A
Anders Magnusson
anders.unix.se · Personal blog · on HN since 2015
Anders Magnusson hosts screenshots of developers' and Unix people's desktops from 2002, plus an interview with Dennis Ritchie.
What HN saysHN links his screenshot collection in threads about desktop setups, window layouts, fonts, and tools like acme, including Dennis Ritchie's desktop.
24HN people shared it
8linked it in comments
17stories submitted
1.8Kstory points
7 months agolast shared
2015people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Screenshots from developers: 2002 vs. 2015 (2015)13 people · 760 points · first shared 2015 · 243 comments on HN
- 2Screenshots from developers and Unix people taken in 20029 people · 983 points · first shared 2015 · 232 comments on HN
- 3Interview with Dennis Ritchie (2003)2 people · 101 points · first shared 2015 · 16 comments on HN
- 4Desktop warren toomey.gif1 people · first shared 2025
- 5Dmr screenshot.gif1 people · first shared 2025
- 6Desktop jordan hubbard.jpg1 people · first shared 2025
- 7Desktop b moolenaar.png1 people · first shared 2023
What HN people wrote when they linked it
rsync · 2015-12-21
I'm curious - have you ever used a text/curses based email client ? It's amazingly fast and you can forget all about browser security since you do it over SSH. It's an extremely efficient workflow (albeit with some hacks required to get modern functionality).
I switched to pine in ... 1993 ? I've never used anything else (except for brief stints of corporate email account and consulting, many years ago).
You'll note that in the "screenshots from famous developers"[1] that Brian Kernighan (Unix legend, the K in K&R and AWK) is using alpine in his 2015 screenshot...
[1] https://anders.unix.se/2015/12/10/screenshots-from-developers--2002-vs…
jd3 · 2025-12-07
Dennis Ritchie running Rob Pike's acme editor on Windows back in July 2002.
https://anders.unix.se/images/dmr_screenshot.gif
https://anders.unix.se/2015/10/28/screenshots-from-developers--unix-pe…
ekjhgkejhgk · 2025-12-07
Hey this one over here [1] has a virtual desktop minimap on the top right. That person mentions fvwm which has this [2] website with screenshots, but I don't see the minimap there. Could someone help me find a reference to it?
Update: Also on the bottom left here [3]
[1] https://anders.unix.se/images/desktop_warren_toomey.gif
[2] https://www.fvwm.org/
[3] https://anders.unix.se/images/desktop_jordan_hubbard.jpg
rhinoceraptor · 2023-06-17
If you look at old screenshots of how people used desktop computers [1], it was rare to see fullscreen windows, even on the tiny monitors of the day, and when most people used only a single monitor.
Today, we all have gigantic monitors, many have more than one, but for whatever reason people want to maximize or tile windows. Maybe it's the influence of the fullscreen only, unitasking paradigm from phones and tablet computers, but it just doesn't make much sense to me on a desktop computer.
1: https://anders.unix.se/images/desktop_b_moolenaar.png
https://anders.unix.se/2015/10/28/screenshots-from-developers--unix-pe…
boq · 2023-06-05
I think monospaced fonts are still popular in the plan9/golang crowd using the acme text editor. googling "dennis ritchie acme" leads to this : https://anders.unix.se/2015/10/28/screenshots-from-developers--unix-pe… is that it ?
vortico · 2019-06-10
Here it was 15 years later. https://anders.unix.se/2015/12/10/screenshots-from-developers--2002-vs…
mikedelfino · 2019-06-10
There's a 2015 edition as well: https://anders.unix.se/2015/12/10/screenshots-from-developers--2002-vs…
jxy · 2019-03-05
I just saw that Dennis Ritchie has a short cut to Sam on his Windows NT desktop in 2002, while Brian Kernighan was using Sam from plan9port on Mac OS in 2015, from this screenshot https://anders.unix.se/2015/12/10/screenshots-from-developers--2002-vs…
I thought it was interesting to point this out.