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by flohofwoe 4348 days ago
The Windows 3.x UI was always ugly and didn't make any sense ;) But that's the 90's, I'm talking about the 80's.

For instance: AmigaOS 1.3 (notice in the bottom-most screenshot how the buttons don't have '3D edges':

http://toastytech.com/guis/amiga1.html

'3D' UI elements were introduced later in AmigaOS2.0, and I remember how the user interface style guide made a big fuzz about how UI elements that appear raised are supposed to be clickable while flat or recessed elements shall be used for non-interactive or disabled UI elements which cannot be interacted with.

Actually this site is a pretty awesome collection of operating system UIs. BeOS still looks nice, almost like retro-modern pixel-art.
1 comments
zephjc 4348 days ago
Everyone knows the early 90s was part of the 80s!

Older UIs like the Amiga OS one suffered from an even more limited pallet, and even worse typography.

I used BeOS as my main OS for a while and really liked it - it was very snappy and felt more "homey" (that is, more like classic MacOS) than early OSX versions did. (The browser, NetPositive, was absolutely awful though).

link