WinGPT is a new ChatGPT app for your ancient Windows 3.1 PC

Someone has created a ChatGPT app for Windows 3.1 PCs. WinGPT brings a very basic version of OpenAI’s ChatGPT responses into an app that can run on an ancient 386 chip. It’s built by the same mysterious developer behind Windle, a Wordle clone for Microsoft’s Windows 3.1 operating system.

“I didn’t want my Gateway 4DX2-66 from 1993 to be left out of the AI revolution, so I built an AI Assistant for Windows 3.1, based on the OpenAI API,” says the developer in a Hacker News thread.

WinGPT is written in C using Microsoft’s standard Windows API and connects to OpenAI’s API server using TLS 1.3, so there’s no need for a separate modern PC.

That was a particularly interesting part of getting this app running on Windows 3.1, alongside managing the memory segmentation architecture on 16-bit versions of Windows and building the UI for the app.

Neowin notes that the ChatGPT responses are only brief due to the limited memory support that can’t handle the context of conversations. The icon for WinGPT was also designed in Borland’s Image Editor, a clone of Microsoft Paint that’s capable of making ICO files.

“I built most of the UI in C directly, meaning that each UI component had to be manually constructed in code,” says the anonymous WinGPT developer. “I was surprised that the set of standard controls available to use by any program with Windows 3.1 is incredibly limited

trs-80 ..what was that other one? commodore 64 ..tape drive optional.. pong cabnet, atari.... so many... 386 ...486 4mg ram 33mhz 340mb ide hd ...2 grand...ran my 1st fidonet BBS ..smoking hot machine Those were the days.... the world was mesmerized by a blip bouncing back and forth. You could dial into just about any system in the country.BEEEEPbooooopZROOOOOM I feel old ....

I miss those days terribly. I miss the early days of “personal” computing, when every new machine was unique and special in some way, bringing all sorts of new capabilities to be discovered and exploited. I also remember the entry of IBM into that market as a dark day and the beginning of the commoditization and homogenization of computing. Of course, the standardization that IBM brought was probably necessary in the long run, but it really crushed innovation for many years.

I was a big fan of Atari computers, starting with their 8-bit line that took the 6502 of the Apple II and added several custom coprocessors to offload tasks like graphics, sound, and I/O from the CPU and onto dedicated chips. Atari was way ahead of their time with that design, which came out in 1979. Today, we take those aspects of computer architecture for granted, and even the vaunted IBM PC, when it launched in 1981, was inferior in most areas to the older Atari machines. It was so frustrating to watch many people automatically call the IBM PC a “business computer” (whatever that was), and dismiss the Ataris as “game machines” and even the Apple II as just an “education computer.” Most people fell for the marketing and believed that that IBM logo somehow made IBM’s overpriced and technologically inferior hardware somehow necessary to run business applications. On the other hand, IBM did have the resources and influence to establish a standard in computing, which admittedly was important in the long run and was the real reason for most business users to choose them, whether they realized they were being gouged for inferior hardware or not. If only IBM had at least chosen DRI’s GEM OS instead of Microsoft’s far inferior DOS, but alas they screwed us there as well.

I saw the cycle of overpriced and underpowered “PC” winning out over far more capable and cheaper alternatives play itself out again with the Apple Macintosh and Atari’s more powerful and far less expensive ST/TT/Falcon 030 line (as well as the Commodore Amiga) versus just more of the same from IBM and the clone makers. By then, the die wasn’t quite cast in the computer market, but it was beginning to become clear that the “PC” was probably too widely accepted to overcome. Atari’s problem wasn’t hardware but rather the shaky footing of the company itself, and the perception of Apple was still pigeonholed as an “educational computer.” But in that generation, Apple introduced wysiwyg, the GUI, SCSI, and desktop publishing, while Atari VASTLY reduced the cost of a 68000-based computer with a faster clock speed, a full complement of coprocessors (just like their 8-bit computers, and which the Mac lacked), DMA (Direct Memory Access), a much faster and cheaper laser printer that took advantage of DMA, and the first COLOR GUI. Heck, the STs could even run Mac software, via an emulator, and run it FASTER than an actual Mac, via an emulator that contained Mac ROMs (and an ST with monochrome monitor was $799 at that time, versus $2,499 for the Mac). All of the innovation was occurring in the non-“PC” space, yet corporate drones looking for a “business computer” still lined up to purchase more overpriced and underpowered boring boxes.

I understand why it happened, and most of it had to do with the perceived strength and focus of the companies involved rather than the hardware itself, but it was deeply disappointing to watch nonetheless. I can’t help thinking about where we would be today if at least one of those more innovation-focused companies had gotten its stuff together and created a standard, instead of IBM and its many clone makers. That IBM logo, and the faith the uninitiated placed in it, severely limited innovation for many years.

I had that “games” versus “business” computer debate with many people back then, most of whom seriously thought that a “game computer” just by definition had hardware that was weaker and couldn’t run business applications, when the truth was exactly the opposite. They were paying thousands of dollars for PC hardware that was far inferior to much less expensive “game computers.” Even today, by far the most powerful and capable PCs are those configured to be “gaming rigs”, because games and especially simulations, like Microsoft Flight Simulator, require far more CPU, GPU, and RAM horsepower, as well as streamlining of overall system throughput, than any other applications. Just look at what is happening now with highly advanced applications like general AI, and the fact that it’s running largely on “gaming” GPUs because of their unique architecture and their superiority in running neural networks. In that sense, maybe we’re finally emerging from the dark ages imposed by IBM, into a world that benefits from both the IBM standardization and the innovations brought by the “game computer” developers.

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