macfidelity

Found that article about the Origin of the iChat UI at daringfireball.net

Quote:

I had lost this historical document for a long time, but finally found it the other day on an old backup CD. Itâ �� ��s the original 1997 sketch I made of a chat user interface based on speech balloons.

Drawn in ClarisWorks, April 21, 1997. This was based on my experiences with MUDs and IRC, having a really hard time keeping track of many-way chats. I think the only IM app available then was ICQ, which I hadnâ �� ��t heard of. (IIRC, AIM came out later that year, at least for non-AOL users.) This also predates Microsoft Comic Chat, which used speech balloons too, although in a very different UI: theirs was for novelty, mine was for usability.

My collegue showed my MacOrchard.com as we were discussing about good ftp-clients.

MacOrchard seems to be a good platform if you are looking for a specific application category but don’t know a specific app itself or if you are looking for a quick overview / review / comparison

It features the following categories:

• Chat & Talk
• Classics
• Connectivity
• Email
• File Transfer
• Helper
• MUSH/MUD
• Network
• Older Protocols
• Other
• RSS
• Server
• Sharing
• Terminal
• Usenet
• Web Browsers