Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/07/27/every-windows-3-1-theme.html
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The major fault of every modern OS has been no “hotdog stand.”
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I did like the 3.1 file manager UI a lot. Still do really.
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These color schemes are kinda great.
It’s back, Microsoft posted source code on github and compiled it as a Windows 10 app.
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DOS 6.22 4 evah!
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This was one of the reasons why Steve Jobs used to quip that the problem with Microsoft was that Bill Gates had no taste. Thanks for reminding me.
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And installed! My day is made.
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Links?
I hated Program Manager, but I’m kind of interested.
ETA: I misread that. I didn’t mind winfile.
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Then have I got news for you!
ETA: sorry, for whatever reason the previous replies weren’t visible when I posted.
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Ah Black Leather Jacket. Best of the bunch imo
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Certainly one way it has Windows 10 beat is that it has visible window sizing borders that can themselves be resized. There are tools that expand the sizing borders on Windows 10, but it is still invisible.
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I often think when I look at old UIs that we had much less real estate, but more affordances back then. Windows, and those thick borders, is a great example. But check out old Unix environments like CDE or Iris. We had docks and virtual desktop navigators in 640x480. I don’t know why we had to throw all that stuff out.
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I still have the installers for Opus and Bill and the Turboslug screen savers as well as MS Scenes Braintwister and Hollywood.
I have a data hoarding problem!
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If you read the UI books from back then (like Bruce Tognazzini or Ben Shneiderman) everything was about practicality reinforced by repeated user testing. You had concrete numbers telling you how much better one button design over another.
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I remember the first time I checked out hotdog stand back in the day I just about physically fell backward in my chair, such was the repellent power of the harsh, violent red & yellow.
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There’s been a 32 bit version of the Win 3.0/3.1 file manager for a long time. It came with WinNT and is a pretty common addition when folks are adding things to Windows 3.11 after the Win32S update.
I suspect that this is what Microsoft patched and released, rather than the 16 bit Win 3.0 version as I believe you could simply drop the version from NT 4.0 into a 32 bit version of Windows 10 and it would mostly just work.
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Ridiculous as hot dog is, it’s worth remembering that LCD displays on laptops of that era were a very different beast to what they are today, and the loud themes were quite possibly designed specifically for the hardware of the time.
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I’m reminded of archivist Otto Bettmann’s classic THE GOOD OLD DAYS: THEY WERE AWFUL. Win 3.1 and Win 95 sucked. New Wins suck in their own ways. Everything sucks. Get used to it.
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I have the same nostalgia towards Workbench 2.0+ on Amiga as most PC folks do towards Win 3.x, I wager.
I can live without #? for wildcards, though.
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