Notes ·
The Future Still Runs Windows 98
98.css, created by Jordan Scales, is a CSS library for building interfaces that look like Windows 98.
“A design system for building faithful recreations of old UIs.”
It provides the buttons, title bars, window frames, form controls, tabs, trees, and status bars needed to recreate that wonderfully gray, beveled interface entirely in HTML and CSS.
The project does not include JavaScript, so it is not pretending to be an operating system. It simply gives developers the visual pieces and leaves the behavior up to them. That makes it useful for retro websites, browser experiments, games, fake desktop interfaces, and highly authentic error messages.
More importantly, it is now easier to recreate the computer displays from Fortress 2: Re-Entry, a science-fiction movie set aboard a futuristic space prison that apparently still ran Windows 98. During one scene, the interface returns to the actual desktop and reveals an AOL free-trial icon.
Nothing establishes a distant technological future quite like wondering whether the orbital prison has used its 500 complimentary AOL hours yet.
Explore 98.css.