Desktopcolors.com
Learning and science
reference archive of os colors
SHOW HN2026
How HN took it
19 positive, 20 neutral or asking, 2 mixed, 9 critical, out of 50 comments about the project. Thread score +0.17.
Design: 13 for, 1 againstIdea: 4 for, 5 againstDocs: 0 for, 3 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Nostalgic and fun to browse; brings back memories of classic OS desktops
From 4 comments
It's often said that scent is tightly associated with memory, but simply looking at these colors sends me on multiple trips down memory lane. I second the post from imfemambocus…
ocdjeremy on HNI can't even describe how many spots this hit for me.
RattlesnakeJake on HNIt's strange how seeing the default NT4 and 2k colours take me straight back to a fresh install 25+ years ago. First job was doing desktop rollouts so I'd see it a lot!
_joel on HNI sometimes catch myself recreating the Win95 color on my Mac. Thanks for this!
vivid242 on HN
Good coverage of obscure systems and color sources
From 3 comments
Me too! The Workbench Blue is actually my current desktop background :)
vlowrian on HNI just added the C64, based on pepto's colodore palette: https://desktopcolors.com/os/commodore-64.
vlowrian on HNAdded, along with all other styles featuring solid color backgrounds :) https://desktopcolors.com/os/blackbox
vlowrian on HN
Objections
LLM-generated descriptions are generic and sometimes wrong, and were removed or being replaced
From 4 comments
I can understand using an llm to build your website. But I can't understand using it to write copy, especially when it's so unnecessary here.
flowercalled on HNThe descriptions under the colors are very obviously LLM generated and make little sense. No human would make statements like what is written under each entry. Contains many…
VCFundedGenYer on HNI like the website, great work! The LLM descriptions are terrible though :) here's the one for Windows 98: > Windows 98 refined the 95 formula, folding the web into the shell…
cimi_ on HNYou're right. This also came up in other comments. I just removed pretty much all AI placeholder texts or descriptors or replaced them with "hand-written" content, where I found…
vlowrian on HN
Color sources are unclear; screenshot-sampled values may drift from true palette values
From 2 comments
The one thing I would add to each swatch is where the number came from. A value read out of a palette table and a value sampled from a screenshot are not the same number, and the…
imfemambocus on HNOne nerdy detail about old operating systems and graphics cards: due to the way the VGA color palette works, the teal background used in Windows 98 and earlier versions of…
danirod on HN
Requests
Cite the source of each color (documented palette vs sampled from VM)
From 2 comments
The one thing I would add to each swatch is where the number came from. A value read out of a palette table and a value sampled from a screenshot are not the same number, and the…
imfemambocus on HNIt's often said that scent is tightly associated with memory, but simply looking at these colors sends me on multiple trips down memory lane. I second the post from imfemambocus…
ocdjeremy on HN
Add more systems such as Plan 9, 8-bit computers, Atari, CDE, OpenWindows
From 5 comments
Where's plan9?
newsomix9xl on HNWhere are the 8-bit systems? Not all of them were black.
timbit42 on HNFirst I looked for was Atari 1040 STE TOS green background, and it's not there. Bummer.
drybjed on HNlove it. Would love to see the grey/orange/blue/dark pink of CDE from the late 90s. But I'd especially love the gray on mottled gray of 1995 vintage Sun OpenWindows!
kjellsbells on HNThere's no "Hot Dog Stand", so the collection is incomplete.
zebproj on HN
Show OS name on hover over known-uses dots
From 1 comment
Nice one, travelled back in time a bit. One thing that was unexpected for me is when you hover on the circles in the Known Uses section of a color, I expeceted that the given OS…
pfeher on HN
Questions
Where does the Windows 98 teal value come from given VGA 16-color palette differences
From 1 comment
One nerdy detail about old operating systems and graphics cards: due to the way the VGA color palette works, the teal background used in Windows 98 and earlier versions of…
danirod on HN
Alternatives named
Virtual OS Museum
From 2 comments
Noted. Plan9/Rio was actually on my list for the initial release, but it is currently broken in the Virtual OS Museum (https://virtualosmuseum.org/) and I couldn't find any other…
vlowrian on HNThanks! I didn't use any screenshots as sources, because I a) wanted to scrape all possible options, b) want to make sure the default is really what you would get after a fresh…
vlowrian on HN
stylespark.dev
From 1 comment
something like： https://stylespark.dev/
cunjieliu on HN