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Screenshot History of Windows
jobugeek writes "Neowin has an article that shows the progression of Microsoft Windows from pre-windows 1.0 through the 2003 server. For those of you who have used all of them, I'm sorry."
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There's been no real revolution since win95... just evolution. Will revolution happen anytime soon?
did anyone ever hyndai or whatever computers? they were only released as an experiment to see how well they worked.. they were cheap as heck and they planned on giving them to school. they could only handle this bad wordprocessing program, "wordstar"
windows user interface has ALWAYS been prettier than that. even if it always has been pretty damned ugly.
If you make make your app run nicely on that configuration, then have 15 years of development for improvement, then you might have something.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
Windows95 has a start button. Woo.
.lnk files.
And
I wouldn't exactly say it's any kind of leap in UI development.
Lots and lots of people used Windows 3.1 for a long time. If it was unusable, people wouldn't have used it. Back then, it wasn't quite a monopoly yet, although that's about the time when they started using shadey business practices to force manufacturers to put Windows on PC's that ship, and nothing else.
- It's not the Macs I hate. It's Digg users. -
Flamebait: At least a full distro of Windows still fits on a single cd-rom unlike some other operating systems.
hehe I love Linux, but getting 2 web servers, 3 rdbms, 6 text editors, 2 GUI's, 3 mail readers, etc. is a bit unnecessary. Standardize for God's sake... Each distro should have a vote on their site for the best of each app to distribute with their package, and write it, nice and tight into their distro. All the other crap can still be downloaded, so it's still okay. Whatever. Just a thought.
And both WordStar and WordPerfect shone out against the similarly dated versions of WinWord...
"Go to CNN [for a] spell-checked, fact-checked summary" -- CmdrTaco
Windows 9x is still DOS with a quick switch over to the graphical shell.
That's true, but for the time it was the right thing.
You could run Win95, and do useful work with it, on a PC with 4 MB of RAM. More was better; I ran it with 8 MB. (In 1995, RAM was expensive!)
Part of the reason it was small was because of the stupid thunking into DOS. DOS is small, partly because it started out small and partly because lots of people hacked on it over the years trying to keep it small. (DOS 4 was an exception, but the MS DOS guys were quick to point out that IBM made DOS 4. DOS 5, done by MS, was actually smaller than DOS 4, despite having many improvements.)
Also, Win95 had lots of 16-bit code inherited from Win 3.1, and it thunked into that a lot. Again, this contributed to the small size.
I'm glad that machines are so powerful these days, where 128 MB of RAM is considered a small amount. But part of Win95's success was that it actually ran on the machines of the day.
steveha
lf(1): it's like ls(1) but sorts filenames by extension, tersely
Why back in the middle ages get this..they used swords! Those fools! Why didn't they just use guns!
Programmers today have no clue what programming was like back in the early days of the PC. The system had to boot in 64k, which is equivilant to a few icons in todays world. The graphics technology was so primitive most programmers today would refuse to write code for it; the pixels weren't square and there was no screen read!
Yet the functionality was substantially similar to what we have today; networking, graphics, spreadsheets, word processors with fonts.
Put down the early days of windows all you want, twenty years from now you will be defending the "boneheaded code" you wrote in your youth and you may just get a taste of it; though not the full course meal since starting a billion dollar enterprise is much much more difficult than coat-tailing on one.
Enjoy your joke while you can.
Your going to to mention "Blue Screen" one day and no one will know what you are talking about. I have not seen one for over a year now, as the releases progress, Windows is getting more stable. You have to find a different way to poke fun at the man-in-the-glasses.
Ayjay...
Offtopic, Inflammatory, Inappropriate, Illegal, or Offensive comments might be moderated up.
I'm sure I'll be laughing from my Mac when a virus is released that exploits a hole in MSs' DRM system and makes it so you can't back up you own files. he he he.
The fact that manufacturers spend the time to make drivers for Windows is not a reflection of the quality of Windows itself.
Plus, you could just compile all the kernel modules at once instead of having to recompile when you change your setup. That's effectively what Windows does.
TWW
"Encyclopedia" is to "Wikipedia" what "Library" is to "Some people at a bus stop"
Correct, and because of this feature (about all kernals being compiled) being used by DEFAULT, which is easier? (to Joe Public)
Nicely said brookharty - in fact I would consider the other CD's with many optional apps a bonus!
You do not even have to install a GUI if you dont use it... Linux can be as minimal as you need it.. Browser? If you really want you can have 7 or so- or none at all..
However most of windows is not optional. you must have a GUI, a browser etc- otherwise you have to go right back to dos - in which case using a recent linux kernel would give you more functionaly and safety.
As for bonuses microsoft gives you the doctor evil feeding-you-to-sharks-with-lasers brand, keeping you in the lock in, charging you big time, having a premium for office apps that may include nasty DRM tech, and so on.
To me the very basics is a console with a TCP/IP stack, text editor and pine..
OrionRobots.co.uk - Robots From sol
There are zealots everywhere. On Neowin you'll find your fair share of Microsoft zealots, on Slashdot you'll find your fair share of Anti-Microsoft zealots, on an Apple website you'd find your fair share of Apple zealots, etc...
People have their views. Sometimes people's views are based upon a line of logic that that person happens to agree with, and a lot of times people's views are based on other things. The people in the latter category are ignorant. You will find these groups of people everywhere. There is really nothing you can do about it. So I would suggest that you simply get used to it or you are going to have a very hard time in life.
Even you yourself appear to be quite ignorant. This is not necessarily an insult, as I am not attempting to challenge your intelligence. But based upon a lot of comments you made in your post you are very uninformed. Although your last comment pushes you into the arrogant (ignorance mixed with ego) category imho. My purpose in saying this is not to flame bit, but to show you that even you express zealousness. So you might want to be a bit more tolerant when you see others expressing that same quality, or you might come across as a hypocrite to some.
http://www.archive.org/details/ThePowerOfNightmares
You're right it wasn't a great leap for UIs, but it was a huge leap for Windows. The fact that many people think a huge leap for Windows represents a huge leap for UIs in general shows that most people are still unaware that Microsoft is not the center of the computing Universe, nor is it, in any sense an innovator.
It is possible for a program to be "usable" and yet still horrible to use. This is what Windows was prior to Win9x.
Furry cows moo and decompress.
So XP professional (NT 5.1 as it identifies itself) wasn't meant to replace 2000 Professional (NT 5)? And I suppose 2003 won't replace the 2000 server versions.....
Silly remark indeed.
beauty is only a light switch away
In 1995, regular workstations had come down to the level where people could easily afford them, and they ran basically the same well-designed software they had been running for a decade. Microsoft and Apple, however, owned the market because they had all those return customers they originally captured a decade earler. But their platforms were saddled with backwards compatibility issues. That's why Windows and MacOS in 1995 were just awful technically compared to the workstations, and why they actually ended up being somewhat more expensive overall.
It's the usual thing: being early to market (though not first), companies often win, but the price to users and technological progress is enormous.
Hum. Except that it's not slashdotted, the guy didn't want to have to pay a huge bill because of thousand guys downloading GBs in a couple of hours.
Truly KFG, you chose the right analogy, but to the wrong conclusion. You presumed that hammers have not transformed suddenly, and this presumption lead you to conclude by similarity that current MMI will not undergo another shocking tranformation. The question depends upon whether you believe the MMI is in a state of stasis or flux - you vote for stasis? Consider your analogy to the hammer:
Think! Hammers haven't changed much since the days of Thor? Simply untrue!
Basic engineering has given you a far better hammer than your pre-historic and Roman-era ancestors. Materials science has given you a longer lasting hammer and a shock-resistant grip. Ergonomics have saved callusses on your palm. Hammers are no longer powered only by the muscle of your arms, but via chemical reactions, pneumatics, hydraulics, magnetics or springs. The "interface" is no longer only a bar of wood, but a simple release trigger, or sculpted plastic, and padded rubber. Moreover, hammers no longer pound target nails only through wood, but through metal and concrete as well.
Think. All of those advances in the art and science of hammering have occured during the last 100 years! From the perspective of the 6000 year recorded history of the hammer; the evolution of the hammer into the modern form was rather sudden - in archeological terms: a catastrophic revolution. Thor's prototypical hammer is now a shameful implement - long since been relegated to the bargain bin of history.
Will the WIMP metaphor eventually slide into disrepute? All that is required for advance is that we apply the new technologies that we develop or discover to the MMI. We needn't jump to science fiction and direct mind control or any such imaginings: speech interfaces will occur much sooner, as will true adaptive handwriting recognition, not to mention visual and socially cued interfaces. When one of these both reaches fruition and finally clicks with the public, we will have yet another revolution, which will be as profound as the one that brought us WIMP.
Will it occur in my lifetime, which is already over 3/4 done? No, but mark these words: those changes will come to fruition in the lifetime of a teener geek reading this. The revolution of a tool only ends when no-one asks "Will revolution happen anytime soon?", which is the necessary precursor to the demand, "I must change this." People are still asking, and thus change will continue.
Revolution isn't done with MMI yet.
I never understood why they default to auto-reboot. It smacks of arrogance that says, "this couldn't possibly happen again, we'll have your OS back up and running in no time."
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Remember the old phrase "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission"? Well, it seems Win2k just coded it. :P
Why does it matter if MS is marketing the OS to stupid people that have to buy every upgrade. The point is the same, and quite valid, the difference between, for example, 2000 Professional and XP Professional is minimal, and hardly worth the cost of upgrade. I don't know ANYONE that is actually dumb enough to go out and replace their existing 2k desktops with XP desktops. Of course the new purchases are XP, but the existing 2k desktops will stay as is until the PC's EOL comes about. And that just backs up the point, there isn't a whole lot of difference between the two...
I'm convinced the Solitare game is rigged... it's WAY too easy to win as compared to 'real life' Solitaire. I believe Microsoft 'stacks the deck' and makes Solitaire easy to win because lots of people learn mousing skills and have their first experiences with Windows through the Solitaire game. More frequent wins than real life means pleasant newbie experiences with Windows, giving the newbie the warm and fuzzies and good Windows feelings.
Mod down people who tell people how to mod in their sigs