I found this article very informative. Thanks for writing it.

I like the idea but you could take it a step further and have just a core virtual machine that you could attach virtual (input/output) devices to. So then the canvas and audio would just be virtual devices that met some specification. Or say for example, you just want to listen to an audio playlist, you could attach an audio device, a keyboard and a terminal device (for feedback). A canvas device wouldn't necessarily be required (if there was no use for one). And it would be up to the user to attach the devices required by an application, or at least the user would have direct control.

TLDR: QEMU but much simpler and only WASM need be supported.

Yes, but it also would be good to have some dumbed down version of HTML/DOM/CSS, so that the text can be copied and accessibility works.

I thought I remember reading that there is some relation (or inspiration) from an older X11 toolkit called xforms. Which might also be of interest to someone.

I've been redoing some old projects in FTLK recently so this sparked my interest. And I just like delving into the history of things.

If I remember correctly, both FLTK and XForms have a commmon "ancestor" in the Forms library for SGI (pre-OpenGL days).

FLTK history explicitly mentions rewriting from libGL heavy code to pure X11 because of the differences in how useful GL was outside Xsgi[1]

[1] a quick example is how IRIX vector icons are actually serialised IRIX GL display lists

Also, allowing unquoted names.

I remember sometime back in the 90's buying a used copy of Visual C++ 5.0 from some dude at the mall. It felt kinda shady, like a drug deal was going down, but I turned out well and I scored a legit(?) copy for much cheaper than market value. I was very excited when I got it home, and it kept me busy for a long while. There's a lot of good documentation (and source code) on those CD's and it taught me a lot, (pretty much) coming from Quake C.

I think at some point I also started using DJGPP, which pushed me toward GCC (and Linux).

In those days, the CDs included the entirety of MSDN for local use - indeed, most CDs in the box were MSDN.

And IMO the documentation was better written, too.

I thought I had gotten this (Descent 3) for free with a graphics card I purchased, but Freespace was what I was thinking of, though it might have been Freespace 2.

The graphics card was the Diamond Viper V770, if I recall correctly. Good times!

Here's an older HN link from an MIT article.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39156463

"What is the evolutionary advantage of being able to match abstract patterns?"

This reminds me of something I read about the mind preferring patterns because patterns require less (mental) effort (to perform tasks).

A lifetime or less fit into a single name or phrase, at will unpacked: lighter than air, computed imaginary, applied tangibly.

I has always assumed Program Manager's window decorations were inspired by Motif but apparently it was the other way around, regarding Presentation Manager; Program Manager's ancestor.

"Motif was directly inspired by the look and feel of the Presentation Manager interface"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presentation_Manager#Presentat...

In this day and age I think the mock-3d stuff in Motif looks gaudier than the classic look of both the Win 3.11 interface and the OS/2 Presentation Manager.

i think the "mock 3d" stuff was ultimately inspired by NextStep (1988), although they did it in a classier way than Windows, Motif, or the Mac (either in the late classic (8 or 9) or OSX)

Yeah I made this same point a few days ago on a similar topic about the use of the win95 style in SerenityOS, etc.

I remember back when NeXTstep was new, really lusting over one, but all I had was my little Atari ST.. and spending many hours writing up pretend 3d relief widgets in GFA Basic on it. We were in love with our colour palettes and the illusions they could give :-)

I loved the NeXT interface for years but it feels stylistically over the top to me now. Love the draggable menus tho.

Another GUI that had 3d relief that I feel did it really nice was Sun's OpenLook style. I used olwm as my window manager for many years. Always preferred that over Motif.

I still love the look of NeXTstep. I never liked the scroll bars though even though they make logical sense.

A surprising amount of the original UI survives into macOS.

There's a Computer Chronicles episode somewhere on YouTube (doubtless also on archive.org in higher quality) where a Microsoft rep shows off Windows 3's user interface, and they outright say it looks like Presentation Manager, so it'll prepare users for OS/2. Back when MS hadn't decided to kill OS/2!

IBM was able to kill OS/2 all by itself, regardless of Microsoft's own doings.

They all implement IBM’s Common User Access guidelines:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access

I just started reading a book called Almost A Miracle, about the War of Independence. It's really good, I haven't been able to put it down.