MacPaint Art from the Mid-80s Still Looks Great Today

Original Article ↗ Hacker News Discussion ↗

Nostalgia for Early Computer Art and Tools

  • Many recall Deluxe Paint on the Amiga and MacPaint as part of a “magical” era when computing felt full of promise.
  • The MacPaint gallery triggers strong emotional responses: “warm fuzzy” feelings, memories of school computer labs, and early gaming/creative experiences.
  • Some contrast it with more “serious” or higher‑end systems of the time (PLATO, SGI CAD) and argue MacPaint was only great “for some values of great.”

Why the Art Still Works: Constraints and Craft

  • Repeated theme: constraints of 1‑bit, low‑resolution displays and tiny screens enhanced creativity and defined a unique aesthetic.
  • Commenters highlight traditional art fundamentals—cross‑hatching, pointillism, value, perspective—as the real reason these images hold up. The medium limited detail, but not composition or skill.
  • Several note how the lack of photorealism invites the viewer’s imagination to fill in details, creating a specific kind of engagement.

Debate: Timeless Aesthetic vs Nostalgia

  • One side sees the images as genuinely beautiful and “aesthetically complete” for their medium—improvements in hardware wouldn’t make them better art, just different.
  • Others find them “horribly pixelated” and argue the appeal is largely nostalgia; they’d prefer higher‑resolution versions of the same scenes.
  • Parallel drawn to other media: cave paintings, Roman mosaics, classical music on old instruments—tools constrain, but good work remains good.

Technical Details: Dithering, Displays, and Files

  • Several deep dives into dithering (Floyd–Steinberg, “ditherpunk”), 1‑bit shading, color cycling, and how CRTs and ghosting change perceived motion and texture.
  • Discussion of Amiga vs Mac trade‑offs: color depth vs resolution, CRT vs TV displays.
  • One thread shows that the PNGs on the site are poorly compressed; recompressing drastically shrinks file size.

Web and Browser Nostalgia (Netscape 4, Early Web Dev)

  • The linked macpaint.org HTML comment sparks a long aside on why Netscape 4 was frustrating: crashes, memory leaks, broken CSS/DOM, incompatibilities with IE, and painful cross‑browser layout work.

Modern Echoes, Tools, and Communities

  • People point to modern 1‑bit and pixel‑art works (e.g., Return of the Obra Dinn, indie games, dedicated 1‑bit art accounts, “ditherpunk” artists).
  • Tools mentioned: CRT simulators, Retro Dither (for converting photos to MacPaint), and MacPaint‑inspired paint apps for macOS.

AI and Generative Concerns

  • One commenter wonders about training image models specifically on this style; others push back, fearing it devalues original human work or reflects a desire for infinite, unearned reproduction rather than appreciation.