[blessingx]

I was just watching this video on OS 8 (yes, audio is out of sync) and with Leopard coming out a couple days ago (and Vista earlier this year), you know, it's kinda surprising how little operating systems, apps, and the general UI has changed much in the last dozen years. What do you think?

 

[meat01]

I agree. It seems Windows 95 from Windows 3.1 was the biggest general UI difference. I am not too familiar with Apple's OSes though.

Linux has definitely made made life easier with hardware support, but their GUIs haven't really changed that much.

 

[krmathis]

I sort of agree!
The move from command line (Unix, Dos, ..) to GUI (ex. Windows 3.1) were the biggest step. Since then there have only been "minor" changes.

 

[GAD]

Not being snarky - but what do you want that's not there?

GAD

 

[meat01]

Quote:

Not being snarky - but what do you want that's not there?

I don't think it is a matter of something missing in the operating system, but more of the interface hasn't changed much. You have Windows with open, close and minimize buttons. You have icons that open programs. you have all of your programs in a list in one of the corners of the screen or with Macs you have a row of icons.

Windows 98 saw the debut of USB which was huge in that you could just plug things in and the operating system would recognize them right away.

As far as the memory thing goes, was it Windows NT that changed the way the base memory was handled(640K base)?

What other huge things have happened in OSes of late?

 

[Duggeh]

I'll be happy with the vast increase in reliability and base level functionality with XP over 98. You couldn't view the contents of a folder full of jpegs as thumbnails or a slideshow in 98, the media integration is good, the removal of the BSOD is better.

Vista looks slick, but im sticking with XP until they iron out the kinks, which based on how long it took with XP, they'll never finish doing.

There have been attempts are new interface methods, the reason that they havent taken off is because while they may look fancy or look advanced or have features left right and centre they arnt as easy and intuitive. Its no small part of the ipods success that it has the best interface of any MP3 player. Although they did steal the entire hierarchical idea from creative, they did it better because of the wheel.

I think that to reinvent the gui principles, you have to reinvent the interface hardware, which means retiring the mouse for something else, physically interactive holographics perhaps, liek in Minority Report.

 

[LawnGnome]

Quote:

Originally Posted by meat01 /img/forum/go_quote.gif I don't think it is a matter of something missing in the operating system, but more of the interface hasn't changed much. You have Windows with open, close and minimize buttons. You have icons that open programs. you have all of your programs in a list in one of the corners of the screen or with Macs you have a row of icons. Windows 98 saw the debut of USB which was huge in that you could just plug things in and the operating system would recognize them right away. As far as the memory thing goes, was it Windows NT that changed the way the base memory was handled(640K base)? What other huge things have happened in OSes of late?

DirectX- and all its revs.
Multicore support
Multi GFX card capabilities.
move to NTFS (not too new)

(USB was hardware, with just updated support)

As for the way to open and close. I think its the same because there just isn't a better way right now. All the main OS implement this in some way. OSX, Linux, Windows.

 

[Hiratsuka]

Surface computing will probably be the next big UI change.

Here is a video of Microsoft's example:

http://http://www.popularmechanics.com/technology/industry/4217348.html

 

[Arainach]

Improbable; I can think of any number of systems where touchscreens aren't feasible, and besides, they're NOWHERE near as efficient and fast as a good old keyboard.

If you can come up with the next great UI paradigm, patent it and make a fortune. For the moment, what we have is pretty efficient, people are used to it, and we've found nothing better. It's not like no research goes on in this area - it's just that it's tough to get people to accept change so unless it's stunningly better (say thought-controlled interfaces), the chances of it getting adopted are almost 0.

I just wish Windows would adopt a virtual desktop system like Linux. It'd make it much more bearable to have to use occasionally.

 

[marvin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Arainach /img/forum/go_quote.gif Improbable; I can think of any number of systems where touchscreens aren't feasible, and besides, they're NOWHERE near as efficient and fast as a good old keyboard.

The exact same thing was said when mouse based GUI was taking off... No where near as efficient and fast as a good old keyboard controlled command line interface. I agree that touchscreens is a dead end though. Too much user fatigue when compared to mouse based GUI. Cool to play with though.
Quote:

Originally Posted by LawnGnome DirectX- and all its revs. Multicore support Multi GFX card capabilities. move to NTFS (not too new)

In the spirit of the OP, I'm not sure any of these count as recent OS advances given that all of these improvements were available in mainstream OSes before or shortly after the release of Windows 95...

Not sure that Multi-GFX or NTFS were major advances either. Multi-GFX has been rare and inconsistent ever since the 3dfx flamed out, and the difference between NTFS and FAT is pretty much zero to end users.

 

[gritzcolin]

Well windows is using the same backbone for Vista that it made for windows 3.1. Where as Apple with OSX instead of upgrading the code from OS9 they said hmm our OS sucks we should rebuild it not strip it and refinish it like the Redmond camp keeps doing. Although it wasn't ground up as it is based on Freebsd.

I use XP and PClinuxOS so I am not a fanboy of Apple although i wish they would release an x86 version of their OS for retail.

Quote:

Not sure that Multi-GFX or NTFS were major advances either. Multi-GFX has been rare and inconsistent ever since the 3dfx flamed out, and the difference between NTFS and FAT is pretty much zero to end users.

I have files bigger than 2gb. Plus NTFS uses a more efficient data compression than FAT if I remember correctly.

 

[rxc]

I run a stripped down version of XP and will not be going to Vista anytime soon. Hopefully, future operating systems will become leaner instead of getting more and more bloated with features and eye candy.

 

[gritzcolin]

Quote:

Originally Posted by rxc /img/forum/go_quote.gif I run a stripped down version of XP and will not be going to Vista anytime soon. Hopefully, future operating systems will become leaner instead of getting more and more bloated with features and eye candy.

x2

 

[unclejr]

I think the UI model is good currently. Keyboards aren't quite perfect for our natural language sensibilities but ended up providing a number of advantages and are reasonably fast to learn. Mice as inputs are (for me) considerably more cumbersome but still useable.

I think it's rare that so many people are so privy to the future of UI (I think a multitouch-type of technology is clearly the direction it's currently heading), but never has there been a time in the history of computing when so many people are invested heavilty and cognizant of the issues surrounding how people want to interact with computers.

20 years ago even the question was only, "how might people use computers" when now it's prefaced by "how are people using computers."

All UI stuff aside, and I know I keep saying this so apologies if you keep reading it, but the UI stuff is important but not paradigm shifting (in Leopard, and it hasn't been as many have mentioned in a long time). However it's all the other technologies in modern OSes that truly matter and give power into the hands of developers so they (or we) can create apps that make computers actually useful. A slick OS with no other functions just isn't that useful.

In this sense, innovation is happening all the time, and Leopard is no exception. In Tiger, Spotlight changed the way I use a computer, I feel. The reliance on metadata is not quite a "new" concept (BeOS, NeXT?) but it was certainly the most "useful" implementation.

In Leopard, the push toward 64-bit and the updating of all of the APIs and frameworks associated with that is going to require development to move in that direction or be left behind. For high performance computing, that's great news in a sense.

The security features of sandboxing and memory address randomization are good, proactive steps to thwarting the inevitable attacks on the platform.

But again, the stuff for developers is really where consumers are going to benefit most, indirectly. DTrace, LLVM, Core *, Xcode 3.0, etc. etc. are all potentially incredibly powerful tools for devs to create solid apps for OS X.

In the face of all of that, what the heck is "Time Machine?"

 

[Duggeh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by gritzcolin /img/forum/go_quote.gif Well windows is using the same backbone for Vista that it made for windows 3.1.

Rubbish. 3.1 was a 16 bit system for a start, nevermind that the entire operating system base was replaced in windows XP with the 2000 code.