Talk:Windows 1.0

Competition Section

This needs to be re-written from a non-POV perspective. It sounds as if it was written by a Mac fanboi, saying that Windows resembled Mac so much that they had to change it. When we all know that they both stole it from the Xerox PARC project. It also calls Windows vaporware and says how Mac pioneered the trash can icon and so on. I own a MBP and still think this wreaks heavily of bias.

LOL!

Lol, I have Windows 1.0 software and it still works!!!!!

For many versions, it was not possible to start a GUI program from a DOS window. As far as I recall, this wasn't possible until Windows 95, and required the "start" command to be used, eg. "start notepad.exe." Is that correct? Kufat 06:23, 17 July 2005 (UTC)

Teh 1337ness! 02:53, 22 May 2006 (UTC) Alexzero77

Substance of Windows 1.0

Windows 1 wasn't marketed as a "pretty DOS shell." It was actually a "graphics framework" which could make use of all the various incompatible video cards and input devices of the time when there was no de-facto standard for them. It was also available to developers as a 'runtime' version which they were allowed to ship with their apps. It was something comparable to DirectX of today much more than to Windows of today.

So, this is false:

• Windows 1.0 was often regarded as a "front-end to the MS-DOS operating system" rather than a full-fledged operating system
• It was neither a "front-end" nor a "full-blown OS". tyomitch 12:36, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

You're assuming we are saying that Microsoft regarded it as a "front-end." AlistairMcMillan 13:15, 2 September 2005 (UTC)

I refer to 1.0-WFWG3.11 as "Not quite OSes, but DOS extenders". Maiq the liar (talk) 21:46, 9 January 2008 (UTC)

Windows 1.0 Logos

I've got some logos of Windows 1.0 cut out of its boxshots. I presume that they permit Fair Use as {{Logo}} (why is there no {{Softwarecover}})? The images are now located at this page, can someone choose which one would make a better addition to this article? I love them all, and it's hard for me to choose :-) tyomitch 11:58, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

In absence of any attention, I will now proceed to do the edits on my own. tyomitch 20:19, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

I have just added the box art of the Windows 1.0 family. I hope you guys like it. 02:53, 22 May 2006 (UTC) Alexzero77

The logo is FAKE! It cannot be found on windows 1.x/2.x boxes, nor it is available inside the windows 1.x/2.x versions themselves. Moreover, even "Microsoft" word was written there in another way! Here is what the logo page at BrandsOfTheWorld says: Designer: unkown Contributor: unknown Updated on: Mon, 09/15/2008 - 08:32. Is this enough to consider the image as a real logo??? -- Aaleksanyants (talk) 10:38, 15 February 2013 (UTC)

Details

"From the beginning, Windows was intended to multitask programs (although this originally only applied to native applications and for many versions the multitasking was non-preemptive), so Windows programs always had their own menu bar rather than switching a single menu bar at the top of the screen like Apple Macintoshes did."

Macintosh running System 5 onward used multitasking (cooperative). The anchored menu bar is a user interface choice. On the Mac, since several applications might be open but only one menu bar would be used at a time, a single anchored menu bar that automatically switched depending on the application environment would be a better use of screen space and allow more room in the windows.

There are some interesting documents out there about UI in MacOS and Windows. I'm going to change this line soon; it's important to point out that the difference in menu bars was a UI thing. Markmtl 17:11, 2 November 2005 (UTC)

I think that the menu bar found in Macs is a waste of space, not vice versa.MarineMania1 (talk) 06:32, 19 May 2009 (UTC)

Tone Down The Pro-Microsoft Tone

The article reads like a Microsoft press release, and has a very defensive feel.

It's a fanboy world out there... 02:53, 22 May 2006 (UTC) Alexzero77

and now it reads exactly like a apple advertisement, it's a lose lose situation

Rumor of Windows 1.0

Windows 1.0 (not 1.01) was actually released, I can confirm that rumor, because I have a copy of it.

There was a big bug in the code so they withdrew the sales. The article says so. 02:53, 22 May 2006 (UTC) Alexzero77

Computer Code

Anyone know where I can find out How they made Windows 1.0? I'm trying to make a multi tasking DOS program. Aeom Mai

I don't understand what you mean by "how." All I can say is that they programmed it... 02:53, 22 May 2006 (UTC) Alexzero77

I would also like to ,know how they did this. What language was it programmed in? I actually heard a rumor it was programmed in GWBASIC (which is ridiculous because GWBASIC has no compiler, though there is a compiler for it known as BASCOM). So knowing what it was programmed in would be very usefull. The QBasicJedi 05:47, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

I think it was coded in Assembly. — Wackymacs 18:33, 27 July 2006 (UTC)

The core of Windows was coded in Assembler, just as Wackymacs said. However, the compiler was a C (not C++) compiler running on various Unix boxes. I remember this well, but I cannot find a source for it so I can't insert it into the article. Hey, should the article mention that it was Rowland Hanson that came up with the name "Windows"? --Tirolion 07:52, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Microsoft Windows was coded mostly in Microsoft C 3.0, with some assembly. If you find a copy, you can extract the strings and see the header files, and text content.

Reference: http://www.charlespetzold.com/etc/Windows1/index.html

As I remember, Microsoft C 2.0 had some serious problems with signal and syncing, so I gave up trying to port some unix apps to it. ( and apparently Microsoft did too, and made C 3.0 )

Also from what I remember from a friend of mine, hired to work on Windows, and Windows 2.0, the base development system was a IBM AT 8.0 Mhz, with 6.5MB of ram. ( two AST 3.0MB ram cards ), one for the OS and one for a Ram disk. NOTHING was programmed in GWBasic, and BASCOM could compile most Advanced BASIC/GW Basic programs. Also: They NEVER used the greenleaf compiler, ( a $25,000 development environment ) which was the best compiler in the world at the time, ( according to one of the judges of the cryptic C contests ). ( They still make a comprehensive asynchronous communications package that is only $700 ). Also I never heard of them using unix or cross compilers, but they did use something from Intel called iRMX for their networking infrastructure.

But to answer the original question: How to make a multitasking DOS environment? Although SideKick was the first one that I saw, through the TSR interface, and the Demo program for Turbo Pascal, called Windows.pas did multi-tasking, it wasn't until I saw the API for Deskview that I got a handle on how hard it was to get preemptive multi-tasking running on a machine that had no virtual space. ( i.e. all real memory model ). You have to a) create your own task switching kernel, and b) patch the interrupt table in assembly. I actually programmed an interactive terminal program for communications in turbo pascal 3 with something from Dr Dobbs journal called 'concurrent programming with turbo pascal' which had the necessary primitives for multi-tasking, with only a tiny bit of assembly to do the interrupt table patches. Much easier to see what its all about with Linux, since I have not had my hands on an 8088 in at least five or six years... 67.174.157.126 (talk) 09:35, 17 October 2008 (UTC)--

Failure or not?

It's recently been reverted in the article that Windows 1.0 was a failure. Personally, I'd say it was. It didn't penetrate the market how Microsoft wanted to, and it sold very poorly, people continued using DOS on the x86 platform for quite some time until Windows 3.0 and 3.11. In-fact, most people ignored Windows 1.0 and 2.0, they both sold very poorly and were shadowed by the Macintosh, until Microsoft finally got there with version 3.0 and 3.11. — Wackymacs 10:11, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Read the description of the category (Category:Failed Microsoft initiatives). That'll explain why I removed it. And are we talking about "initiatives" or "products", anyways? "Windows" as an initiative has certainly been a success... it just took them five to seven years to build that market (which isn't extraordinary). "Windows 1.0" as a product was not a success in the marketplace, but that doesn't make it a failed initiative, does it? It'd be like classifying OS X 10.0 as a failed Apple initiative, given its problems, which it subsequently outgrew, and now enjoys a great deal of success. -/- Warren 11:00, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I agree it shouldn't be in that category. However, a sentence or two should be included in the article mentioning that Windows 1.0 itself as a product was a failure in terms of sales and market share, and that it was only until Windows 3 until Microsoft gained some significant market share and shook things up a bit. — Wackymacs 11:17, 29 August 2006 (UTC)

Huh?

The treatment of Windows 1.0 as a "DOS front-end" fails to take into consideration that it was designed to be just a graphics environment used by applications, rather than a full-fledged operating system.

Uh, I think that's exactly why it was called a "DOS front-end": because it was not meant to be a full-fledged operating system, hence front-end. This needs to be reworded or just omitted. (The surrounding context does clarify what is intended, but the statement itself seems silly.) - furrykef (Talk at me) 02:21, 14 September 2006 (UTC)

can you beleve me, THIS IS NOT A NEW COMPUTER SYSTEM

Yes we believe you. Some of us were around at the time Win1 was released, would you believe? Be that as it may, many people have some problems understanding what an operating system is. The first Win version that could be called an "operating system" (with a pinch of salt) was Win3.1x, and an updated-out-of-recognition version at that. Updated with Win32S and WinG and whatnot Win3.1x did actually resemble an actual operating system (doing its' own disk access, memory management, screen operations, network access and such), with the glaring exception of still relying on the BIOS for I/O stuff. No versions of Windows™ prior to this can claim that. Oh yeah, by the by, sign your statements, no? --Tirolion 08:00, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Windows 1.0x download

Is it possible to download Windows 1.0x from somewhere? Is it still copyright of Microsoft? ~~ Igor Filippov 08:24, 06 May 2007 (UTC)

• It is not downloadable. All Microsoft software is Copyright © Microsoft Corp, Ltd. M$ has released pretty much nothing to the public domain. --Tirolion 08:02, 16 May 2007 (UTC)
• Yes, but not legal, because it is still copyrighted; however you might want to look into MS-DOS 7.10. It is under a GNU general public license. --Hamster2.0 (talk) 17:49, 2 December 2008 (UTC)

First Killer Apps

I updated the paragraphs about Aldus Pagemaker and the first 'killer apps' - apps that made you choose Windows over some other option. The remark that PageMaker 1.0 helped drive the Windows installation base was laughably incorrect (anyone in DTP then or now) would know that until version 4.0, Aldus treated PageMaker for Windows like a crazy relative locked in the basement (at least their Support would honestly admit this when facing document portability issues, among other problems). The PC was made valid for DTP by apps no one heard of at the time - Serif, Micrographx, Corel, and Harvard (remember Harvard Presentations?). These applications were followed the Microsoft model -- get something out the door (even if unpolished), and offer features you could not find anywhere else except for 4-6x the price point. This is why, although the Mac was a superior platform, the PC steadily won patient converts. It MAY be that a new paragraph for "applications" is needed, but I did not want to go too overboard with my edits, as I don't have a zillion karma here. :-)

Scottprive 00:23, 11 September 2007 (UTC)

"windows" as a graphical novelty for Microsoft, catchup with Apple

I didn't find much information on the novelty, or competitive novelty, of the the multi-view graphical interface per se on the personal computer. In the article there seems to be much more on the product's coding, and use and history as code.

I mean, it was named Windows precisely for that functionality (and as an Apple killer?). I.e., it might have been called "Do It All", or something, if you get my point.

Non software-heads were equally interested in what they could see--although it was clear that that was a function of keeping tabs on applications running "simultaneously"--and some were interested in what they knew as a titanic battle between the two companies.

Anyway, perhaps others more knowledgeable than I could add something on this.

Best,

--Shlishke (talk) 08:52, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

Betas

I found this site and I think those Betas are real, http://os-history.de/betas/1xbeta.html, cant we add those Screenies? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.182.124.27 (talk) 05:30, 20 September 2008 (UTC)

OK. Because the Application called 'Cube' is there, ( remember it has been almost 24 years ), I can say yes, this is the real deal. Those are authentic screen shots of Windows 1.0 Beta.

BUT Pay special attention to the splash screen. "Copyright (c) 1985 Microsoft Corporation, 1985." Those screen shots although authentic, are still copyright, and their rights are still owned by Microsoft, i.e. we cannot just use them without liscense. Nice site!

Bootable Setup disk

My copy of Windows 1.0.1 which I recently installed on a 386, did not boot. It was just Setup disk, and you ran the setup program from DOS. 67.174.157.126 (talk) 08:58, 17 October 2008 (UTC)--

Trash Can link problem

Trash can link should link to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recycle_bin_(computing) . —Preceding unsigned comment added by Junkcops (talk • contribs) 03:07, 28 December 2008 (UTC)

Byte Magazine article

The First Windows Review Ever, Microsoft Windows - A mouse with modest requirements, by Phil Lemmons, BYTE magazine, and he First Ever Apple Computer Running Windows have some interesting information. The last one is Windows 1.0 on a z80 card on an Apple II. davidwr/(talk)/(contribs)/(e-mail) 17:25, 24 January 2009 (UTC)

.

. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Letmein90 (talk • contribs) 04:17, 28 January 2009 (UTC)

"Windows 1.0 does not allow overlapping windows..."

"Windows 1.0 does not allow overlapping windows, due to Apple Computer owning this feature."

How did Microsoft overcome this and when? -- OlEnglish ^(Talk) 22:38, 2 May 2009 (UTC)

In fact, this statement makes no sense. Surely Apple did not 'own' the feature. Is it supposed to mean that Apple owned the code used to implement this feature? If Microsoft could have managed to implement the feature another way, then there is little Apple could have done about it. Reminds me of Milhouse complaining when a Shelbyville boy hung his backpack off one shoulder: 'Hey! Stop doing that! We invented that, copycats'. Statement needs adjusting to properly reflect the reason why there was tiling only instead of overlapping windows. It is quite unlikely that when overlapping was implemented, it was because Windows 'bought' the feature from Apple. Centrepull (talk) 08:11, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

Uh huh. Good point. Citing a reliable source might help. -- OlEnglish ^(Talk) 05:18, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

The May 1992 issue of PC Plus magazine (in the UK) had an article about Apple suing Microsoft over Windows 2.0, which introduced "proper" overlapping windows. I no longer have the magazine but the gist of it was that Microsoft won on most counts (not all!) because it proved that Apple didn't invent overlapping Windows either (citing Apple staff being "inspired" by the work going on at the Xerox labs in the late 70s / early 80s).Retron (talk) 15:59, 20 November 2009 (UTC)

Where's the kernel?

Surely the earliest Windows systems have kernels? The Windows comparison article even lacks whatever kernel it has! (it says "?" under kernel.) 207.118.118.76 (talk) 04:01, 14 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm not an expert, but i believe windows 1 was just a shell. Sort of a prettier, fuller featured DOS_Shell. See Monolithic_kernel for generalized info on the MSDOS kernel. ExtremeSquared (talk) 15:00, 8 August 2009 (UTC)

Date format

Dates were first introduced to the article in this edit, in MDY format. They remained that way for 3 years, until they were randomly switched to DMY. MDY is the original format for this article. - Josh (talk | contribs) 00:47, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

I take that your message means that you want to change the date style of this article to MDY.

I disagree. When I arrived and put a {{dmy}} tag on this article, it didn't have a date-style tag and its date style was DMY, except in one case. According to the article history, it has been DMY for almost a year or so, during which many editors visited and edited the article. Hence, according to WP:SILENCE, even if there was a concrete historic MDY background, it was changed to DMY with a consensus. Now, I have fixed the date-style with a {{dmy}} tag. Per WP:MOSDATES and the prior consensus, we mustn't change it on a historic pretext or personal preference of only one person. Fleet Command (talk) 14:19, 16 August 2010 (UTC)

Easter Egg?

On an old copy of windows 1.0, I was fiddling with the printer settings and discovered if you try to add a printer so it's root file from A:/ to F:/, it displays a warning, then several bars rise up, then down and staying there. Can it Be a Easter Egg, or a random error?

The rapid press (talk) 20:22, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

It's a crash screen. You can get it in other programs too. Kelton2 (talk) 15:21, 8 May 2013 (UTC)

1.04 and VGA

The article says:

Version 1.04, released in April 1987, added support for the VGA graphics adapters of the new IBM PS/2 computers.

This is highly questionable. I have a copy of 1.04, it does not give the option to choose VGA mode at setup. Nor have I ever seen a screenshot of 1.04 running in VGA.—Graf Bobby (talk) 16:43, 15 December 2010 (UTC)

The link http://www.charlespetzold.com/etc/Windows1/index.html earlier in this article describes this. Motherboard BIOS of this era had a jumper for Monochrome Display Adapter (MDA, text only) and Graphics Adapter (Hercules, EGA). VGA is a superset of EGA register set. Shjacks45 (talk) 06:38, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

The Charles Petzold link describes no such thing. It says that Windows 1.x runs on VGA cards but treats them as EGA. Which is absolutely true. But "added support for the VGA graphics adapters" very much implies actual VGA resolution support. You might as well say that the earliest development versions of Windows "supported VGA" by virtue of being able to run on VGA's emulation of CGA adapters. That would be just as misleading. Codegen86 (talk) 13:08, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

I've edited the article to reflect what actual Windows 1.04 can do, based on examining original media. VGA is only supported as EGA (no mention of "VGA" anywhere on the disks), and no support for PS/2 mice was provided (just the old MS bus/serial mice). Yes, I know that's "original research", but folks are welcome to find official sources which contradict me :) Codegen86 (talk) 13:49, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Strong anti-Microsoft Bias is not justified by documentation.

Strong anti-Microsoft Bias is not justified by documentation. Windows 1.0 had its own commands and programming model. Dosx like win.com passes switch settings and invokes Windows Virtual Machine Manager in a manner comparable to "loadlin" calls the linux kernel from DOS. See Andrew Shulman's "Unauthorized Windows 95" vis a vis 386 Enhanced Mode for Windows 3.0 and VMM. Windows 1 thru 3 supported windows in real mode, 8086, using software memory management (as do some ARM processor systems, Unix on AT&T 8086 computers, Minix 1.0). Shjacks45 (talk) 07:28, 27 November 2011 (UTC)

I fail to see how that is relevant in the context of Windows 1.x. There was no VMM, no DOSX. Actually loadlin is a great analogy, because Linux can be started from DOS, but also can bootstrap itself with no DOS anywhere in sight. Windows 1.0-3.x was not like that because it could not exist without DOS. Windows 1.0 was a strange hybrid which took over the screen and input devices (much like any DOS game would), and it provided its own memory and task management. What it didn't provide at all was file and disk management. There were also many holes in the Windows API, e.g. no way to read the current date/time; the programmer had to use DOS for that (see the CLOCK sample program in the Windows 1.03/1.04 SDK for a prime example). Windows gradually took over more and more functionality and relied on DOS less and less. Windows for Workgroups 3.11 with 32-bit file and disk access was almost a complete OS (which just couldn't boot itself). Technically Windows 95 wasn't very different from that except DOS was packaged together with Windows. Many of the "DOS replacement" components were optional, even in Windows 95. There's no clear line where Windows (non-NT) goes from DOS-based to not-DOS-based. --Codegen86 (talk) 15:29, 29 January 2012 (UTC)

Iffy logo

I have requested deletion of File:Windows logo and watermark - 1985.svg] as I couldn't verify it was actually used at all and another logo altogether was used in 1985 for Windows 1.0. Please follow the link there if you have some citation. Dmcq (talk) 14:51, 14 February 2013 (UTC)

Funnily enough, if anyone had looked carefully at this articles history, they would have found the logo was apparently used since 2005 and even the upload log of the deleted file gave a big clue where it came from (sort of). BTW, I haven't see any other logo being used for Windows 1.0. This appears to be the only one, even if it wasn't used all the time. (A lot of time there was no logo, simply a Microsoft one.) Nil Einne (talk) 06:22, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

And actually I just noticed the person who uploaded the files noted it above in 2005. Aaleksanyants commented but apparently wasn't paying much attention, if they had they may have noticed it was from 2005 so predated the 2008 brandsoftheworld they were linking to. If they had done a bit more research, they would have found [1] showing the logos and while the source isn't entirely clear, it looks a lot like something older. (As we now know, the SDK.) Nil Einne (talk) 07:50, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Hello, Nil. Microsoft says this is what they used in Windows 1.0 and that is enough for Wikipedia. As for other people's opinion, well, personal opinion is categorically not allowed. Best regards, Codename Lisa (talk) 08:05, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

Just for the record, this question of whether or not the logo was genuine was, apparently, subsequently resolved in favor of the validity of the logo in this discussion at Commons, largely due to (a) the discovery of these historical materials showing its actual use in 1986 by Microsoft and (b) the rediscovery of the claim by the original poster of the image that it had been scanned from a SDK box. (And for anyone asking, "Where did you come from?", the answer is here.) Regards, TransporterMan (TALK) 15:20, 18 February 2013 (UTC)

The official Microsoft Windows history page which has a caption "Bill Gates shows the newly-released Windows 3.0" on a picture of Bill Gates holding a Windows 3.1 box from two years later is proof that what somebody says in Microsoft blogging about its history may not be infallible. Their business is software not history. Anyway glad this has been resolved, I've stuck the logo back in again. Dmcq (talk) 18:22, 18 February 2013 (UTC)