“Alpha” as in alpha software: buggy, not fit for release, a poor first approximation of useful, error-prone, almost certain to fail at the desired task, etc…

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Looks like we’re in for a science fiction double feature!

They did! And I weirdly kind of miss them for the entirely non-logical reason that they looked elegant.

Don’t get me wrong, I adapted in about 3 seconds when I made the switch to Mac OS X 25 years ago, but I irrationally kinda miss them just a tiny bit.