[0x0d0a]

Google doesn't store images. Right back at square one.

The Wayback Machine doesn't have it, and it's probably too late for anyone to mirror it.

Another GUIde!

[Krik Johnson]

Since this site is slashdotted, there is another GUide that I know about, which is also interesting.

Nathan's GUI gallery. It has every version of windows, many macs, Unixes, plain wierd ones and of course the infamous Microsoft Bob. The IE is evil section is hilarious as well!

Re:what?

[RetroGeek]

couldn't it technically be called "graphical"

Let's not start re-inventing technical meanings. Graphical is not Text.

A text system cannot by definition display graphics. The original IBM had two basic modes for the display, text and graphics. You had to switch them within your program. Text was MUCH faster, so you only went to graphical when you had to. It was also easier to code to the text mode.

GUI is graphics, CHUI is text

[kherr]

CHUI stands for CHaracter User Interface. Pronounced "chew-ee". I like the term for text-based interfaces, as a counterpart to the GUI. A CLI is a command-line interface, which is really somewhat different from a CHUI. Remember all those DOS apps with text-based windows and menus? Curses and Vermont Views are good examples of CHUI libraries.

Three ways to do graphics in text mode

[tepples]

A text system cannot by definition display graphics.

Redefinable font lets you display graphics in text mode. The Defrag utility in MS-DOS 6.22 used this.

The PC's codepages have a glyph consisting of the top half on and the bottom half off. Set each character cell's "on color" to one color and the "off color" to another and you can display graphics in text mode. Lots of ANSI BBS screens used this, and some business software packages used this for bar graphs and the like.

And now the most from-left-field solution: Reprogramming the text generator to show four scanlines per row of glyphs rather than 16 (assuming VGA) lets you use the glyph with the left half on and the right half off for a 160x100 pixel 16 color video mode. Tunneler, an old DOS game, used this.

Re:what?

[Minna Kirai]

Let's not start re-inventing technical meanings.

It's not a reinvention, though. The word usage in the computer user-interface field has always been at odds with the English language. But computers became so popular that they've wiped-out the original meaning.

Graphical is not Text.

That's exactly what the word means, though. In fact to be pedantically correct, a photograph or diagram isn't graphical. Only written text is by-definition "graphic".

Use your dictionary: the very first definition listed is "Of or relating to a written representation". That's the oldest meaning of the word; the others are neologisms by comparison.

To be linguistically correct, modern computers would be said to employ PUIs (Pictoral User Interfaces)

Re:The joys of proportionally spaced fonts

[Anonymous Coward]

Um... Proportionally spaced fonts are those like Times, Helvetica, Verdana etc al - ones where each character can be of a different width.

I think you mean monospaced fonts, kind of like this!

In the Beginning was the Command Line

[ShinyBrowncoat]

I also recommend Neal Stephenson's excellent essay on the topic of GUIs, In the Beginning was the Command Line