home.social

#win31 — Public Fediverse posts

Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #win31, aggregated by home.social.

  1. an extremely underrated 2 hour interview with robyn miller by [email protected] several years ago

    they provide a walking tour through several of cyan's early titles such as the Manhole, Cosmic Osmo and Spelunx. a live art director's commentary.

    what i love the most is how much robyn makes it clear how these games were never built for "gamers" as we understand them now. robyn played very few games, and wasn't familiar with genre expectations.

    he and rand just focused on making games that let the player explore a world at their own pace, and all else is secondary to exploration and discovery.

    youtube.com/watch?v=-kX5E7yOHJg

    #cyan #myst #retroGaming #win31 #macintosh

  2. an extremely underrated 2 hour interview with robyn miller by [email protected] several years ago

    they provide a walking tour through several of cyan's early titles such as the Manhole, Cosmic Osmo and Spelunx. a live art director's commentary.

    what i love the most is how much robyn makes it clear how these games were never built for "gamers" as we understand them now. robyn played very few games, and wasn't familiar with genre expectations.

    he and rand just focused on making games that let the player explore a world at their own pace, and all else is secondary to exploration and discovery.

    youtube.com/watch?v=-kX5E7yOHJg

    #cyan #myst #retroGaming #win31 #macintosh

  3. an extremely underrated 2 hour interview with robyn miller by [email protected] several years ago

    they provide a walking tour through several of cyan's early titles such as the Manhole, Cosmic Osmo and Spelunx. a live art director's commentary.

    what i love the most is how much robyn makes it clear how these games were never built for "gamers" as we understand them now. robyn played very few games, and wasn't familiar with genre expectations.

    he and rand just focused on making games that let the player explore a world at their own pace, and all else is secondary to exploration and discovery.

    youtube.com/watch?v=-kX5E7yOHJg

    #cyan #myst #retroGaming #win31 #macintosh

  4. an extremely underrated 2 hour interview with robyn miller by [email protected] several years ago

    they provide a walking tour through several of cyan's early titles such as the Manhole, Cosmic Osmo and Spelunx. a live art director's commentary.

    what i love the most is how much robyn makes it clear how these games were never built for "gamers" as we understand them now. robyn played very few games, and wasn't familiar with genre expectations.

    he and rand just focused on making games that let the player explore a world at their own pace, and all else is secondary to exploration and discovery.

    youtube.com/watch?v=-kX5E7yOHJg

    #cyan #myst #retroGaming #win31 #macintosh

  5. an extremely underrated 2 hour interview with robyn miller by [email protected] several years ago

    they provide a walking tour through several of cyan's early titles such as the Manhole, Cosmic Osmo and Spelunx. a live art director's commentary.

    what i love the most is how much robyn makes it clear how these games were never built for "gamers" as we understand them now. robyn played very few games, and wasn't familiar with genre expectations.

    he and rand just focused on making games that let the player explore a world at their own pace, and all else is secondary to exploration and discovery.

    youtube.com/watch?v=-kX5E7yOHJg

    #cyan #myst #retroGaming #win31 #macintosh

  6. a 1995 issue of CD-ROM Today! has an article where parents review an edutainment game, and then have their kid write a oneliner review of it as well.

    SimTown 👌🏽

    #retrocomputing #win31 #retrogaming

  7. okay so i found something pretty awesome

    the 3d scenes in Myst were all built using a mac modeller/renderer called Strata Vision 3D. i bought a boxed copy of this program with the intention of trying to recreate a model or two in the game, using the original renderer.

    the box came with an extra disc - a library of shapes and textures. i noticed on the inside flap of the cd that it apparently included textures from Myst!

    unfortunately, it turns out the disc was a demo. you browsed through the library until you found something you wanted, and then called a 1-800# to buy a serial number. you could enter the serial number and instantly have access to that texture.

    unfortunately, no one has ever figured out how to crack Strata Clip 3D, and i couldn't figure it out today either.

    fortunately, some creative digging turned up the Myst textures. they've been hiding on a Warez cd from 1996 for the past 30 years.

    i just managed to load the program into system 7 and it's all there. these are the original textures used to render some areas of Myst. i still need to install Strata Vision to test them out, but afaik this is the first time these original textures have been seen since.

    #macintosh #vintageApple #myst #retroGaming #win31

  8. okay so i found something pretty awesome

    the 3d scenes in Myst were all built using a mac modeller/renderer called Strata Vision 3D. i bought a boxed copy of this program with the intention of trying to recreate a model or two in the game, using the original renderer.

    the box came with an extra disc - a library of shapes and textures. i noticed on the inside flap of the cd that it apparently included textures from Myst!

    unfortunately, it turns out the disc was a demo. you browsed through the library until you found something you wanted, and then called a 1-800# to buy a serial number. you could enter the serial number and instantly have access to that texture.

    unfortunately, no one has ever figured out how to crack Strata Clip 3D, and i couldn't figure it out today either.

    fortunately, some creative digging turned up the Myst textures. they've been hiding on a Warez cd from 1996 for the past 30 years.

    i just managed to load the program into system 7 and it's all there. these are the original textures used to render some areas of Myst. i still need to install Strata Vision to test them out, but afaik this is the first time these original textures have been seen since.

    #macintosh #vintageApple #myst #retroGaming #win31

  9. okay so i found something pretty awesome

    the 3d scenes in Myst were all built using a mac modeller/renderer called Strata Vision 3D. i bought a boxed copy of this program with the intention of trying to recreate a model or two in the game, using the original renderer.

    the box came with an extra disc - a library of shapes and textures. i noticed on the inside flap of the cd that it apparently included textures from Myst!

    unfortunately, it turns out the disc was a demo. you browsed through the library until you found something you wanted, and then called a 1-800# to buy a serial number. you could enter the serial number and instantly have access to that texture.

    unfortunately, no one has ever figured out how to crack Strata Clip 3D, and i couldn't figure it out today either.

    fortunately, some creative digging turned up the Myst textures. they've been hiding on a Warez cd from 1996 for the past 30 years.

    i just managed to load the program into system 7 and it's all there. these are the original textures used to render some areas of Myst. i still need to install Strata Vision to test them out, but afaik this is the first time these original textures have been seen since.

    #macintosh #vintageApple #myst #retroGaming #win31

  10. okay so i found something pretty awesome

    the 3d scenes in Myst were all built using a mac modeller/renderer called Strata Vision 3D. i bought a boxed copy of this program with the intention of trying to recreate a model or two in the game, using the original renderer.

    the box came with an extra disc - a library of shapes and textures. i noticed on the inside flap of the cd that it apparently included textures from Myst!

    unfortunately, it turns out the disc was a demo. you browsed through the library until you found something you wanted, and then called a 1-800# to buy a serial number. you could enter the serial number and instantly have access to that texture.

    unfortunately, no one has ever figured out how to crack Strata Clip 3D, and i couldn't figure it out today either.

    fortunately, some creative digging turned up the Myst textures. they've been hiding on a Warez cd from 1996 for the past 30 years.

    i just managed to load the program into system 7 and it's all there. these are the original textures used to render some areas of Myst. i still need to install Strata Vision to test them out, but afaik this is the first time these original textures have been seen since.

    #macintosh #vintageApple #myst #retroGaming #win31

  11. okay so i found something pretty awesome

    the 3d scenes in Myst were all built using a mac modeller/renderer called Strata Vision 3D. i bought a boxed copy of this program with the intention of trying to recreate a model or two in the game, using the original renderer.

    the box came with an extra disc - a library of shapes and textures. i noticed on the inside flap of the cd that it apparently included textures from Myst!

    unfortunately, it turns out the disc was a demo. you browsed through the library until you found something you wanted, and then called a 1-800# to buy a serial number. you could enter the serial number and instantly have access to that texture.

    unfortunately, no one has ever figured out how to crack Strata Clip 3D, and i couldn't figure it out today either.

    fortunately, some creative digging turned up the Myst textures. they've been hiding on a Warez cd from 1996 for the past 30 years.

    i just managed to load the program into system 7 and it's all there. these are the original textures used to render some areas of Myst. i still need to install Strata Vision to test them out, but afaik this is the first time these original textures have been seen since.

    #macintosh #vintageApple #myst #retroGaming #win31

  12. this is insanely impressive work, and i don’t think i’ve ever seen people talk about it.

    lots of us remember Broderbund’s Living Books series from the 90s - like Just Grandma & Me or Arthur’s Teacher Trouble. the cartooning was exquisitely well done, and the voice work was top notch.

    they completely disappeared in the late 90s because they were built for 16-bit Win 3.1, and compatibility problems only got worse with every revision of Windows into the 32-bit era

    apparently back in 2010, one of the original managers from the Living Books team hired several programmers who had built the runtime. they either had access to the source (likely) or reversed it, bought the rights back from the holders, and released 32 and 64 bit iOS and Android editions of the Living Books titles with tap support and a nice launcher.

    this is really, really well done. the art and sound have aged very well despite not having any remastering.

    it’s called Wanderful Interactive Storybooks on the play and apple stores. there is a free version with samples from 7 books.

    #android #ios #retrogaming #macintosh #win31 #kids #edutainment #multimedia

  13. Eine grüne Schlange auf blauem Grund und insgesamt exakt 52.224 Bytes groß. "MAMBA.EXE" war eines der Spiele meiner Kindheit. Einfach, ohne Story und ohne Ton. Damals für Windows 3.1. Ein Klassiker von Data Becker! 😉

    Link: archive.org/details/mamba_de

    #RetroGaming #Windows #Win31 #PCGaming #Retro #Gaming #RetroGaming #90er #90s

  14. Eine grüne Schlange auf blauem Grund und insgesamt exakt 52.224 Bytes groß. "MAMBA.EXE" war eines der Spiele meiner Kindheit. Einfach, ohne Story und ohne Ton. Damals für Windows 3.1. Ein Klassiker von Data Becker! 😉

    Link: archive.org/details/mamba_de

    #RetroGaming #Windows #Win31 #PCGaming #Retro #Gaming #RetroGaming #90er #90s

  15. Eine grüne Schlange auf blauem Grund und insgesamt exakt 52.224 Bytes groß. "MAMBA.EXE" war eines der Spiele meiner Kindheit. Einfach, ohne Story und ohne Ton. Damals für Windows 3.1. Ein Klassiker von Data Becker! 😉

    Link: archive.org/details/mamba_de

    #RetroGaming #Windows #Win31 #PCGaming #Retro #Gaming #RetroGaming #90er #90s

  16. Eine grüne Schlange auf blauem Grund und insgesamt exakt 52.224 Bytes groß. "MAMBA.EXE" war eines der Spiele meiner Kindheit. Einfach, ohne Story und ohne Ton. Damals für Windows 3.1. Ein Klassiker von Data Becker! 😉

    Link: archive.org/details/mamba_de

    #RetroGaming #Windows #Win31 #PCGaming #Retro #Gaming #RetroGaming #90er #90s

  17. when i was a kid with my first 2x cd-rom drive, buying a cd-rom in a retail box was a $100+ CAD affair. so at my house that never happened.

    all of my software on CD were either pack-ins that came with the computer, or from cheap multi-disc compilation packs like Sirius Software's 5ft10 pak.

    one of those pack-ins was a copy of Encarta '94. it had a nondescript jewel case without cover art - just a green MS certificate of authenticity. i never knew what the retail box looked like, until today.

    holy cow is it beautiful. the box is a hardcover flip-open activity book, designed for kidhands to pull open and rifle through. visually, it models the Dorling Kindersley UK educational books - I assume they did the graphic design.

    the user manual is a thick kid friendly comic book. there's even a separate manual that teaches kids how to write a book report and *then* an entire section of proper citations and giving research credit.

    MS was a big, big place in those days. its educational division was more or less walled off from the rest of the murderous beast, and it shows. this program is thoughtful, beautiful, and suffused with craftsmanship.

    i'm right in the middle of retooling the Multimedia HyperGuide podcast, and now i have to do an episode on Encarta. it's so damned well made. in the mean time, feel free to listen to previous episodes here:
    podcast.vga256.com

    #multimedia #cdrom #win31 #win95 #retrocomputing #podcast

  18. when i was a kid with my first 2x cd-rom drive, buying a cd-rom in a retail box was a $100+ CAD affair. so at my house that never happened.

    all of my software on CD were either pack-ins that came with the computer, or from cheap multi-disc compilation packs like Sirius Software's 5ft10 pak.

    one of those pack-ins was a copy of Encarta '94. it had a nondescript jewel case without cover art - just a green MS certificate of authenticity. i never knew what the retail box looked like, until today.

    holy cow is it beautiful. the box is a hardcover flip-open activity book, designed for kidhands to pull open and rifle through. visually, it models the Dorling Kindersley UK educational books - I assume they did the graphic design.

    the user manual is a thick kid friendly comic book. there's even a separate manual that teaches kids how to write a book report and *then* an entire section of proper citations and giving research credit.

    MS was a big, big place in those days. its educational division was more or less walled off from the rest of the murderous beast, and it shows. this program is thoughtful, beautiful, and suffused with craftsmanship.

    i'm right in the middle of retooling the Multimedia HyperGuide podcast, and now i have to do an episode on Encarta. it's so damned well made. in the mean time, feel free to listen to previous episodes here:
    podcast.vga256.com

    #multimedia #cdrom #win31 #win95 #retrocomputing #podcast

  19. when i was a kid with my first 2x cd-rom drive, buying a cd-rom in a retail box was a $100+ CAD affair. so at my house that never happened.

    all of my software on CD were either pack-ins that came with the computer, or from cheap multi-disc compilation packs like Sirius Software's 5ft10 pak.

    one of those pack-ins was a copy of Encarta '94. it had a nondescript jewel case without cover art - just a green MS certificate of authenticity. i never knew what the retail box looked like, until today.

    holy cow is it beautiful. the box is a hardcover flip-open activity book, designed for kidhands to pull open and rifle through. visually, it models the Dorling Kindersley UK educational books - I assume they did the graphic design.

    the user manual is a thick kid friendly comic book. there's even a separate manual that teaches kids how to write a book report and *then* an entire section of proper citations and giving research credit.

    MS was a big, big place in those days. its educational division was more or less walled off from the rest of the murderous beast, and it shows. this program is thoughtful, beautiful, and suffused with craftsmanship.

    i'm right in the middle of retooling the Multimedia HyperGuide podcast, and now i have to do an episode on Encarta. it's so damned well made. in the mean time, feel free to listen to previous episodes here:
    podcast.vga256.com

    #multimedia #cdrom #win31 #win95 #retrocomputing #podcast

  20. when i was a kid with my first 2x cd-rom drive, buying a cd-rom in a retail box was a $100+ CAD affair. so at my house that never happened.

    all of my software on CD were either pack-ins that came with the computer, or from cheap multi-disc compilation packs like Sirius Software's 5ft10 pak.

    one of those pack-ins was a copy of Encarta '94. it had a nondescript jewel case without cover art - just a green MS certificate of authenticity. i never knew what the retail box looked like, until today.

    holy cow is it beautiful. the box is a hardcover flip-open activity book, designed for kidhands to pull open and rifle through. visually, it models the Dorling Kindersley UK educational books - I assume they did the graphic design.

    the user manual is a thick kid friendly comic book. there's even a separate manual that teaches kids how to write a book report and *then* an entire section of proper citations and giving research credit.

    MS was a big, big place in those days. its educational division was more or less walled off from the rest of the murderous beast, and it shows. this program is thoughtful, beautiful, and suffused with craftsmanship.

    i'm right in the middle of retooling the Multimedia HyperGuide podcast, and now i have to do an episode on Encarta. it's so damned well made. in the mean time, feel free to listen to previous episodes here:
    podcast.vga256.com

    #multimedia #cdrom #win31 #win95 #retrocomputing #podcast

  21. when i was a kid with my first 2x cd-rom drive, buying a cd-rom in a retail box was a $100+ CAD affair. so at my house that never happened.

    all of my software on CD were either pack-ins that came with the computer, or from cheap multi-disc compilation packs like Sirius Software's 5ft10 pak.

    one of those pack-ins was a copy of Encarta '94. it had a nondescript jewel case without cover art - just a green MS certificate of authenticity. i never knew what the retail box looked like, until today.

    holy cow is it beautiful. the box is a hardcover flip-open activity book, designed for kidhands to pull open and rifle through. visually, it models the Dorling Kindersley UK educational books - I assume they did the graphic design.

    the user manual is a thick kid friendly comic book. there's even a separate manual that teaches kids how to write a book report and *then* an entire section of proper citations and giving research credit.

    MS was a big, big place in those days. its educational division was more or less walled off from the rest of the murderous beast, and it shows. this program is thoughtful, beautiful, and suffused with craftsmanship.

    i'm right in the middle of retooling the Multimedia HyperGuide podcast, and now i have to do an episode on Encarta. it's so damned well made. in the mean time, feel free to listen to previous episodes here:
    podcast.vga256.com

    #multimedia #cdrom #win31 #win95 #retrocomputing #podcast

  22. after a 4 year hiatus, i finally completed my podcast series on Another World. 🤯

    if you're new to the podcast: Multimedia HyperGuide is my love letter to 1990s multimedia CD-ROM games, edutainment and productivity software. each episode is an hour-long dive into a specific game or application.

    listen in-browser here:
    podcast.vga256.com

    podcast player rss here:
    podcast.vga256.com/rss.xml

    apple podcasts here:
    podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/

    #podcasts #retrogaming #retrocomputing #dosgaming #msdos #win31 #amiga #macintosh #vintageApple

  23. it's hard to imagine that back in the mid-90s, the stiff and strait-laced MS had an entire department for making kids multimedia

    their edutainment department was mostly independent of the rest of the monster, and produced some really unique educational software. Dinosaurs is one of their best - the combination of high production value, solid paleontological detail, and skeumorphic interfaces makes for a totally memorable experience.

    i found this non-interactive demo buried in the program. i heard one of the former MS developers mention recently that scenes like these were built in Macromedia Director, and then nested within the program (built in C/C++) using a Director runtime.

    you might notice the weird random b+w noise around the window, and in some of the background. that's a byproduct of the team using indexed palettes to handle the hundreds of compressed images. every single image was run through DeBabelizer to extract its index, and then averaged with other images to find shared colour palettes from 256 colours. the team had to make sure that the colour palette chosen never intruded into the "safe palette" used by the window frame, titlebar, and background. obviously, this one paletting error snuck past QA.

    #dinosaurs #multimedia #cdrom #win31 #win95 #macromedia

  24. it's hard to imagine that back in the mid-90s, the stiff and strait-laced MS had an entire department for making kids multimedia

    their edutainment department was mostly independent of the rest of the monster, and produced some really unique educational software. Dinosaurs is one of their best - the combination of high production value, solid paleontological detail, and skeumorphic interfaces makes for a totally memorable experience.

    i found this non-interactive demo buried in the program. i heard one of the former MS developers mention recently that scenes like these were built in Macromedia Director, and then nested within the program (built in C/C++) using a Director runtime.

    you might notice the weird random b+w noise around the window, and in some of the background. that's a byproduct of the team using indexed palettes to handle the hundreds of compressed images. every single image was run through DeBabelizer to extract its index, and then averaged with other images to find shared colour palettes from 256 colours. the team had to make sure that the colour palette chosen never intruded into the "safe palette" used by the window frame, titlebar, and background. obviously, this one paletting error snuck past QA.

    #dinosaurs #multimedia #cdrom #win31 #win95 #macromedia

  25. it's hard to imagine that back in the mid-90s, the stiff and strait-laced MS had an entire department for making kids multimedia

    their edutainment department was mostly independent of the rest of the monster, and produced some really unique educational software. Dinosaurs is one of their best - the combination of high production value, solid paleontological detail, and skeumorphic interfaces makes for a totally memorable experience.

    i found this non-interactive demo buried in the program. i heard one of the former MS developers mention recently that scenes like these were built in Macromedia Director, and then nested within the program (built in C/C++) using a Director runtime.

    you might notice the weird random b+w noise around the window, and in some of the background. that's a byproduct of the team using indexed palettes to handle the hundreds of compressed images. every single image was run through DeBabelizer to extract its index, and then averaged with other images to find shared colour palettes from 256 colours. the team had to make sure that the colour palette chosen never intruded into the "safe palette" used by the window frame, titlebar, and background. obviously, this one paletting error snuck past QA.

    #dinosaurs #multimedia #cdrom #win31 #win95 #macromedia

  26. it's hard to imagine that back in the mid-90s, the stiff and strait-laced MS had an entire department for making kids multimedia

    their edutainment department was mostly independent of the rest of the monster, and produced some really unique educational software. Dinosaurs is one of their best - the combination of high production value, solid paleontological detail, and skeumorphic interfaces makes for a totally memorable experience.

    i found this non-interactive demo buried in the program. i heard one of the former MS developers mention recently that scenes like these were built in Macromedia Director, and then nested within the program (built in C/C++) using a Director runtime.

    you might notice the weird random b+w noise around the window, and in some of the background. that's a byproduct of the team using indexed palettes to handle the hundreds of compressed images. every single image was run through DeBabelizer to extract its index, and then averaged with other images to find shared colour palettes from 256 colours. the team had to make sure that the colour palette chosen never intruded into the "safe palette" used by the window frame, titlebar, and background. obviously, this one paletting error snuck past QA.

    #dinosaurs #multimedia #cdrom #win31 #win95 #macromedia

  27. it's hard to imagine that back in the mid-90s, the stiff and strait-laced MS had an entire department for making kids multimedia

    their edutainment department was mostly independent of the rest of the monster, and produced some really unique educational software. Dinosaurs is one of their best - the combination of high production value, solid paleontological detail, and skeumorphic interfaces makes for a totally memorable experience.

    i found this non-interactive demo buried in the program. i heard one of the former MS developers mention recently that scenes like these were built in Macromedia Director, and then nested within the program (built in C/C++) using a Director runtime.

    you might notice the weird random b+w noise around the window, and in some of the background. that's a byproduct of the team using indexed palettes to handle the hundreds of compressed images. every single image was run through DeBabelizer to extract its index, and then averaged with other images to find shared colour palettes from 256 colours. the team had to make sure that the colour palette chosen never intruded into the "safe palette" used by the window frame, titlebar, and background. obviously, this one paletting error snuck past QA.

    #dinosaurs #multimedia #cdrom #win31 #win95 #macromedia

  28. several years ago I began archiving educational software. Dangerous Creatures had the BEST Win95 Plus! Pack theme. 😻

    edit: I totally misremembered. The dangerous creatures theme with the cougar deskop was sorta ok. the BEST theme was called Jungle. it came with the Plus! For Kids Pack

    for @david_bardos

    #multimedia #softwarePreservation #digipres #win31 #win95

  29. several years ago I began archiving educational software. Dangerous Creatures had the BEST Win95 Plus! Pack theme. 😻

    edit: I totally misremembered. The dangerous creatures theme with the cougar deskop was sorta ok. the BEST theme was called Jungle. it came with the Plus! For Kids Pack

    for @david_bardos

    #multimedia #softwarePreservation #digipres #win31 #win95

  30. several years ago I began archiving educational software. Dangerous Creatures had the BEST Win95 Plus! Pack theme. 😻

    edit: I totally misremembered. The dangerous creatures theme with the cougar deskop was sorta ok. the BEST theme was called Jungle. it came with the Plus! For Kids Pack

    for @david_bardos

    #multimedia #softwarePreservation #digipres #win31 #win95

  31. several years ago I began archiving educational software. Dangerous Creatures had the BEST Win95 Plus! Pack theme. 😻

    edit: I totally misremembered. The dangerous creatures theme with the cougar deskop was sorta ok. the BEST theme was called Jungle. it came with the Plus! For Kids Pack

    for @david_bardos

    #multimedia #softwarePreservation #digipres #win31 #win95

  32. several years ago I began archiving educational software. Dangerous Creatures had the BEST Win95 Plus! Pack theme. 😻

    edit: I totally misremembered. The dangerous creatures theme with the cougar deskop was sorta ok. the BEST theme was called Jungle. it came with the Plus! For Kids Pack

    for @david_bardos

    #multimedia #softwarePreservation #digipres #win31 #win95

  33. MS Dinosaurs and Encarta are often fondly remembered, but i personally think that Oceans had some of the best multimedia design. it's very book-like in presentation, with zero scrolling. every page is carefully written to exploit the limited space, and the sheer amount of hyperlinking between pages makes exploration *fun*.

    here's a 2 minute quick tour of Oceans. i'm not sure how many people ever saw it back in the day. top-tier edutainment imo.

    one of the most painful aspects of wikipedia is that due to its layout and allergy to brevity/density, it's about as fun to explore as a phone book. i'd love to some day see a redesign focused on the joy of exploration.

    #multimedia #softwareHistory #history #win95 #win31

  34. MS Dinosaurs and Encarta are often fondly remembered, but i personally think that Oceans had some of the best multimedia design. it's very book-like in presentation, with zero scrolling. every page is carefully written to exploit the limited space, and the sheer amount of hyperlinking between pages makes exploration *fun*.

    here's a 2 minute quick tour of Oceans. i'm not sure how many people ever saw it back in the day. top-tier edutainment imo.

    one of the most painful aspects of wikipedia is that due to its layout and allergy to brevity/density, it's about as fun to explore as a phone book. i'd love to some day see a redesign focused on the joy of exploration.

    #multimedia #softwareHistory #history #win95 #win31

  35. MS Dinosaurs and Encarta are often fondly remembered, but i personally think that Oceans had some of the best multimedia design. it's very book-like in presentation, with zero scrolling. every page is carefully written to exploit the limited space, and the sheer amount of hyperlinking between pages makes exploration *fun*.

    here's a 2 minute quick tour of Oceans. i'm not sure how many people ever saw it back in the day. top-tier edutainment imo.

    one of the most painful aspects of wikipedia is that due to its layout and allergy to brevity/density, it's about as fun to explore as a phone book. i'd love to some day see a redesign focused on the joy of exploration.

    #multimedia #softwareHistory #history #win95 #win31

  36. MS Dinosaurs and Encarta are often fondly remembered, but i personally think that Oceans had some of the best multimedia design. it's very book-like in presentation, with zero scrolling. every page is carefully written to exploit the limited space, and the sheer amount of hyperlinking between pages makes exploration *fun*.

    here's a 2 minute quick tour of Oceans. i'm not sure how many people ever saw it back in the day. top-tier edutainment imo.

    one of the most painful aspects of wikipedia is that due to its layout and allergy to brevity/density, it's about as fun to explore as a phone book. i'd love to some day see a redesign focused on the joy of exploration.

    #multimedia #softwareHistory #history #win95 #win31

  37. MS Dinosaurs and Encarta are often fondly remembered, but i personally think that Oceans had some of the best multimedia design. it's very book-like in presentation, with zero scrolling. every page is carefully written to exploit the limited space, and the sheer amount of hyperlinking between pages makes exploration *fun*.

    here's a 2 minute quick tour of Oceans. i'm not sure how many people ever saw it back in the day. top-tier edutainment imo.

    one of the most painful aspects of wikipedia is that due to its layout and allergy to brevity/density, it's about as fun to explore as a phone book. i'd love to some day see a redesign focused on the joy of exploration.

    #multimedia #softwareHistory #history #win95 #win31

  38. When installing Windows 3.1 as a retro system, you should never forget to update the file manager to its Y2K-compatible version from 1999. The old, original WINFILE.EXE should not be allowed to touch your files in 2026. 😉

    #Y2K #Winfile #Win31 #RetroComputing #Emulation #Windows #90s #2000s #FileManager

  39. Hier noch ein weiteres, eher spezielles Retro-Sammlerstück, diesmal aus dem Jahre 1992: Ein OEM Diskettensatz von Windows 3.1 mit Dienstprogrammen und Branding des PC-Herstellers COMPAQ.

    Eine Installation dieser Disketten ist - sofern man keine Fehlermeldung auslösen möchte - nur auf Computern mit COMPAQ BIOS möglich. Ansonsten wird beim ersten Start ein "Segment-Lade-Fehler" durch das Programm CPQINST.EXE ausgelöst. Um dies zu vermeiden, genügt allerdings auch schon ein emuliertes COMPAQ System, wie z.B. der "Compaq Deskpro 386" in 86Box.

    archive.org/details/mswin_3.1_

    Viel Spaß beim Austesten! 😉

    #Win31 #Windows #Microsoft #COMPAQ #Diskette #FloppyDisk #Branding #86Box #Emulation #RetroComputing #90er #90s

  40. Come on, #microsoft, it's 2025. How hard would it be to make #Outlook themeable.

    Imagine using a solarized, catpuccin, nord or monokai theme in Outlook 🤩 instead of the current while-on-black and black-on-white. 😵

    Even Win 3.1 had more color schemes than Outlook now. And you were able to add your own ones. In 1992!

    #ranting #win31

  41. As a fan of the original SimCity, I had to import this CD-ROM from the USA, as it is pretty much the definitive version of SimCity Classic! The Deluxe Edition will install both the official SimCity graphic packs and the Terrain Editor.

    Here it is on the Internet Archive:
    archive.org/details/simcity_cl

    As always, have fun!

    #SimCity #Maxis #RetroGaming #Retro #PCGaming #Simulation #Windows #90s #RetroGames #Windows95 #Win31

  42. i am both horrified and proud to announce that it took 29 years but i finally finished a quest in Indiana Jones and His Desktop Adventures 😅

    what an insanely underrated game. some of the procedural puzzle generation is *extremely* subtle and absolutely impervious to bugs due to exceptional design.

    #lucasArts #adventureGames #retroGaming #win95 #win31

  43. my sister lives in AK and found someone’s stash of dos/windows games he was cleaning out of an old storage unit

    my mom went to visit her, and brought back an entire suitcase of big box games on the plane :D

    #msdos #dosGaming #win31 #retroGaming #bigboxgames

  44. Nach längerer Recherche konnte ich heute endlich meine Diskettenfassung von Microsoft PowerPoint 4.0 upgraden. Zu den IMG Disk Images kommen nun auch schöne Scans in 300dpi, sowie ein kompletter Satz an KryoFlux Streams.

    archive.org/details/ms-powerpo

    Viel Spaß damit! 😜

    #RetroComputing #Microsoft #PowerPoint #Office #Win31 #Win311 #90er #90s #Diskette #FloppyDisk #KryoFlux

  45. Hier ein weiterer Satz von Windows 3.1 OEM Disketten, diesmal von COMPAQ. Es handelt sich um 7 x 1.44MB HD Datenträger aus dem Jahr 1992.

    archive.org/details/mswin_3.1_

    Viel Spaß! 😉

    #MSDOS #Windows #Win31 #Microsoft #RetroComputing #Oldschool #90er #90s #Disketten #FloppyDisk #IBMPC

  46. Für die Retro Sammler da draußen:

    Die 1993er Disketten von Windows 3.1 sind jetzt auch im Internet Archive mit 300dpi Scans und Disk Images hochgeladen. Die alten Disketten von 1992 bleiben aber natürlich weiterhin verfügbar. Vom Dateiinhalt her unterscheiden sich beide Designs allerdings nicht.

    1992: archive.org/details/mswin_3.1_
    1993: archive.org/details/mswin_3.1_

    Viel Spaß! 😉

    #RetroComputing #Windows #Win31 #90er #Retro #Nostalgia #Diskette #FloppyDisk #Microsoft

  47. i feel so absolutely silly answering my own question with the most obvious software staring me in the face the whole time.

    what cross platform win 3.1/95/mac system 7 software existed for writing and reading multimedia ebooks in the 90s?

    Macromedia Director 4.0

    I can’t *wait* to start making an interactive version of my book after the (modern format) ebook has been published this autumn!

    #vintageApple #macintosh #win31

  48. TIL a toy company released a line of Independence Day toys in the late 90s; each toy included a different "mission disk" floppy with a multimedia program on it for windows 3.1

    toy collector @eisnerguy1 managed to collect all 11 of the toys and uploaded disk images to IA 🙏

    archive.org/details/iD4_Indepe

    #retroComputing #softwarePreservation #win31 #toys