Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit login

It looks old, it looks comical, but I KNOW WHAT TO DO!

Less pixels, and less colours, means greater usability! This is the greatest application of Bootstrap I have ever seen. It is a shame that more websites don't look like this (in all seriousness).




This is undeniably neat but I am curious if you "know what to do" because you have a lot of experience using applications that looked this way largely by necessity. I don't think the average computer user would favor this type of aesthetic on any level.

When I was growing up with computers, interfaces like this were on their way out. So to me it just looks clunky and messy. Other than inspiring nostalgia and impressing me with the amount of work that surely went into creating it, I don't think this theme has much real world application.

These themes that attempt to replicate the look and feel of a GUI are pretty gimmicky in nature (ever been to a terrible blog that tries to look like the OS X GUI or worse... one of the Windows GUIs?). This one just happens to be really high quality.


I am curious if you "know what to do" because you have a lot of experience using applications that looked this way largely by necessity.

Of course. In the "nature vs. nurture" argument, there is no room for computers. It is all nurture here. Moreover, current interfaces derive from the design choices illustrated here.

My only complaint is that it's not degradable.


Given the increasing complexity of the web plus nostalgia, I'm seriously surprised that there's no actual distributed BBS/Minitel/BTX thing going on.

With API-driven backends (webapps, esp. SPA's, mobile apps), it would probably be easy enough to shoe-horn in some glorious ANSI interface...


Telnet BBSes are still a thing, believe it or not. The first one I can think of off the top of my head is the home of a BBS software package.

Try telnetting to vert.synchro.net


Apparently they're still popular in Taiwan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PTT_Bulletin_Board_System


Thats pretty impressive! I mean its a BBS with more than 1.5 million registered users, for gods sake. Also there is some creative ASCII art in there, go check it out.


Indeed, PTT has a lot of beautiful screens, and for those of us used to the CP437 character set, it looks quite exotic!

For those interested, here are some captures of some of the menus (there is a lot more posted in conferences) :

- Taiwanese BBSes and Unicode ANSi Art : http://www.cambus.net/taiwanese-bbses-and-unicode-ansi-art/ - Taiwanese BBSes and Unicode ANSi Art - Part II : http://www.cambus.net/taiwanese-bbses-and-unicode-ansi-art-p...


You had me up until the parenthetical.


I like the concept, but it hurts my eyes and, more importantly, is a constant reminder of the imminent blue screen of death


Blue screen of death 404!





Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: