30 years of MS Windows

Off topic discussion zone.

Moderators: winston, another_commander, Cody

User avatar
Cody
Sharp Shooter Spam Assassin
Sharp Shooter Spam Assassin
Posts: 16081
Joined: Sat Jul 04, 2009 9:31 pm
Location: The Lizard's Claw
Contact:

30 years of MS Windows

Post by Cody »

Thirty years - tempus fugit.
I would advise stilts for the quagmires, and camels for the snowy hills
And any survivors, their debts I will certainly pay. There's always a way!
User avatar
phkb
Impressively Grand Sub-Admiral
Impressively Grand Sub-Admiral
Posts: 4830
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:37 pm
Location: Writing more OXPs, because the world needs more OXPs.

Re: 30 years of MS Windows

Post by phkb »

Oh, I feel old now. <sighs>
User avatar
Cody
Sharp Shooter Spam Assassin
Sharp Shooter Spam Assassin
Posts: 16081
Joined: Sat Jul 04, 2009 9:31 pm
Location: The Lizard's Claw
Contact:

Re: 30 years of MS Windows

Post by Cody »

<nods> Aye... oh to be a thirty-something again!
I would advise stilts for the quagmires, and camels for the snowy hills
And any survivors, their debts I will certainly pay. There's always a way!
Fritz
---- E L I T E ----
---- E L I T E ----
Posts: 591
Joined: Sun Jul 12, 2015 2:30 pm
Location: Bavaria, Germany
Contact:

Re: 30 years of MS Windows

Post by Fritz »

It took almost 10 years for Windows to catch on. When I had my first job involving PCs in 1989, we didn't even talk about Windows, and one or two years later, the only Windows 2.x program I used from time to time was Reversi...
"You wouldn't kill me just for a few credits, would you?" – "No, I'll do it just for the fun!"
User avatar
Cody
Sharp Shooter Spam Assassin
Sharp Shooter Spam Assassin
Posts: 16081
Joined: Sat Jul 04, 2009 9:31 pm
Location: The Lizard's Claw
Contact:

Re: 30 years of MS Windows

Post by Cody »

Yeah, I wasn't using it back then. Mid-eighties, I was learning COBOL and working on an Apricot PC - a nice machine, was that.
I would advise stilts for the quagmires, and camels for the snowy hills
And any survivors, their debts I will certainly pay. There's always a way!
Fritz
---- E L I T E ----
---- E L I T E ----
Posts: 591
Joined: Sun Jul 12, 2015 2:30 pm
Location: Bavaria, Germany
Contact:

Re: 30 years of MS Windows

Post by Fritz »

COBOL... :roll:

Around 1990 I used to program in Pascal and Modula-2. The latter was a fine language, but sadly it didn't catch on. I had to learn COBOL when I studied computer science, but I never had to use it in earnest. And today I wouldn't even succeed to write a hello-world program.
"You wouldn't kill me just for a few credits, would you?" – "No, I'll do it just for the fun!"
User avatar
phkb
Impressively Grand Sub-Admiral
Impressively Grand Sub-Admiral
Posts: 4830
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:37 pm
Location: Writing more OXPs, because the world needs more OXPs.

Re: 30 years of MS Windows

Post by phkb »

Fritz wrote:
It took almost 10 years for Windows to catch on.
We had one machine running Windows 2.0 in order to run Word, for one very "special" engineer who got anything he wanted. So in the midst of a flotilla of DOS 2.0 machines I was also trying to support Windows 2.0 and all the issues with Enhanced vs Expanded memory, 640K memory limits, etc.

My one memento from that period of my life...

Image
User avatar
Wildeblood
---- E L I T E ----
---- E L I T E ----
Posts: 2453
Joined: Sat Jun 11, 2011 6:07 am
Location: Western Australia
Contact:

Re: 30 years of MS Windows

Post by Wildeblood »

There aren't enough swear words in English to describe my frustration at how Microsoft, Intel, MS-DOS & Windows have comprehensively knobbled what should have been a new technological revolution. Ever since the first PC appeared the world has stagnated.

It's 2015, damn it! Where's my flying car!? Why is there no moonbase!? Where are the jetpacks, personal hovercrafts, underwater cities & supersonic trains!?

This isn't the Future; it's a new dark age. And I know whom I blame.
User avatar
Smivs
Retired Assassin
Retired Assassin
Posts: 8408
Joined: Tue Feb 09, 2010 11:31 am
Location: Lost in space
Contact:

Re: 30 years of MS Windows

Post by Smivs »

....and it might still be working its magic 30 years in the future...

Image
Commander Smivs, the friendliest Gourd this side of Riedquat.
User avatar
spud42
---- E L I T E ----
---- E L I T E ----
Posts: 1576
Joined: Wed Mar 26, 2014 10:11 am
Location: Brisbane,Australia

Re: 30 years of MS Windows

Post by spud42 »

we had an XT clone with a 286 card in it.. it had a harness going to the 40 pin cpu socket. we ran windows on it..... did a lot of PCb layouts and schematic diagrams. i used a program called ORCAD for that.
one of our XT's ( the bosses) something like a 20MB hard card. ie a hard dick on an ISA card... spent half of a friday setting it up then on the weekend he took a floppy disk of a game to play on it and then did a diskcopy of the game. wiped the damn thing clean...

3.11 was not bad... did a remote install of win 95 on my brother in laws computer... 25 ish 3 1/2 floppy disks over the ph as i talked him through the install... dont ever want to do that again!!

but contrary to that article i never had any problems with ME and i ran Vista for 7 years with no problems.... i only went to win7 when the boot HDD died.
Arthur: OK. Leave this to me. I'm British. I know how to queue.
OR i could go with
Arthur Dent: I always said there was something fundamentally wrong with the universe.
or simply
42
User avatar
phkb
Impressively Grand Sub-Admiral
Impressively Grand Sub-Admiral
Posts: 4830
Joined: Tue Jan 21, 2014 10:37 pm
Location: Writing more OXPs, because the world needs more OXPs.

Re: 30 years of MS Windows

Post by phkb »

Thought this was good...

Image
User avatar
Amah
---- E L I T E ----
---- E L I T E ----
Posts: 486
Joined: Tue Aug 28, 2012 8:05 pm
Location: aboard the Laenina Crowne - Yasen-N class space freighter
Contact:

Re: 30 years of MS Windows

Post by Amah »

Was an enthusiastic c64 kiddie/coder. Later migrated to an amiga and got in touch there with a multitasking os, and later datatypes, kind of codecs/drivers for different filetypes. So I came a bit later into contact with Microsoft.

When I switched to the PC architecture it was indeed like a time machine to the already previously mentioned darkage... Ok, my 1st pc came with more RAM (8MB yay!... wait 640kb...) and was quicker and had better Sound and GFX capabilities but I really thought it a joke when all I got to use it was DOS 6.2 and an ugly looking UI called Win3 using 3 letter extensions for filedetection.

This was also the time when I as a spoilt Amigan brat fled right into the arms of the penguin, which was a decission I never regretted.
Even now using Windows at work, on the way or being asked to fix someone's computer feels it awkward and clumsy..

Sorry. MS But happy Birthday anyway.
Amah
User avatar
Cody
Sharp Shooter Spam Assassin
Sharp Shooter Spam Assassin
Posts: 16081
Joined: Sat Jul 04, 2009 9:31 pm
Location: The Lizard's Claw
Contact:

Re: 30 years of MS Windows

Post by Cody »

Smivs wrote:
....and it might still be working its magic 30 years in the future...
<chortles> Ah yes, Penguinistas... the under 2% crowd!
I would advise stilts for the quagmires, and camels for the snowy hills
And any survivors, their debts I will certainly pay. There's always a way!
User avatar
Wildeblood
---- E L I T E ----
---- E L I T E ----
Posts: 2453
Joined: Sat Jun 11, 2011 6:07 am
Location: Western Australia
Contact:

Re: 30 years of MS Windows

Post by Wildeblood »

This...
Amah wrote:
Was an enthusiastic c64 kiddie/coder. Later migrated to an amiga and got in touch there with a multitasking os, and later datatypes, kind of codecs/drivers for different filetypes. So I came a bit later into contact with Microsoft.

When I switched to the PC architecture it was indeed like a time machine to the already previously mentioned darkage... Ok, my 1st pc came with more RAM (8MB yay!... wait 640kb...) and was quicker and had better Sound and GFX capabilities but I really thought it a joke when all I got to use it was DOS 6.2 and an ugly looking UI called Win3 using 3 letter extensions for filedetection.
That!
In your heart, you know it's flat.
User avatar
Amah
---- E L I T E ----
---- E L I T E ----
Posts: 486
Joined: Tue Aug 28, 2012 8:05 pm
Location: aboard the Laenina Crowne - Yasen-N class space freighter
Contact:

Re: 30 years of MS Windows

Post by Amah »

Cody wrote:
Smivs wrote:
....and it might still be working its magic 30 years in the future...
<chortles> Ah yes, Penguinistas... the under 2% crowd!
Well, I have an own distribution just for my very own. ;-)

btw, Fritz I was experimenting with Oberon back then. Nice language, though I always was a bit pusher and favoured low level languages.
Last edited by Amah on Sat Nov 21, 2015 1:52 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Amah
Post Reply