alt Hacker NewsI've been half joking lately that if I wrote an OS, I'd call it Nostalgia OS. I'd aim for a UI reminiscent of windows 98 / windows 2000 / snow leopard. With HID guidelines and a rich, clear, cohesive set of UI widgets to build applications with. I think that was the peak computing user interface - at least as I experienced it.
Of course, the kernel would be based on capabilities (probably SeL4). And applications would probably ship as WASM bundles. And I'd have a built in local first user database built around CRDTs and things instead of a file system, kinda like a modern Lotus Notes. But for the UI? That era was great.
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This is sort of what SerenityOS was going for. Alas it has slowed down a bit since Andreas now handles the Ladybird browser.
To be fair Ladybird is probably needed more urgently now.
> windows 98 / windows 2000 / snow leopard
I don't know if I would group those together. Windows 98/2k were visually similar, but OSX by that point was looking quite refined.
It had toned down the blue, but still had some visual flare.
95/98/2k had a very utility appearance. Just compare the recycle bins between each to see how much more effort went into OSX look and feel.