> I'd love to see GEM, Canon Cat, NeXTSTEP, and BeOS here
That would be good. I'd also like to see something that's at a much lower level, basically an catalog of specific ways of accomplishing specific basic tasks in a particular UI, current or historical. I've switched between different OSes, and each time I sorely miss some very particular thing (e.g. Windows' very useful line-based Home/End key behavior vs. Mac OS's totally pointless document-based behavior). I'm sure even dead-end OS's had very good ideas like these that have been subsequently lost.
My weird dream is that some day someone could use a catalog like that to combine all the best ideas into something that's as close to perfect as possible.
That would be good. I'd also like to see something that's at a much lower level, basically an catalog of specific ways of accomplishing specific basic tasks in a particular UI, current or historical. I've switched between different OSes, and each time I sorely miss some very particular thing (e.g. Windows' very useful line-based Home/End key behavior vs. Mac OS's totally pointless document-based behavior). I'm sure even dead-end OS's had very good ideas like these that have been subsequently lost.
My weird dream is that some day someone could use a catalog like that to combine all the best ideas into something that's as close to perfect as possible.