I saw this come through my Twitter via the venerable Loop. Version Museum is a self described “visual history of your favorite technology”. It’s like candy for anyone who has even a passing interest in the evolution of graphical user interfaces.

I can’t help but point out how much Windows changed from version 1.0 to Windows 95. Windows’ UX changed drastically with every version and didn’t stabilize until Windows 95’s complete overhaul. Compare this with Macintosh System 1 to Mac OS 8 where it’d be easy to argue more stayed the same than changed. Some might argue this was a sign of Apple’s stagnation during that period and while Apple did fall behind from a technology stand point (see: lack of protected memory), I think the lack of drastic changes illustrates just how much the original Macintosh got right. Whereas the UX of modern post-NeXT versions of Mac OS can be traced to System 1, modern Windows’ UX has its roots in Windows 95 because everything that came before it was complete garbage.