Recalling Windows 1.0 At 25 Years

alphadogg writes "When Microsoft released the very first version of Windows nearly 25 years ago, on Nov. 20, 1985, it was late to the game and little used. Apple had already brought graphical user interfaces to computers with Macintosh more than a year earlier, while DOS systems dominated the market for IBM and IBM-compatible PCs. No one who used this first version was likely to have predicted that Windows would completely dominate the PC market 25 years later..."

Comments

Windows 1.0 was barely usable

[ranulf]

Windows 1.0 was a complete joke - it didn't even support overlapping windows. Even Windows 2.0 in 1987 was pretty bad. About the only thing worth getting it for was the new Word-for-Windows, a WYSIWYG upgrade to Word 6.

Re:Windows 1.0 was barely usable

[TheRaven64]

3.0 wasn't bad. I ran it on my 8086 for a while. It was pretty easy to break, but most of that was due to the machine not having an MMU, so even the best written program couldn't prevent other code from breaking it. It ran moderately well in 640KB of RAM, as long as you didn't try running too many programs at once (where 'too many' is more than 2-3, or more than one large program). My father's company got their first license for free with a program called MetaDesign, a diagramming program. The company that made it decided that it was easier to write it for Win16 and bundle a copy of Windows than it was to write their own 2D graphics and windowing toolkit.

Recalling Windows?

[TheLink]

A bit too late for a recall of 1.0 right?

There is an important lesson for people to learn.

[LWATCDR]

When Windows 1.0 came out you had a lot of options.
The Commodore Amiga was right around the corner. It was much more advanced and had real multitasking, stereo sound, and advanced graphics.
The Atari ST was also just coming out. It was inexpensive and also had a good UI.
Better doesn't all ways win.
People stuck with DOS because it ran Lotus 123 and DBase, and WordPerfect.
People used PCs to develop vertical applications because you could use TurboPascal ,TurboC , TurboBasic, and QuickBasic. You also had a lot of code like Borlands TurboEditor Toolbox, DatabaseToolbox, and Communications Toolbox.
The other reason was marketing and Press coverage. The magazines of the day couldn't afford to offend the PC market. Would you rather get ad revenue from 30 PC makers or Commodore, Atari, and Apple?
People will talk all about the benefits of the PCs openness but that was pretty much bull back then. The Amiga and ST where cheaper and more powerful than the average PC. Commodore and Atari at the time published all the pin outs and software specks needed to do anything you wanted much like Apple did back in the Apple II days.