I was talking about more than just a literal port, running with it is broader than just a literal port. I guess my general point is that I am disappointed that all these releases of historical code have so little to show for being released.

Edit: Disappointed is really not the right word but I am failing at finding the right word.

It is open source but not free software.

There are many things I feel nostalgic for in that era, but chunky manuals for specific software are at the bottom of that list.

They weren’t like textbooks, which have knowledge that tends to be relevant for decades. You’d get a new set with every software release, making the last 5-20 lbs of manuals obsolete.

You did lose some of the readability of an actual book. Hard-copy manuals were better for that. But for most software manuals, I did more “look up how to do this thing” than reading straight through. And with a pdf on a CD you had much better search capabilities. Before that you’d have to rely on the ToC, the book index and your own notes. For many manuals, the index wasn’t great. Full text search was a definite step up.

Even the good ones, like the 1980s IBM 2-ring binder manuals, which had good indexes, were a pain to deal with and couldn’t functionally match a PDF or text file on a CD for searchability.

Also, you were far more likely to get actual documentation back in the day. You're never going to get a detailed first-party technical reference for today's Apple computers (at least not without being Big Enough and signing a mountain of NDAs); compare that to the Apple II having a full listing of the Monitor ROM, or the original IBM PC Technical Reference Manual.

Manuals like AutoCADs have certainly felt valuable https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/Gm8AAeSwwIZowjzn/s-l1600.jpg It's not even complete, for instance the ADS manual is missing. It's also a bit more expensive with roughly 3700 USD in 1992.

Image.

Back in time, black were ordinary, and only white/grey ones were for licensed software, thus more desirable.

https://computerhistory.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/08/photo...

UML used to be a staple of job interviews.

This is just my personal experience, but even with the current UI, there can tend to be a learning curve with GIMP. Alot of it probably comes from figuring out where tools and functionality that are readily available upfront in other paint programs are hidden 2-3 menus deep in GIMP

That’s what happens when you let people do other people's jobs. UI/UX design is a profession, and there is a reason for that.

Unfortunately, designers are rare among the FOSS community. You can't attract real casual or professional users if you don't recognize the value of professional UI/UX.

Blender feels like an outlier amongst open source software. Outside of programmers tools the great majority of open source feels mediocre. I wonder what the Blender people did differently.

A simple trick to make GIMP perfectly usable (exists since ages):

> To change GIMP to single-window mode (merging panels into one window), go to "Windows" in the top menu and select or check "Single-Window Mode"; this merges all elements like the Toolbox, Layers, and History into one unified view.

For texting I recommend using a mobile phone or desktop instant messaging program. While it's not the case with all of them, graphics editing tools tend to have texting utilities as a second-class citizen at best

Can you detail what you mean by good texting tool? What features are missing?

for the downvoters:

could you please show me a good textting tool plugin for GIMP, then?

you can check their forums & other sites: the textingtools is on top of their discussion lists?

FTFY: the funny thing with GIMP is: even while its a very powerful tool, it still lacks a good image editing tool until today

Nothing stops you from creating a PR :-)))