[josephg]

I'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.

[HerbManic]

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.

[happymellon]

> 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.

[BoxOfRain]

My favourite OSX in terms of visual design was the Panther/Tiger era personally. Leopard looked good, but there was something really cheerful and friendly about Tiger. The iPods of those days were also really well thought-out in my opinion.

Definitely a world apart from the utilitarian Windows 98 UI.

[rwmj]

To some extent (not capabilities), Haiku fits the bill here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haiku_%28operating_system%29). Applications are bundles (but not WASM of course). The UI is very clean. The whole OS is also elegant and very fast on modern hardware.

[qwertfisch]

Yes because BeOS was way ahead of its time. A complete new OS, doing all system things so much more efficiently, that it could allow wasting cpu time on high level actions, like moving windows in real-time while they were playing videos. On 1993s hardware, impossible with Windows or OS/2.

[ip26]

Did you happen to be between 15-25 years old when ‘98 was released?

[incanus77]

Check out the Chicago95 theme for XFCE.

[jayde2767]

PTSD and my pining for OS/2 spikes once again...OMG...