>>I think MS Windows didn’t really catch on in a big way until Windows 3.0 as I recall. That was the “no going back” moment.<<
You recall correctly. It was a sea change in terms of multi-processing and presentation graphics.
Before that it was nothing more than a slightly better version of the PET o/s (as far as look and feel).
Boy isn't that the truth. It's amazing how much changed in 10 years.
Of course, we're going through the same thing now with cell phones. 10 years ago, even the name "Verizon" was only a few months old. Phones had screens that displayed numbers, sometimes names, and could emit a series of beeps.
Amazingly, in both cases, while they may not have been the first, Apple was the company that brought both industries to the mainstream.
I wonder what the next tech industry to be revolutionized will be.