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Comment by midasuni | Hacker News Reader

You call it a folder, not a directory, seems you aren’t immune from the rot.

Does anyone know why directories were renamed around the win95 time?

MacOS called them folders from its very start. Windows until 95 was really just a shell on top of DOS. 95 was too but it was much more of a full featured OS in its own right.

I guess they just wanted to use the metaphor that made sense visually too. Since it was always represented by a folder icon. I don't remember what Windows 1-3 called them but they weren't visually represented by a folder but by a window with little icons. Which didn't make a ton of sense.

The Windows 3.1 File Manager definitely used folder icons that were quite similar to what Windows Explorer used in future versions. The windows full of icons you remember were in Program Manager, which was replaced by the Start menu.

Apple called them "folders" because they had this "desktop metaphor" where the files were pieces of paper and the background (what we call the "desktop" today) was like a physical desk.

This is also the reason GUI programs typically have a white background. It's like you're typing on a typewriter and the background is made of paper.

Prior to GUIs, it was common to see black backgrounds and glowing text, because that was easier for the hardware than the opposite.

Do you have an example of a GUI that doesn't use folders to represent directories? Macs, Linux, and Windows do. That's almost 100% of the GUIs in existence.

Because a folder makes more sense in a GUI environment.

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