True — Windows 7 is the Utility Theory Of Work in a can. 1,000 times bigger, 1,000 times buggier, 1,000 times more frustrating.
It has become, like the worst package ever — Office 2010 — a necessary evil which is more evil than anything.
I ain’t a mac guy but if anything would drive me into the dead arms of Jobs, it is the latest incarnation of all the Windows products.
BTW: Gates wasn’t a visionary, we was a luck SOB who made one small decision that changed the landscape of PCs forever.
I still have mine! Waiting for the American Pickers to stop by! : )
A colleague had Win 1.5 or so. I loaded it. It didn’t do much. It was just an enhanced menuing system and was not very practical.
By 3.0, MS had convinced enough software companies to develop Windows versions that Windows became usable in a business environment.
My first real experience with it was about 1991.
A lot of nice software packages have come and gone over the decades. Some got bought out and the new owners just quit supporting them. Some, the developer went on to other things.
HaHa! I still use the Cardfile program that came with Win 3.1. Believe it or not it works fine on XP.
—Memmaker—
That brought back memories for me as well. I remember having to become a memory “expert” in order to get “Aces Over the Pacific” to run.
I occasionally use a version from the mid-Oughts. It's no contest. The older stuff is better.
"Running Windows 3.1 now is thought-provoking. Some aspects are impressive. The Microsoft Office software of the era – Word 2.0 and Excel 4.0 – is excellent. The speed and capability of Word 2.0 in just 4MB RAM is depressing: what have we done with all the storage and processing power that has come to us since?"I have often pondered over this precise thing. Just imagine how much faster all of our programs would be if they had maintained the super-compact, very tightly written code instead of allowing them to become "bloatware."
OMG I just remembered we have a US Logic 486/sx in the back room we bought in ‘92 from Tandy with that 3.1 in it, and it still runs fine. Mrs. RQSR used it for personal stuff.
Until now had forgotten about the danged thing as it’s buried under a bunch of junk (IMO), but don’t tell Mrs. RQSR I said that.
You know what??
I bet Windows 3.11 would blow away some modern Linux OS’s out there.
Anyone want to load up Windows 3 and see how it runs on a modern computer??
Nice flashback. I remember spending an entire day trying to get a mouse driver to work at the computer shop I worked at, and another guy working on EDSI graphics drivers, and another doing a Spinrite test on a gimped 40mb hard disk. Those were the days...the days I saved my cash to buy my first real computer from my earnings - a Mac //cx with a 40Mb hard disk and state of the art 1.44mb floppy disk drive. I actually bought a box of 10 floppies with my hard earned cash to get a box of those floppies and show off to my Sacramento MUPT friends that were doing the Atari Midi Maze gatherings.
Our Sacramento MUPTs were so awesome.
Back in the day I liked Win 3.11 WFW since it worked with the Internet including web browsers. Also backing up the hard drive was simple since there was no extended file-names yet. But with the extended file-names, it is painful to do a backup. Usually if the drive goes out, this entails having to reload the software instead of a simple restore from tape.
I have a VM Ware drive setup w/ DOS 6.22 and Win 3.11 WFW. I have it set with Netscape 1.0 where it runs, the “N” is like a beating heart !
Man, the VB 1.0 screen brought back memories. I purchased VB 1.0 the week it was released. It was part of the beginning of the visual development paradigm and spread quickly. I was truly amazed at how quickly I could develop applications and it was capable of far more than it was rated to do. A contractor I worked with used VB 1.0 to develop a very sophisticated LAN sniffer application and another app that captured and collected raw satellite feeds for display and manipulation. He did all of this in just five days time from the day we installed the package. I still have a box stored away that has Win 3.1 and VB 1.0 on it. I wish I had the time to drag it out and fire it up again.
I still have copies of Windows and VB in shrink wrap. I’ll take what we have today over all that but it sure was fun and interesting times. I probably made more money and had better times then than I do now. Then it felt new and exciting while today things are serious and, well, boring.
Windows 3.1 was not a true operating system (OS) It was an “operating environment” containing a graphical user interface (GUI), which sat on top of DOS, making it easier for the human user to interface with the computer. DOS still performed the underlying functions of the OS.
Windows 95 was the first true non-DOS Microsoft OS.
I worked for a software duplication company when Windows 3.1 was released. We went from a one building, 5 day-a-week, one shift company with 35 employees to a five building 24/7, 3 shift company with 400 employees in one month.
Windows 3.1 was a huge success.
Windows is a crutch for people that can’t handle DOS. (That’s what we said in the late 1980’s.)
I’m waiting for Microsoft Bob to become a collector item. I’ve still got mine in the original box.
Color Wordstar for DOS was the bomb! You could hack the serial number and colors with Norton Utilities.
I never used windows 3.1. I went to windows 3.11 around 1995 directly from DOS, automenu, and VAX.