December 23, 2025
Floppies, feelings, and flamewars
Adobe Photoshop 1.0 Source Code (2013)
Photoshop 1.0’s code is out—cue GIMP flexes, floppy feels, and Linux dreams
TLDR: The Computer History Museum showcased Photoshop 1.0’s original code, sparking a nostalgia wave and a tussle over open-source alternatives. Commenters split between linking to GIMP, wishing for a Linux port, praising the old code, and mourning the lost magic of boxed software—proving history still hits the feels.
The Computer History Museum dusted off the original Photoshop 1.0 source code, and the internet instantly turned it into a group therapy session for the early ’90s. Fans relived the Knoll brothers’ origin story—Thomas at the University of Michigan, John at Industrial Light & Magic (yes, the Star Wars effects house)—and that scrappy “Display” app that grew into a phenomenon Adobe shipped in 1990 and sold by the millions.
But the comments stole the show. One user threw down a cheeky gauntlet by linking to GIMP, the free photo editor—classic “open-source can hang too” energy. Another swooned that the old code still “holds up,” while a nostalgic power-user confessed nothing has ever felt like those 1.x days and openly wished for a Linux port of Photoshop 1.0. Cue the debate: could the open-source crowd “run with it,” or are we just rewriting history through rose-tinted pixels?
Then the emotions really spilled. Commenters waxed poetic about white floppy disks (“magical!”) and software boxes on shelves at malls like Babbage’s. One summed up the mood: sure, today you click to download, but we traded something for that—the ritual, the keepsakes, the mystery. It’s not just code; it’s a time capsule. And the crowd is split between firing up modern tools and chasing that first spark of pixel love.
Key Points
- •Thomas Knoll created an image editing program in 1987 while at the University of Michigan, later used by his brother John Knoll at Industrial Light & Magic.
- •The program evolved, was renamed “Photoshop” in 1988, and the Knolls sought a company to distribute it.
- •Barneyscan bundled about 200 copies of version 0.87 as “Barneyscan XP” with its slide scanners.
- •Adobe, encouraged by art director Russell Brown, licensed Photoshop in April 1989 and shipped version 1.0 in early 1990.
- •Over the next decade more than 3 million copies of Photoshop were sold; by 2012 “photoshop” was recognized as a verb by Merriam-Webster.