|  | Welcome to guidebook, a website dedicated to preserving and showcasing Graphical User Interfaces, as well as various materials related to them.
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|  | Site last updated on 6th October 2006:
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|  | Three of 14 posters for Macintosh’s 20th birthday present its groundbreaking GUI:
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|  | Contemporary Mac OS X has more in common with NeXTSTEP than with classic Mac OS. When it was obvious that classic Mac OS design has limitation which cannot be overcome, and after several failed internal replacement projects at Apple (including the infamous Copland), the company started looking outside. When it was almost certain that BeOS will serve as a framework for the new OS, Apple surprised everyone by buying out NeXT, Inc., and using their operating system. BeOS was allegedly too limited (it couldn’t even print!) and too expensive. OS/2 and Windows NT were also considered alternatives, as both had PowerPC versions at the time. |
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|  |  | This most important update to Macintosh’s operating system since 1984 included wide use of colour, new icons, scalable fonts, balloon help, Apple Menu customization, labels and aliases.
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|  |  | Apple Computer Inc. is so nice (or so vain?) that it includes its own wherebouts in Mac OS X Panther’s address book. Is this the rule or the exception? Check it out.
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|  |  | What is that, you might ask? Some people will applaud Windows XP’s new big and photorealistic icons, but others have serious trouble recognizing and distinguishing them. Check out more icons from Windows XP and see how they stand against earlier editions of this GUI. (The icon shown is a hard disk icon.)
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