Kroc Camen<p>Now that is not to say that 8-bit systems can't do GUIs, or that I'm against the idea -- where a mouse is involved -- just look at <a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/C64OS" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>C64OS</span></a> <a href="https://c64os.com/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" translate="no" target="_blank"><span class="invisible">https://</span><span class="">c64os.com/</span><span class="invisible"></span></a> which I've even helped a little with design suggestions.</p><p>C64OS was designed from the beginning to be a practical system for doing real work on a <a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/C64" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>C64</span></a>. Tellingly, it uses text-mode (with custom characters) to do its UI because this is faster and less RAM-intensive.</p><p>I don't want <a href="https://oldbytes.space/tags/retrocomputing" class="mention hashtag" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">#<span>retrocomputing</span></a> to just be about 1. staring into the past and 2. making neat-looking new projects that get shared on social media more than they actually get used by people.</p><p>New retro software should not be trying to recreate modern systems, nor place aesthetic above pragmatism but at the same time it shouldn't be tied to the past and the way things were done in the '80s. We can make much better tools that let us do real, meaningful work on minimal systems that interoperate with the modern systems we invariably must own.</p>