Going for a trip down GUI memory lane

GUIdebook, a website dedicated to preserving and showcasing Graphical User Interfaces

Published on May 15, 2005 By Thomas Thomassen In Websites

I came across this website today with an extensive collection of various graphical user interfaces from various Operating Systems dating back to the learly 80's. The site is very nicely organized, making it very easy to find spesific information about whatever system you are looking for. You can find anything from, startup screens to shutdown screens, even sounds can be sampled.

If you are looking for good images to create nostalgic skins/themes, relive the old days or simply curious, this is a really good site.

It also features some articles and links related to GUI design and history.

Comments

crissy14

on May 15, 2005

Cool website! Thanks for the link. My first OS was plain old dos (no GUI). I then progressed to Win 3.1. How drab 3.1 looks now!

I'm now at WinXP Pro, and thinking about installing linux if I can ever get this dang computer to function properly.

PixelPirate

on May 15, 2005

Cool, Ars Technica has an article about the history of the GUI:

Link

_02

on May 15, 2005

Wow, that is a trip down memory lane! Thanks for the link.

Lantec

on May 15, 2005

Neat site...
I didn't see X-Windows. I was a charter member of AOL and I remember they Liscensed a version of X-Windows as their first platform. I think Microsoft was in version 2 by this time, and it was a decent alternative as both ran on top of MSDOS.

Chris TH

on May 15, 2005

They also missed DEC's GEM http://www.seasip.info/Gem/History/gem1.html

Posted via WinCustomize Browser/Stardock Central

kona0197

on May 16, 2005

They didn't say much about KDE and Gnome and other GUI window managers for Linux. Interesting.

jtfolden

on May 17, 2005

Lantec, my old brain is getting foggy but wasn't it GEOS (with it's simple Motif look) that AOL used initially?

PurrBall

on May 17, 2005

also http://www.winhistory.de/ is a good site. It is als avaliable in English (which is what I have it bookmared as)

Lantec

on May 18, 2005

jtfolden, I had to go take a look at the screen pic they have up for GEOS and you may be right. It looks close. I have a vague memory of it actually having the X-Windows branding on it, but I could have some synapse damge from those days. I was one of the first 1000 members (which gauranteed me the rate of $22.50 per hour for life) It didn't last very long as it was clunky and slow compared with CIM and the Prodigy services it was competing with.

Lantec

on May 18, 2005

Jtfolden - update
I just talked to a network admin in the building (older fella) who thinks it might be both. He says X-Windows may have been the client/server app that handled the connection with GEOS Ensemble being the OS and GUI however, he doesn't know for sure.

Tarkus

on May 18, 2005

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