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IMGVIEW.EXE

Hey, I'm Crystal and I practically live in the 90s. This website is mainly to share my creative work (software and 3D stuff).

Firefox or Librewolf recommended.

Image credits

My Software

I make vintage software as a hobby. My favorite target OS's are Windows 3.11 and Mac OS9.

This app is called Iconic, basicall a task bar for Win 3.11, adds so much to they system's usability. Written in C.

Download Iconic v0.1 from Archive.org

At the bottom of the screen

Sticks to any side

Quick launch menu

I am developing an OS...ugh

I'm working on a MacOS 9-like web based OS where apps are easy-to-make HTML files.










Will be released one day.

What's new

Jan 2025 Finally a preview of my OS, also added new product designs I've been working on. Uploaded new photos too.

Nov 2024 New resources: HTML/CSS tips, Embedding with privacy. New sections: Video Rental and Paranormal Journal. I've uploaded a bunch more 3D renders and photos as well.'

Nov 2024 Added a resources section and fancy new 3D buttons. Hello 1993.

Oct 2024 - For your informed consent! :] I've added destination specific cursors for external links (hover over these: YT, Bandcamp, Archive, Neocities). This is automatic from CSS. Let me know if I should make this a public resource!

Thank you all for the feedback and following me, it's really inspiring to keep working on the site. I will start adding buttons to my favorite sites.

Oct 2024 - Got my first comment, thank you <3 Also new sections: Music box and Media

Uh oh I keep forgetting that I am on Mastodon. Follow me and then I'll start posting. It's not gonna work the other way around, haha.

Jul 2024 - Iconic App Switcher for Windows 3.11 released

Jul 2024 - Website launched!

Free Internet Radio!

The best soundtrack for browsing
the information superhighway.

International Telecom - WebTV Viewer
Click to connect to Bandcamp

Home

3D Renders







Please select a category:

I create (or replicate) tech products in Blender 3D. I am especially interested in translucent materials and surfaces with unusual reflective properties such as optical discs.

iMac promo that never was (2023)

iMac Blender model updated in 2025. It takes literal years to perfect this model!

The mice that got me into using Blender

iBook autumn colors edition. Will be part of the intro video for my OS.

Designed this MiniDisc player

D-Shock colors: cantelope, green apple and grape

My fantasy room, made in Blender. Centered around my iMac. It's an ongoing project.

Birthday party aftermath

Crystal's room

Crystal's room

Crystal's room

Crystal's room

Crystal's room

Frash! A color refresh for the G3 series. Made in Blender.

Cactus edition

iMac and iBook in cactus

Honey

Sage, Honey and Crystal™ editions

This was my first attempt at product design. I'm proud of the headphones but the player itself, is more like a practice in CAD than something I'd actually use.

About me

Genderless ghost of Geocity.
Feel free to

Mastodon | SpaceHey | YouTube

Media confessions

  • The Great Michael Douglas Binge
    • Disclosure (1994)
    • The Game (1997)
    • Basic Instinct (1992)
    • Fatal Attraction (1987)
  • Sliver (1993)
  • Felicity (1998-2002)
  • Daria (timeless)

Games

More Bandcamp

Friends & Buttons

Photography/Showing off my collection

I like to be around aesthetic objects.
My photos are not so good really, but they remind me of my design inspiration.

The dotcom aesthetic starter pack

My mouse collecting habit is much worse than this

A fluorescent happy accident

Category: family resemblence

Just shiny objects

My 2023 mood was very much this aesthetic.

All the plastic I brought home from London, 2023

Leave a message

CRYSTAL.HLP

Hey, I thought of adding this more expandable section and make it look like a Windows Helpfile (damn I love those!). I wanna add tuts and tricks, even downloadable resources.

Please click the buttons above to explore this section!




Image: Original scan source is vintagecomputing.com

Win3.11 programming

Oct 2024 How to get into Win 3.11 programming in C

First you'll need the book Programming Windows 3.1 by Charles Petzold (I got the original which is extra fun) and get a little bit onboarded about Windows programming. His instructions are about compiling programs in DOS, however I chose to work with Visual C++ 1.52. Don't expect it to be very visual, it's not like Visual Basic, but it at least runs in Windows, making it much quicker to test applications. It also comes with debugging tools and a resource editor where you can easily build UI, dialogs, even draw icons. The help files are quite good, especially useful is the Windows 3.1 API reference.

Windows applications written in C follow a very predictable pattern so it's not gonna be as hard to master it as it first seems. 16-bit Windows had cooperative multitasking. This means, the OS and applications pass on control to each other constantly. At every little thing the OS does (e.g. before starting to draw a button), you can take control and even override the OS's action, e.g. fill buttons with a different color than the OS would. But the OS always has to get back control, otherwise the system will freeze. It's also crazy how permissive the system was, compared to anything today.

Why not Visual Basic though?

Basic is very limited compared to C and VB applications must be distributed with an installer (I prefer compact/standalone apps). However you can combine the simplicity of VB and the power of C by coding VB components in C and embedding them in your VB application.

Level up

Once you're comfortable writing Windows applications and you want to learn real insider tricks, check out MSDN CDs from around 1994-1995. I'm currently looking into how to display 256 color images. This is not straightforward and not described in any Win 3.11 API documentation, but I've found an example application on MSDN. Would be awesome to create a 256-color game or multimedia CD for Win 3.11 (and Mac OS9 as well!).

Btw if you're interested in graphics, you can go beyond Windows's default graphics device interface (GDI) and utilize WinG, which is more similar to DirectX and allows direct hardware access. Also with Win32s it's possible to run 32-bit programs and libraries (ok I am not sure what I'm talking about now), but note that WinG and Win32s are not part of a default Win3.x install, your application has to be delivered with them if it needs them. I prefer compact .exe applications without installers so I don't use these. If you get into Win3.x programming, let me know, I'm curious why and what you create!

Mac OS9 programming

Oct 2024 Let's buy into the PowerPC ecosystem

Classic Mac programming (I'm most focused on the late 90s era) is a little bit different from Windows. Apparently native coding was so complicated that nobody did it, in some cases not even Apple. Instead everyone used Metrowerks PowerPlant CodeWarrior (it has so many names, I never know which one to use!), it's an SDK and set of libraries that makes app development very simple, but at the end you still get a native compiled application - not something that relies on additional software like HyperCard or Visual Basic. You can create "Fat binaries" which run natively both on Motorola and PowerPC Macs!

Here I show you my practical approach for noobs (like me) on getting started.

Ingredients:

  • A fresh install of MacOS9 lives on a PowerPC Mac. Using an emulator was a bit ugh for me... impossible to type all the brackets needed for coding.
  • Archive managers like Roxio Toast and StuffIt, because everything from that era is distributed in these formats.
  • "CodeWarrior 5 Gold" on a CD
  • The book and CD: "Metrowerks CodeWarrior Programming" (1995) by Dan Parks Sydow

Setting up was so not straightforward, I took notes how to do the next time. Please mind, there might be slight inaccuracies here! Also my setup is specifically for PowerPC applications, the book will guide you through other options as well.

  1. Install MacOS9 Lives
  2. Copy CW5 Gold CD to the HDD. Don't install it, it will screw up the system
  3. Copy the book's CD as well
  4. Copy the contents of the relevant folders from CW5 Gold/"Metrowerks C/C++ f"/(System Folder Items)/Will install in PPC f/ to the Extensions and Startup folders of your system. The source folder names will make this self-explanatory.
  5. Configure the Find feature - Explained in pages 68-71 in the book, you dont necessarily need to do it now, enough when you're at the right place in the book. You'll need to add this folder: CW5 Gold/"Metrowerks C/C++ f"/Headers f/Universal Headers 2.0a3 f

Then it's useful to create desktop aliases for apps you'll often need:

  • The Metrowerks code editor and compiler: CW5 Gold/"Metrowerks C/C++ f"/"MW C/C++ PPC 1.2"
  • "ResEdit" for creating resources, such as windows: CW5 Gold/Apple Development Products f/ResEdit 2.1.3
  • "Constructor" for creating PowerPlant-speficific resources: CW5 Gold/Metrowerks PowerPlant f/Constructor 1.0.1

Then: go ahead with the book! It's super well written and easy to follow. I really hope I can get back to this soon because it's heaps of fun. But I'm quite Mac'd out on another project that I'll soon reveal.

HTML/CSS

Nov 2024 Tips for your website

  • Target your external links, so they open in a new tab:
    <a href="example.org" target="_blank">example</a>

  • Use shrunk images as thumbnails to save on bandwidth and make your web page load faster.
    I use BIMP for bulk shrinking images in GIMP, but you may find some other software that's easier to use :)

  • Host all scripts and web fonts together with your site, don't rely on external sources (Google, Github, etc). Cuz the web is always changing but your site is worth preserving! Here is how to embed your self-hosted fonts.

Embed with privacy

Nov 2024

My pet peeve is that I don't want external code (especially trackers!) to load automatically on a website because of embedded stuff. I obv make an exception with cbox, but I embed everything else only on user request like this:

Click to load video

No Google code is loaded until I click the link. That's because the embed doesn't really exist until then, it's only stored in a string.

You can create such embed code with this generator:

<div class="privembed" style="width: 560px; height: 316px; background: black">
    <script>
        embed00000 = function(anchor){
            let privembedbox = anchor.closest(".privembed");
            privembedbox.innerHTML = `insert the "real" embed code from YT or another site here. The code starts with <iframe...`;
        }
    </script>
    <a style="color: white" onclick="embed00000(this)">Load YouTube</a>
</div>

Credits:
Auto-select script from datacadamia.com
Doggie (Rover) from Microsoft Bob.

Scroll down for a code generator to create embeds like this. Woof.

Note to self: I will def need to polish and simplify this code.

If you manually edit this code, the embedXXXXX parts should be always the same for the same embed, but unique to the web page (if you have multiple embeds, and you copypasted them, then change these parts in pairs).

Connected

VIDEO RENTAL

V H S

These are Crystal's cult technohorror-thriller-sci-fi recommendations.

Please rewind after watching and return within 7 business days.

Paranormal journal

Feb 2025
Alien Body Mixtape

By Pictureplane.
Listen here

Jan 2025
No One Will Save You

No One Will Save You is my new favorite alien invasion movie. The aliens with the grotesque limbs remind me of The Arrival (from 1996 with Charlie Sheen), and I like how the movie occasionally turns into comedy. I also appreciate there is almost no human conversation in it.

Nov 2024
X-Files bio-horror nostalgia

By far the Best X-Files "monster of the week" is a fungus that kills people in minutes and turns them into green mush. The writer must have found something long forgotten in their fridge. The effects look awesome and it's genuinely a bit scary (which is more scary than most X-files episodes).
S4 E11 - El Mundo Gira (IMDB)

And if that's not enough:

A creature that's completely invisible in water, attacking people during a hurricane.
S6 E13 - Agua Mala (IMDB)

Millions of tiny bugs mummifying people in the forest after sunset.
S1 E20 - Darkness Falls (IMDB)

Site Credits

Website + all scripts* by Crystal, made in XED on Linux. I like to code the hard way, without fancy tools ^^. Got a lot of help from MDN.

*scrollbars use simplebar, a pretty awesome library that replaces the system scrollbar with a stylable div. I've added extra CSS and script to make it look how it is.

Most artwork by me, except any pixel icons, and the aquarium photo (CC0) is by David Clode used in the splash screen. For artwork I use Blender, GIMP and/or pure HTML/CSS.

Video cassette covers and X-files imagery belongs to their respective copyright holders.

Fonts: Dotemp Demo (Personal use License) and Pixel Times, monospace: Basis33 (MIT)

Some cursors are from: cursors-4u.com (others I made in GIMP)

Please credit me if you repost my artwork.

Watch Daria.

SLIVER.MPG

Video CD loaded