[Ekaros]

I think it is forgotten just how simple thing a basic gui is graphically. Ofc, things look nicer now, but still. It is not very complex thing.

On other hand, also always make me question what are we really doing these days. Some tricks are nice and make things better, but how much is wasted on billions of devices every day...

[wakeupcall]

That things look nicer now is highly debatable. More complex, but just perhaps. How many pages I've seen scrolling on HN showing how the proper "toggle button" needs to work and animate in order not to be confusing where a checkbox still looks infinitely better to me? Or overlay scrollbars, that save essentially no space (which is given to padding instead!!!), hide the position are more difficult to grab?

I still think the W95/Motif-CDE/late Amiga years had very decent UIs even by today standards. Especially on Amiga, everything was expected to be interacted with with minimal latency. Everything was absolutely super-responsive. The UIs were legible, functional, and had tremendous information density.

That is the total opposite of today.