seeing "Internet Browser" there made me imagine a fictitious scenario where some time wormhole opened up and 20 years ago there was one special computer that was in all ways identical to your average Windows 3.1 machine. the difference, though, like cyberdyne technology from Terminator, it had "Internet Browser" that nobody could explain but somehow had all the worlds knowledge from 2014 sitting right there behind a single icon.
Well, ya know, there were browsers for win3.1. They didn't time warp to the 2014 internet, but they did work with the 1994 internet thanks to trumpet winsock.
Oh lucky you; in 93-94 I could only dream about a 9600bps connection. At the time I had a Hayes 2400, but lines were so noisy that most of the time it'd connect only at 1200.
(worth noticing: I was in South America back then, where the telephony system was less developed and a lot more expensive than the US)
Mmmm...trumpet winsock. One of the better tcp/ip stacks for win3.1. Jumping through the hoops needed to get a second phone line in the dorm room so my roommate and I could have our own dedicated dial-ups was fun too.
Yep. I felt so awesome when I got slirp working on the dialup shell I had access to. Not gonna lie, one of the first things I did was very slowly load some porn.
But I get his point completely. When I think back to that time of using Win 3.1, I have fond memories of Encyclopedia's on CD-ROM, Solitaire, Paint and Minesweeper, but I don't really think about the early Internet experiences much - probably because there just wasn't much out there yet.
I concur. My first experiences on the internet were on a Mac with Netscape Navigator 1 & 2.0, and Netscape Navigator 2.0 and 3.0 GOLD on Windows 3.1. This was in 1995 as well.
I actually remember running a browser, probably one of the earliest versions of Netscape, on Windows 3.1 around 1995-6. We had to use a 3rd-party TCP/IP stack since Windows 3.1 didn't have it built in. Those were the days when the web was still new and exciting.
If you're in 1994 and know what's going to happen in the next 20 years, the logical choice would be to buy MSFT, sell it around 2000, and then buy AAPL. Their peaks don't overlap, so why not take advantage of both!?
Not really surprising at all, people actually used windows without a mouse back then. Not a lot of people, but it was done and windows was actually very usable. In fact, I'd say pretty much everything that mattered still worked with just a keyboard until at least win2k, if not XP.
Except Win 9 would probably require a machine with over 100x the CPU power than what 3.1 needed, and yet still not be any better for the basic tasks of email, writing documents, etc...
I've believed this for years too! Yes, Win 3.1 was just so simple, made sense, everything worked the same. There were windows with blue bars you could drag. The - icon brought down window controls, you clicked icons, everything was under the File menu.
But JUST when everyone was figuring out the UI, everything changed.
And to this day, when I'm teaching "mom/dad/grandma" to do something in Windows, she STILL asks where the "File" menu is because that's "where everything usually is".
Imagine how much LOVE MS Office would get if it went back to something like the early days of File menus and small-icon tool bars that you could enable/disable, etc? Well, I think it would be a win.
>> Imagine how much LOVE MS Office would get if it went back to something like the early days of File menus and small-icon tool bars that you could enable/disable, etc? Well, I think it would be a win.
All you're saying is people hate change. Conversely, imagine if Office has always had the ribbon and then they switched to the toolbar menu UI.
Do you honestly think people would like it better? The obvious answer is that, no, of course they wouldn't because the ribbon UI is actually a better UI as it improves discoverability of features (and Office has hundreds if not thousands of features).
I for one make better documents with the ribbon. I think even my dad at this point has learned to be as efficient with the ribbon as he was in the old world. Realistically speaking though it didn't actually take him 7 years.
The world isn't going to improve if we optimize for older generations of people who are used to a certain way of doing things and dislike change. And that statement goes beyond software.
I think it's "unnecessary change" that people hate, well on some level. Current MS Office probably is no more of an effective solution than a very old version of Word/Wordpress/Lotus for a large proportion of the population - can you write a letter or CV with it? Yes, well there you go.
So why not give people what they want, familiarity, simplicity. For Microsoft I think the answer would be that then they wouldn't have sold so many copies of new versions of MS Office. It's largely sales/fashion driven rather than meeting further technical needs of users.
People actually love change - the fashion industry is built on that assumption. Shiny-shiny has probably sold far more tech and software than technical needs ever have.
FWIW for me the ribbon based UI paradigm is no better or worse than erstwhile standard of menubar+toolbars [but I've not spent long using MS's ribbons].
Too true. The past 15 or so years has felt like new Office releases were dictated to by the need to sell more copies of Office to existing customers rather than any major improvements to the application. I remember one release where the biggest change was a shift from a MDI to a single window per document.
Office has probably reached a point where there's little you can do to actually make it more functional nor powerful, but it sometimes feels like a con when the revisions are essentially skin deep.
(I will accept that 2007 did cone with some major changes though, such as OOXML)
Actually Office, in my opinion, just had something added that makes it infinitely better: Skydrive integration.
Having files autosave and autoupload after each save means that I never have to worry about losing stuff ever again, I also happen to be completely bought-into the MS ecosystem, with a WP, W8.1 laptop and W8.1 tablet.
You need to remember that your usage doesn't mean others are identical. Personally I honestly find the ribbon bar is more confusing. The mixture of icon sizes, placements and behaviors (Eg drop down menus, toggles or buttons) leaves me guessing a lot of the time. Where as the old menu system might have been ugly and verbose, but I could follow it's logic easier when trying to perform uncommon tasks.
I also dislike the way how the menu bar is hidden in explorer. The only reason behind that is aesthetics so I really resent having to press alt just to display it (I know you can enable it permanently but I get given a lot if laptops to repair due to being the family's "pc fixer").
Thankfully these days theres other decent alternatives to Windows and the importance of the desktop OS is also lessoned with the rise of cross platform browsers and web apps, so it's easy for me to run another OS instead of trapping myself on a platform I dislike and growing bitter about it. But I just wanted to make the point that some people found menu bats easier to use because, for them, menu bars just were simpler to use; rather than them hating something just because it's newer
> The world isn't going to improve if we optimize for older generations of people who are used to a certain way of doing things and dislike change. And that statement goes beyond software.
On the other hand, it isn't going to get worse either...!
I'm also in the group who thinks that many of the changes occurring with software today are really only done for the sake of change, to create work, and not actually beneficial. I think the newest trend of hiding UI elements "because it looks better" or "for more screen real-estate" (when screen resolutions continue to get larger) almost borders on being offensively patronising.
95/NT4 were fairly consistent and predictable too. It was after XP that we got competing programs for doing things the system could do, if not better, at least consistently. It beats me why every wi-fi, printer and display driver has to use custom, non-standard, windows, color-schemes, buttons and icons... It's like someone built a whole new GUI inside the driver without any regard to the OS outside. It's no surprise they are 100MB+ downloads.
It's almost too perfect... Windows 3.1 only had window resizing via a thick stipple outline of the window border, and the included web browser reflows too quickly, although that's a function of the hardware performance. It would be interesting to run Win3.1 on a modern multi-GHz machine.
Thanks to VMWare and some DOS network card drivers for the emulated hardware, I do! (only for curiosity's sake - I have virtual machines of every OS I owned.)
Minesweeper left + right together mouse button action isn't implemented. Also, this version of minesweeper lets you lose on the first click. There is also no high score. For these reasons alone, I am very upset by this entire demo.
Yep, no one who used Windows 3.1 extensively would put up with losing at Minesweeper on the first click. MS was actually pretty nice about rearranging the map so that the first click would not be a losing move.
All it needs to do is move the flag you click on to the first free square starting at the upper-left. The cheat helped me see this in action, but I've forgotten how to activate it now. I'll have to look that up again to see if it's implemented in this version.
Michaelv.org is the personal website of Michael Vincent who, if you click around, is a huge TI calculator hacker (I dabbled back in the day).
In fact, my very first web server was going to be hosted by him. I recall sending him like $30 in the mail to host it way back when I was young enough to not even have a bank account yet.
131 comments
[ 4.5 ms ] story [ 170 ms ] threadyeah, it's friday.
http://dl.maximumpc.com/galleries/webbrowsers/Cello.png
Those were the days.
It was a patchwork of hacks, just to make Windows use IP over a serial line, so you could use Mosaic and Pegasus.
Still, it was a magical time.
(worth noticing: I was in South America back then, where the telephony system was less developed and a lot more expensive than the US)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mosaic_(web_browser)
But I get his point completely. When I think back to that time of using Win 3.1, I have fond memories of Encyclopedia's on CD-ROM, Solitaire, Paint and Minesweeper, but I don't really think about the early Internet experiences much - probably because there just wasn't much out there yet.
Berkeley sockets for Windows
Terrible Haiku...
Better yet - bring the proofs back in time and mine them before anyone else.
http://jamesfriend.com.au/pce-js/ibmpc-win/
Caveats: it's actually 3.0 and the mouse doesn't work... yet
Cool little project. It's actually surprising to remember how intuitive Windows 3.1 was. Simple to use and got the job done.
But JUST when everyone was figuring out the UI, everything changed.
And to this day, when I'm teaching "mom/dad/grandma" to do something in Windows, she STILL asks where the "File" menu is because that's "where everything usually is".
Imagine how much LOVE MS Office would get if it went back to something like the early days of File menus and small-icon tool bars that you could enable/disable, etc? Well, I think it would be a win.
All you're saying is people hate change. Conversely, imagine if Office has always had the ribbon and then they switched to the toolbar menu UI.
Do you honestly think people would like it better? The obvious answer is that, no, of course they wouldn't because the ribbon UI is actually a better UI as it improves discoverability of features (and Office has hundreds if not thousands of features).
I for one make better documents with the ribbon. I think even my dad at this point has learned to be as efficient with the ribbon as he was in the old world. Realistically speaking though it didn't actually take him 7 years.
The world isn't going to improve if we optimize for older generations of people who are used to a certain way of doing things and dislike change. And that statement goes beyond software.
I think it's "unnecessary change" that people hate, well on some level. Current MS Office probably is no more of an effective solution than a very old version of Word/Wordpress/Lotus for a large proportion of the population - can you write a letter or CV with it? Yes, well there you go.
So why not give people what they want, familiarity, simplicity. For Microsoft I think the answer would be that then they wouldn't have sold so many copies of new versions of MS Office. It's largely sales/fashion driven rather than meeting further technical needs of users.
People actually love change - the fashion industry is built on that assumption. Shiny-shiny has probably sold far more tech and software than technical needs ever have.
FWIW for me the ribbon based UI paradigm is no better or worse than erstwhile standard of menubar+toolbars [but I've not spent long using MS's ribbons].
Office has probably reached a point where there's little you can do to actually make it more functional nor powerful, but it sometimes feels like a con when the revisions are essentially skin deep.
(I will accept that 2007 did cone with some major changes though, such as OOXML)
Having files autosave and autoupload after each save means that I never have to worry about losing stuff ever again, I also happen to be completely bought-into the MS ecosystem, with a WP, W8.1 laptop and W8.1 tablet.
I also dislike the way how the menu bar is hidden in explorer. The only reason behind that is aesthetics so I really resent having to press alt just to display it (I know you can enable it permanently but I get given a lot if laptops to repair due to being the family's "pc fixer").
Thankfully these days theres other decent alternatives to Windows and the importance of the desktop OS is also lessoned with the rise of cross platform browsers and web apps, so it's easy for me to run another OS instead of trapping myself on a platform I dislike and growing bitter about it. But I just wanted to make the point that some people found menu bats easier to use because, for them, menu bars just were simpler to use; rather than them hating something just because it's newer
The ribbon is garbage and still wildly less productive than the toolbar. Not even close.
On the other hand, it isn't going to get worse either...!
I'm also in the group who thinks that many of the changes occurring with software today are really only done for the sake of change, to create work, and not actually beneficial. I think the newest trend of hiding UI elements "because it looks better" or "for more screen real-estate" (when screen resolutions continue to get larger) almost borders on being offensively patronising.
It's almost too perfect... Windows 3.1 only had window resizing via a thick stipple outline of the window border, and the included web browser reflows too quickly, although that's a function of the hardware performance. It would be interesting to run Win3.1 on a modern multi-GHz machine.
http://ski.ihoc.net
Actually, this is pretty cool. Far more so, imho, than the "Web OS" or "Web Desktop" craze a few years back.
http://basicallydan.github.io/skifree.js/
In fact, my very first web server was going to be hosted by him. I recall sending him like $30 in the mail to host it way back when I was young enough to not even have a bank account yet.