Ideal-OS idea graveyard
I have ideas about what my ideal operating system is. On this page are ideas that got removed or never made it into the ideal-OS page, but I think are still interesting and relevant.
You may want to return to it:
Newton MessagePad 2000-style 16-grayscale monitors in modern resolutions
On macOS Sequoia 15, there’s a screen saver that showcases the original Mac UI with simulated closeups. If you want to play around with UI like this, I’d recommend a Mac SE or newer on Infinite Mac.
I keep returning to the idea that a superlatively interesting design choice for an operating system would have it have modern Retina-class pixel densities (north of 215 pixels per inch (a 21–24″ 4K monitor or a 27″ 5K monitor)), but be limited to 16 shades of gray, including white and black.
Of course, the “white” color might be something one would want to change, like a nice 5000K white suitable for daytime viewing, with an option to turn it to something orange in the evening and even a low-intensity red for when you want to keep your night vision as much as possible. Or maybe MessagePad 130/2000/2100 glowing green if you want to maximize your nostalgia or have a green-on-black terminal emulator.
This is weakly tempting.
Yes, I’d miss syntax-highlighting coloring and this wouldn’t be an operating system you’d want to use when you’re going clothes shopping on the Web, but I keep returning to the idea.
Infinite Mac, a website that lets you run old emulated Macintosh computers directly in the browser
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