![]() ![]() ![]() The Windows single-window mode was terrible, as it meant that I couldn't layer windows properly. > Windows preferred large windows that contained the entire app UI, and users typically maximized them.Īs a Mac user at the time, I much preferred the multi-window mode: it meant that I could customise my desktop as I liked. I didn't say that they were stable I said that they were easy-to-understand and easy-to-disable, which they were: each extension had a distinct icon displayed at system boot disabling one was as easy as dragging it to another folder disabling all was a matter of, IIRC, holding down Command as you booted. > Extensions could easily bring down the entire system because there was no memory protection. No memory protection, no multitasking, APIs originally designed in Pascal.) Windows NT 4 and its next version Windows 2000 were just heads and shoulders above MacOS 8 and 9 in terms of performance, stability and usability. ![]() This would happen even when you copied the file to someone else because the association was in the file metadata. You saved a JPEG file from Photoshop, and it forever insisted on launching the full Photoshop when you double-clicked on it, instead of your preferred lightweight image viewer. The days of Mac's file-specific associations were numbered when the Internet happened, because Unix servers wouldn't keep track of that metadata, so you needed file extensions anyway.īesides, the file-specific associations were often super annoying because they were created by the editor app even for exported files. The Windows 95 Task Bar was much better for actually keeping track of your tasks than whatever the MacOS 8 thing was.įile extensions were always a hack, but one that Apple adopted too for Mac OS X. Windows preferred large windows that contained the entire app UI, and users typically maximized them. The window system was often difficult to understand because apps tended to use a plethora of little panel windows that could overlap even from different apps. Full OS crashes (what modern macOS calls kernel panics) were a daily occurrence for the typical Mac-using professional who ran complex software. I was using Macs back in the late '90s, and none of the things you say ring true.Įxtensions could easily bring down the entire system because there was no memory protection. I don't think there's anything today as nice, except maybe Cocoa, maybe. Programming a Mac back then was very clean & straightforward. The way that the Mac used its files' resource fork was great. The way that the Mac associated programmes to files (with an application code & a file code) was much better than the extension-based naming of Windows. The Finder was much more straightforward than the Windows equivalent (was it called the File Explorer back then?). The window system itself was better-thought-out and less-confusing than Windows's was. Extensions were an easy-to-understand way to extend one's system, and easy-to-disable too. The Macintosh system was very understandable, very clean. It might still be, but they're both so painful to use now that it's very difficult to pick a winner. I think that the Mac back then was head-and-shoulders a better system than Windows. Well, I agree that there was no comparison with System 8, but not in the sense you mean. > Compare it to other GUIs at the time, like CDE, IBM's Presentation Manager, or even Mac OS 8 and there's no comparison. Basically everything that makes Windows what it is today. So much stuff I had forgotten - TrueType fonts, Plug and Play, registry settings, right-click properties, long file names. I wouldn't switch back because of the underlying crap that is the Windows OS and file system, but I still miss the interface.Įdit: Found this fantastic PDF "Chicago Reviewers Guide" which goes over all the new stuff in Win95. I still get frustrated on OSX when I minimize a window and have to hunt around for it. Windows 95 solidified Microsoft's dominance, but could just as easily eroded it had they dropped the ball.Įven though I've used a Mac daily for the past decade or so, I still miss the task bar, and window-oriented GUI of Windows. Compare it to other GUIs at the time, like CDE, IBM's Presentation Manager, or even Mac OS 8 and there's no comparison. The very first version missed wildly in some big ways (MSN was a folder integrated into the desktop, for example, and no TCP/IP support ), but the core, underlying redesign of the GUI was so profoundly good it propelled Microsoft into a new level of ubiquity. It's hard to remember, but even though Windows 3.11 was extremely dominant at the time, it was by no means assured that Windows 95 would be the success that it was. ![]()
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