Record Label Uses (Mac OS) System 6 Look For Web Site

by , 2:00 PM EDT, May 29th, 2002

Wired has published a story about a small record label that has adopted a blast from Apple's past. bremsstrahlung recordings, a record label catering to the "lowercase sound" scene, is using a very good implementation of System 6, the 68k Mac OS, as the interface for its Web site. lowercase sound is a minimalist type of music, and System 6 was chosen for the look and feel of bremsstrahlung recordings Web site because it has a very minimalist look as well. It should also be noted that some of our more eagle-eyed Mac Observers noted in the comments below that there are elements of System 7 in the design. A screen shot from the site:

Each element on the screen is a link, and each page looks exactly like System 6. The designer did an outstanding job of recreating the look and feel of System 6. From the Wired.com article:

Clicking around the site is exactly like navigating the old System 6 desktop. Different parts of the site are represented by familiar Macintosh icons. The icon for a floppy drive links to the main index page. A printer icon goes to the reviews page. The long-forgotten icon for switching floppy disks -- a pair of floppies connected by arrows -- leads to a library of MP3s.And instead of advancing from page to page as in a traditional site, the Bremsstrahlung site recreates the tiling windows of the old Mac interface. Click on an icon and the page pops up as new window, stacked on top of the old one. To back up, the user clicks in the little square box in the window's top left-hand corner, just like an old Mac.

Its designer, Christopher Murphy, painstakingly created the entire site pixel by pixel in MacPaint and Photoshop. MacPaint is the black-and-white painting program that's one of four basic applications that came preinstalled on old Macs.

While it appears simple, the design was in fact incredibly demanding. Each page of the site is made of upwards of 20 Photoshop layers. "I certainly didn't take straight screenshots," Murphy said.

Murphy did some of the work on an old Mac Classic he found in a dumpster; some was done on a brand new Titanium PowerBook.

"In my studio I have one of the oldest Macs sitting alongside one of the newest Macs, and they're both used equally on a daily basis," Murphy said. "Most of my work is pixel-based, and the Classic is incredibly fast because the software footprints are so, so small."

We were also pleased to note that Wired.com linked to our friends at Low End Mac for descriptions of two 68k Macs that used System 6. Check out the full article for more information on the designer, the label, the site, and lowercase sound.

The Mac Observer Spin:

We enjoyed this immensely, and are delighted that the site is getting some mainstream attention because of System 6. Can you imagine for one second anyone caring about a site that exactly emulates the look and feel of Windows 2.x or 3.x, System 6's contemporaries? We couldn't either.

Definitely take the time to check out bremsstrahlung recordings' Web site; it is very interesting.

Wired.com Article