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Microsoft Windows 3.0 Is 20 Years Today

Posted by timothy on from the great-platform-for-playing-jeopardy dept.

siliconbits writes "Some say that the Windows 3.0 GUI (remember, it needed MS-DOS or DR-DOS to work) was the single most important version, as it allowed Microsoft to get its day. The first truly successful Windows operating system is 20 years old today; Windows 3.0 was launched on 22 May 1990 and was the successor to Windows 2.1x."

14 of 307 comments (clear)

  1. Bing is following Google's lead by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    If you visit Bing you can run a Windows 3.0 emulator written in Javascript. Even has sound.

    1. Re:Bing is following Google's lead by daveime · · Score: 4, Funny

      And if you'd formatted your link correctly, even other people could have visited it.

    2. Re:Bing is following Google's lead by mrsteveman1 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Actually OPs link is quite apt, in that it doesn't work :)

    3. Re:Bing is following Google's lead by WrongSizeGlass · · Score: 4, Interesting

      So you're saying that we went from PacMan to WIndows 3.0 in only 9 years, 364 days? Wow, that seemed to fly past.

    4. Re:Bing is following Google's lead by commodore64_love · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think everyone should give those Windows 3.x emulators a try. They are great demonstrations for why many of us chose to buy Atari STs, Commodore Amigas, or Apple Macintoshes instead.

      I hated using Windows 3.x.

      Multitasking was an exercise in masochism (and also sadism when you pounded your keyboard). On Mac it was as easy as clicking Apple in the top corner, which would produce a dropdown of all running programs. On Amiga it was even easier. The Amiga-M and Amiga-N keys rapidly flipped through the running programs. I typically ran JRterm, a file manager, WordPerfect, C compiler, and the Workbench all at once.

      Windows 3.x multitasking was like stepping 10 years back in time. It felt as if I was using a slow C64 again. I avoided using that OS as much as possible. Not until Windows 95 did they finally get a decent interface, which was basically just a clone of the Mac desktop (trashcan, shutdown procedure, finder, et cetera).

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    5. Re:Bing is following Google's lead by sgage · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "Dollars are votes. We the People hold power to bankrupt corporations out of existence. No such power exists over Gov't."

      No, dollars are not votes. We the People have no power to bankrupt corporations, and you are delusional if you think that.

      However, we do have real power over Gov't - it's called actual votes.

      Of course, the real problem is the power that the corporations have over Gov't.

      The idea of dollars as votes is extremely un-democratic.

  2. Win by clinko · · Score: 5, Funny

    The only time where you type Win to lose.

    I thought of that joke when I was 11. Damn you misconfigured autoexec.bat! You led me down this path to the cubical I now live in!

  3. Ah yes by msgmonkey · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The version of Windows that made you wish your 286 was a 386 and 640KB of ram certainly was n't more than you would ever need. Fond memories of wondering where 150K of memory had disappeared to only to realise that lovely desktop background image you set sucked 15% of your free memory. I also remember if you typed fast enough MS Write could n't keep up and you would fill the input buffer, let alone running MS Word. I can n't say I'ill miss those days.

  4. Win 3.1 emulator by complacence · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Try this one.

  5. Windows 3.0 Sucked! by lloydsmart · · Score: 5, Funny

    The day Microsoft release a product that doesn't suck will be the day they release their first vacuum cleaner!

  6. Re:Windows 3.1 was more significant by Anpheus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    People didn't want high end work though, they wanted Good Enough(tm) and didn't want to spend a fortune to do it.

  7. Re:More importantly... by commodore64_love · · Score: 4, Funny

    That's odd. My teenage angst was fueled by 4000 color nudie pics downloaded on my Amiga. (My IBM PC friends were still stuck with only 256 or 16 colors... not lifelike at all.) I never got off on windows.

    --
    "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
  8. Re:Windows 3.1 was more significant by Skuld-Chan · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I remember supporting PageMaker on Mac and Windows - it was awful on both platforms (this was Pre-Quark when PageMaker was pretty much the only app to do layout with). To get really good results on the Mac you have to have an 8-10k machine, to get decentish results on a Windows PC you could get away with a $1200 Dell.

    In other words - an 8 meg Mac was worthless for DTP, but an 8 meg Dell did ok at it - I think this was largely for the fact that System 7 just had that much more overhead. 8 megs was a ton of ram for Windows 3.x, but I can specifically remember my 8 meg IICX being horrible at about everything (and it was like an 8000 dollar machine with the nice screen attached) until it was upgraded to 32 (I think) - which was a ton of money at the time.

  9. Is there a point? by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 4, Informative

    Is there a point to this story, other than "hur hur let's make fun of Microsoft! hur hur hur!"

    Now if you found someone still using it today, that might be newsworthy.

    --
    Comment of the year