The Secret Origin of Windows

harrymcc writes "Windows has been so dominant for so long that it's easy to forget Windows 1.0 was vaporware, mocked both outside and inside of Microsoft — and that its immediate successors were considered stopgaps until OS/2 was everywhere. Tandy Trower, the product manager who finally got Windows 1.0 out the door a quarter century ago, has written a memoir of the experience. (He thought being assigned the much-maligned project was Microsoft's fiendish way of trying to get rid of him.) The story involves such still-significant figures as Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, Ray Ozzie, and Nathan Myhrvold; Trower left Microsoft only in November of 2009 after 28 years with the company."

Comments

Re:I never could get it load on my Timex-Sinclair

[vistapwns]

nobody needs more than 640k is BS, Bill Gates never said that, and it was IBM's fault (they chose the 8086 that was 16-bit and thus limited to 640k for programs and 384k for bios/video) that MS-DOS was stuck with 640k. But since IBM is a darling of the linux community these days, we get all this revisionist copy-cat troll nonsense instead of facts. Great.

a history of the personal computer

[viralMeme]

"This book is an exciting history of the personal computer revolution. Early personal computing, the "first" personal computer, invention of the microprocessor at Intel and the first microcomputer are detailed.

It also traces the evolution of the personal computer from the hardware and software hacker, to its use as a consumer appliance on the Internet. This is the only book that provides such comprehensive coverage. It not only describes the hardware and software, but also the companies and people who made it happened"