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Questions tagged [gui]

Graphical user interfaces generally; use with the particular environment’s tag as appropriate.

14 votes
2 answers
1k views

When did the floppy disk icon become the standard symbol for the “save” function in user interfaces?

The floppy disk icon is a widely recognized symbol in user interfaces, typically representing the “save” function. When did the floppy disk icon become the standard symbol for the “save” function in ...
Avalon Sinclair's user avatar
13 votes
1 answer
749 views

What happened to Doug Engelbart's NLS?

Apparently, it was sold to "Tymshare" in 1977, but what happened to it after that? Who has the software now? Could it ever be emulated?
les-citrons's user avatar
23 votes
2 answers
5k views

What did Windows 2 do about varying aspect ratio?

There was a time when computer graphics had to deal with non-square pixels. Happily that time ended once everyone had VGA or better. But Windows 2 supported both EGA and VGA. And while the latter has ...
rwallace's user avatar
  • 63.1k
6 votes
1 answer
469 views

What were the 189 GUI design elements that Apple claimed 'look and feel' copyright over?

According to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Microsoft_Corp. Apple listed 189 GUI elements; the court decided that 179 of these elements had been licensed to Microsoft in the ...
rwallace's user avatar
  • 63.1k
7 votes
1 answer
1k views

When did SunOS get a graphical interface?

I understand that the first graphical user interface for SunOS was SunTools (later renamed to SunView), but I cannot find any documentation that states when it was released and for which versions of ...
Brian Reading's user avatar
0 votes
2 answers
423 views

How do programmers take advantage of programming languages to make graphics? [closed]

I was wondering for a pretty long time about graphics in all programming languages(no code available). Back in the rise of programming languages, such as C, Assembly, C++, and others, they had no ...
Lenin's user avatar
  • 29
21 votes
3 answers
3k views

What windowing system had the first size-proportional scroll bar?

I came across a link to a site that shows the history of the scroll bar. While the content of the site is pretty thin and devoid of explanation, it does show Xerox Star, Lisa, Mac, Amiga, Windows, ...
bjb's user avatar
  • 16.4k
7 votes
3 answers
313 views

Looking for a multiline text gadget for Intuition on a 1.3 Amiga

I've come to understand that Intuition, the GUI framework on the stock A500 has 4 types of gadgets: 'boolean' - checkboxes and buttons 'Proportional' - sliders string inputs integer inputs I'm ...
Martin Cowie's user avatar
11 votes
4 answers
7k views

Why did fonts in Windows 1.01's Write application look so poor?

In Windows 1.01 Write, the fonts were kind of blocky: Here's what the same text looked like in a modern word processor: Even the terminal had smoother text than Windows 1.01: Why did Windows 1.01 ...
no ai please's user avatar
  • 1,123
44 votes
7 answers
8k views

Who invented the clipboard?

Just as the wheel, the clipboard on a computer is indeed a very useful invention! Who came up with such bright idea? Additionally, did it exist on non-graphical environments as well ?
aybe's user avatar
  • 7,112
11 votes
10 answers
3k views

Hardware assisted Graphical User Interface?

I have read a fiction novel in which a manufacturer in the 80s provided GUI by adding a dedicated drawing hardware besides videocard or by extending videocard. Fictional as it is, is this possible or ...
Schezuk's user avatar
  • 3,754
13 votes
1 answer
2k views

What did Prodigy use for pre-web GUI client?

Prodigy was a big early Internet service provider, and of course by the late nineties, the most popular Internet protocol was the web; most users spent most of their Internet time in a web browser. ...
Schezuk's user avatar
  • 3,754
38 votes
3 answers
7k views

What did AOL use for pre-web GUI client?

AOL was a big early Internet service provider, and of course by the late nineties, the most popular Internet protocol was the web; most users spent most of their Internet time in a web browser. But if ...
rwallace's user avatar
  • 63.1k
3 votes
1 answer
281 views

What was the first language library to include a GUI grid component?

I was first exposed to GUI libraries in the 80's, and all of them initially included typical GUI objects like buttons, checkboxes, edit fields, and so on, but I don't recall being able to write a ...
Witness Protection ID 44583292's user avatar
127 votes
3 answers
59k views

Why does part of the Windows 98 Setup program look older than the rest?

When installing Windows 98, the part of the setup process where you enter things like product details looks... different. The scrollbars, buttons, title bar and such look more like they belong in ...
Wander Nauta's user avatar
  • 1,281

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