- Author
- Marcin Wichary (Unsung blog)
- Published
- 28 August 2026
- Kind
- Personal blog essay with a short tour of examples
- Original
- unsung.aresluna.org/we-want-it-to-really-confuse-people-but-also-really-make-people-happy/
- Subject
- Future of computing
What it is
Marcin Wichary writes Unsung, a blog about software craft and quality. The blog's page says the author has worked at Google, Medium and Figma. The essay disagrees mildly with Gruber's view of ArtfulType, a 2026 editor by Sean Malseed.
What it says
- Wichary says a retro-styled app need not be faithful to its era.
- Wichary liked the modern features that ArtfulType put into an early Mac app.
- Wichary describes Playdate, a 2022 handheld started by Panic, as intentionally anachronistic.
- Wichary describes PICO-8 as a fantasy console with a 128×128 screen and 16 colors.
- Wichary says Infinite Mac adds modern conveniences, such as dragging in files, to old Macs.
- Wichary says a favorite spreadsheet would be an anachronistic Excel 97 with modern features.
What evidence it gives
The essay offers opinion and description. It quotes a designer from Panic, a 2016 AV Club article and a PICO-8 talk. It gives no data or tests. The author says the book of rules for time travel is ignored by these projects.
Interests and limits
The author is a design professional with strong taste, and the essay says so. Nothing was tested. The images and the embedded video were not viewed. The view reaches only the four projects named.