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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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Wordstar was bad?
That was a great program that started many of the flag based text editing programs to date. All of the commands were at the bottom of the screen and it was relatively easy to use. I really thought that was a good program.
looking at all of them one thing really
strikes you, win95 was quite a leap.
till then it really was not close to
a usable desktop. win95 was the racehorse...
Win95 was hardly more of a revolution more than some of the new stuff today. I think the changes between XP and ME (which is replaces) are huge.
unzip; strip; touch; finger; mount; fsck; more; yes; unmount; sleep
If you have your old copy of Windows 95 System Programming Secrets (1995, Matt Pietrek) handy, he has some examples of how those pesky Int 21 calls (DOS services) are still thunked down to that crappy old DOS layer, instead of being completely handled in the kernal, as in WinNT. If there was truely no DOS, there would be no thunking, no crappy DOS layer, and no MSDOS.SYS/IO.SYS/COMMAND.COM garbage.
Microsoft's marketing machine tried (and mostly managed) to convince the world that 'DOS is dead' with this version of Windows. Rumor has it that BillG got totally hacked off by an Apple commerical that compared booting a Mac with booting a WIntel box, and told his minions that the next version (95) better boot right to Windows.
Yeah, right.
The first time I was introduced to Windows, I was using a Tandy 1000RLX. For those of you who didn't follow the history of Tandy's 1000 series, it basically started with the original 1000 and went something like this... RGEG@#3t232tG@#g@#G23#%#@^!@^grsg
Yea, that's about as much sense as it made - the 1000 moniker was absolutely useless for determining what kind of system it was. So anyway, as it turns out, the 1000RLX was an XT-286. Yep, while other 286s had a 16-bit bus and 16-bit ISA slots... My crappy Tandy didn't. What it did have was a 10MHz AMD 286 chip on an 8-bit bus with 256k VGA graphics, 1MB of RAM, a 1.44MB floppy drive and an XT-IDE 40MB hard drive. It also had one 8-bit ISA slot that I decided to cram a 2400bps modem into.
So anyway, I certainly didn't have the hardware for Windows 3.0 and while I don't remember the exact date, I do remember Windows 3.1 was just about to come out in a few months... So it was back in the day. I got ahold of a copy of Windows 3.0 and installed it on that Tandy and guess what - my mouse didn't work.
I called tech support (you could actually reach a live person back in the day!) for the Tandy computer... They kinda wondered where I got a copy of Windows from (since the computer didn't come with it, it came with Tandy's Deskmate) but instead of telling me "No, we don't support operating systems that didn't come bundled... blah blah blah" like you'd expect to hear today - they were actually helpful and explained that this XT-286 had the PS/2 mouse port on a non standard IRQ and I'd need to get a serial mouse.
To make a long story longer, I waited awhile for 3.1 to be released and ended up pawning off the computer on my father and convinced him to buy me a Tandy 2500SX/25 instead... So not only could I run the new Windows 3.1 with a mouse, I also could run it in 386 protected mode with a whopping 2MB of ram and an 80MB hard drive. From what I remember of Windows 3.1, it was always very slow and it seemed to crash a lot and every few weeks or so it managed to crash badly enough to corrupt itself. Blue screens nowadays make me feel all nolstalgic.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
right when I started there was a whole pile of software boxen in the hallway. My manager told me that I could take whatever I wanted. So I looked around and found really early versions of Windows and DOS. I thought it was cool and so I took em home. Then one day after perhaps one too many evenings of Linux hacking I was cleaning up my room... you guessed it, out they went. I have to admit, I regret that a bit...
I know you said Flamebait, but what the heck. The full distro of Windows that you talk of, does NOT include the apps, which are part of these other distro. Many otherr full-distros come in a single floppy! And some of these can read Windows files as well..
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
What about us poor schmucks who have to keep our programs compatible to the 95/98/Me family, while still integrating a "modern XP look" (blech) for marketing? Don't we get some sympathy?
Microsoft Layer for Unicode, here I come...
That said, did anyone else have a Tandy 1000, or specifically the 1000/TL? It was actually pretty sharp back in the day, and may have been the last custom computer Radio Scrap offered. It had the operating system (older version of MS-DOS, I forget which one) in ROM on the D drive, so it booted insanely fast. It also came with some windows/office kind of software called Deskmate, which sort of resembled Windows 1.0. It was a desktop environment with a word processor and some other stuff, which was graphic-based, but the text was the same size/font as the standard IBM-PC text at 80x25 character resolution. Anybody else besides me ever use that? I don't remember anything else about it, though.
make world, not war
This is the first time I actually noticed the dates on all this software.
Back in the late-eighties/early-nineties I only knew Macs. I had family that worked at Apple so I had access to a lot of stuff. I finally moved over to a PC in 1998, when I got tired of connecting to shell accounts and wanted to get my own unix machine.
Anyway, I can't believe the dates here. I always assumed that Windows 3.1 came out in 87/88, what with the horrible interface and lack of features. I remember playing with a Mac 128k in 1985 that worked better than 3.1, minus the color.
It really makes me wonder what they were thinking at Apple back then, making the machines so expensive rather than trying to take over the market when they had such a lead. It boggles the mind.
[insert witty quote here]
The 32-bit operating system also offered enhanced multimedia capabilities, more powerful features for mobile computing, and integrated networking
I think the author pulled this straight out of Microsoft's propaganda. I don't know what qualify Windows 95 as a 32-bit OS.
Windows 95 cannot perform preemptive multitasking when 16-bit applications are running. Therefore if you plan to use mostly older 16-bit applications, you should not expect to see productivity improvements. There are also times when Windows 95 cannot multitask 32-bit applications. Windows 95 uses older 16-bit code for two very important modules( Window management and Graphics Device Interface). When an application needs to use these modules, they have to wait in line until the previous application gives up control, the operating system cannot preempt it. If a 32-bit application needs to use one of these two modules, it may have to wait for it. That application is not able to multitask while it waits. In addition, 16-bit applications can inhibit the multitasking related performance of the 32-bit applications. When you run a mix of 16-bit and 32-bit applications, Windows 95 resorts to a less sophisticated form of multitasking called cooperative multitasking.
You see, 'pure 32-bit OS mode' will never happen.
with over 90% of PC users choosing to adopt this software
Heh, well, if having it violently shoved onto your future computer by its manufacturer...
Or if having to pirate a copy because you can't afford it and for some God-awful reason you need to hone your l337 haxor sk177Z on it because UNIX is just too easy...
Of if you actually bought it because a winmodem is your only ticket online. If that all in some convoluted way constitutes choice, then yes, we "adopted" Windows.
Jobugeek wrote: "For those of you who have used all of them, I'm sorry." Why? I have produced a lot of stuff using Windows? I don't think Windows is _that_ bad even if I mostly use Linux today.
Also, there has been a lot of sarcasms in the previous posts regarding the slashdotted site. But checking with www.netcraft.com one sees their server's setup:
"The site www.neowin.net is running Apache/1.3.27 (Unix) mod_log_bytes/1.0 mod_bwlimited/1.0 PHP/4.3.1 FrontPage/5.0.2.2510 mod_ssl/2.8.12 OpenSSL/0.9.7 on Linux."
Hiya!
Didn't get a chance to see the pictures, server is slashdotted. So I did a quick googling around and found a nice site that shows the history of the AmigaOS. http://www.gregdonner.org/workbench/index.html
I had forgot just how nasty Workbench 1.x's colours where. Makes XP look friendly *g*
When I was at University, in the mid 80s, windowing systems were the real high end, final year undergraduate student stuff. Much as I hate the beast, I think it does deserve some credit for Windows 3.0 and 3.1 which really did take this stuff out to the masses.
I really had to fight my then employers to go for Windows in the mid-90s (we were still using DOS and Wordperfect) and the benefits of the switch were real and immediate. Back then Linux was for geeks (:->) and nothing else was really a serious, low cost option for mass roll out on cheap hardware.
That's all changed now, of course.
Warp 4 was released in 1996 - any copying (window close buttons, start menu, taskbar, etc) was by OS/2 off Win95 (for which MS copied of many other products as well, but Win95 was before Warp4)
Warp3 was more Win3.x-ish.
You must be kidding right. I only wish I had a version installed so I could show a screenshot.
Warp 4 certainly had many design elements of Windows 95, but they were ONLY a start bar type fthing and the X buttons. Those features were available years before in circa 1993 as freeware add-ons. Checkout Filebar and NPS WPS enhancer, from which MS primarily ripped their design concepts.
Many of the core ways that OS/2 worked were ripped from OS/2. A consistently gray GUI provided a much better look and was easier on the eyes. Buttons and bars had the "chiseled" look. MS even ripped the dark green background of OS/2 Warp 3.0. IBM did a whole study and determined that color calms humans better than any other. Lets not forget the absolutely revolutionary tabbed properties dialogue boxes.
OS/2 always had a desktop since 1992, three years before Windows 95. There was no true desktop in Windows prior to 1995.
In reality, the Macintosh had many of these features first. It was always striking how Windows 95 looked so incredibly similar to OS/2 Warp 3. They could easily have incorporated many of the design elements but still have created a unique look.
I don't read or respond to AC posts
http://toastytech.com/guis/win101disk.zip
Runs nicely in VMWARE.
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...
I would have said the same thing the other day, but I recently received a blue screen in Win2k by plugging an analog monitor into my laptop. After that the machine wouldn't boot, even with the monitor disconnected. Had to remove the video driver (in safe mode) and reboot. Suddenly everything worked, with both monitors connected...
Note that the blue screen showed on both monitors (laptop built-in and external LCD, nicely anti-aliased, too).
Win2k defaults to "Automatically Reboot" in the event of a blue screen, which costed me a reinstall once over a problem that to this day I don't know what caused. I really, really wish it would wait 5 seconds and *then* reboot, so you can at least read the error. Safe mode wouldn't boot, and I just saw a flash of blue before it rebooted (when I discovered the problem, I awoke to my machine in a constant reboot cycle).
All in all, I will agree, Windows has come a long way in stability. I'm still using 2000, and have no plans (no need) to "upgrade", at least until I retire my current machines. But you *must* disable "Automatically Reboot", else you get stuck with no log, no error message, and an ever-rebooting Windows box...
NGWave - Fast Sound Editor for Windows
It must not be taken out of context
I had Gem on my 8088 (512K, 30Mb HDD) and had a funky graphics card that would do CGA hi-res in 16 colours. So Gem was nice and colourful (though fixed windows, unlike atari Gem).
With first Word Plus and Timeworks DTP, the machine was excellent for doing schoolwork and stuff.
Now this PC I got also came with 2 operating systems, MS-DOS 3.2 and DOS Plus - Due to software compatibility, I tended to use MS-DOS, dos plus was slightly more memory hungry. I made the choice to use MS-DOS because it *was* a better operating system.
I remember windows 2 coming out and being quite excited - I remember starting it up - waiting ages - running in monochrome (it didn't support my weird graphics card) and played othello for about 30 minutes and then uninstalled it. My opinion: windows is a flop. (DOS is still good though!)
I used Windows 3.0 on some machine or other (not mine) and thought that it was a big improvement on 2.0.
I then got my 486 (33MHz w/ 8mb ram) with windows 3.1 installed! Oh-My-God it was *so* good, people talk about the shortcomings, but they either didn't use win3.1 or didn't have powerful enough machines to appreciate it properly.
There were 1 million hacks available for win3.1 to do whatever you wanted (icons on the desktop etc.) and it was skinnable too.
The underlying technology didn't really matter to me, I still played my DOS games in DOS and ran windows when I wanted to do something like use Word - remember word 2 folks? It's almost the same as the current word that we use today - all the elements were in place and it took first place on my machine.
I played with a couple of linux distros around that time or just after (Slackware and a thing called mini-linux that I've never found any references to again). But they just couldn't compete for a desktop experience for me and they didn't run doom!
Nowadays I run mandrake linux on my pc and debian (knoppix) on my laptop because I feel it's time has come.
Look on those old windows shots with the pleasant nostalgia they are intended to invoke. Suppress the anti-M$ urge on this one!
One good source of information is to go back in your back issues of BYTE mag. circa 1981-83 (until the Apple Lisa came out). You do see that Bill's vision was to have a Multiplan-like UI, that nothing was really graphical.
Unless I'm mistaken (do realize it's been close to 20 years), things changed completely when Apple showed him their work for the Lisa and then the Macintosh. Only then did the microserfs go graphical.
It was not only M$ that did not grok the "graphical" thing: IBM's TopView was also essentially character-based.
But back to my main point: for more info on this, go to those used book stores, your uncle's/father's/older brother's collection of BYTE, Creative Computing and similar magazines of the early '80s and read through them. You'll be amazed what you'll find.
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.
Not a silly remark at all. Microsoft is not aggresively selling Windows XP as a replacement to Windows 2000. Rather they are selling it as the upgrade path to the consumer line (which is the 9x series, Windows ME) and as an upgrade to Windows NT 4.0. If you wanted to upgrade Windows 2000 to Windows XP Microsoft won't stop you but it's not the market that they are aggressively seeking.
Likewise Windows 2003 Server is not being touted as a serious upgrade to Windows 2000 Server. A good deal of the enhancements to Windows 2003 Server specifically address concerns when upgrading from Windows NT 4.0. Microsoft is not pushing this server heavily as a replacement to Windows 2000 Server.
...on the contrary my friend, you _do_ have several logs of the event...
Yes, except that when the system will not boot at all (command line, safe mode, etc all result in the auto-reboot) I can't view any of that stuff. Microsoft's solution involved a parallel install of Win2k to be able to fix the existing install. Because of course you need the GUI tools to fix it.
Perhaps it may have been possible to use the "Recovery Console" to obtain some of the crash data -- but why the hell couldn't the blue screen just pause for a second before rebooting?
Additionally, Windows does not have "automatically reboot" enabled by default.
Sorry, but Windows 2000 Professional "Upgrade", purchased 2/17/2000 (day it was released I believe), does in fact enable this by default. Trust me, it's enabled by default.
Enough of the "bah, windows 2000 doesn't do this, nor that" banter.
I didn't say I didn't like Windows 2000 -- the reason I'm using it is because I do like it. Win2k offered a lot of stability and reliability that Windows did not have previously. But there are still things that are just plain stupid about it. Windows will not boot without a video card *and* valid driver for it. If the driver won't initialize -- BSOD. Card not present? Not sure what it would do, but I am sure it won't be useful.
In my opinion, much as I do like Windows (2000 and up), it's a desktop OS, and nothing more. But that's beside the point...
NGWave - Fast Sound Editor for Windows
Hey my company is considering migrating our desktops from 2000 to XP. Seriously, and we are a huge corporation. I was semi astounded at the stupidity, but then I just work here and read /. Or is that how I work here....hmm.
MacOS had plug'n'play in 1986, with the introduction of the MacII. Not to mention dual monitors, which Windows finally added in what, 1999?
Built in easy networking: AppleTalk in 1984, Ethernet in 87 or thereabouts. Or whenever cards started coming out for it.
And BTW, Windows STILL hasn't got Shortcuts right; they still break when you move the original doc. MacOS has had that since about 1994, I think.
I realize Windows dominates things but TRY to give credit in the PC world where credit is due!