

The Original Microsoft Windows 1.0 Press Release - Garbage
http://mashable.com/2010/10/15/the-original-microsoft-windows-1-0-press-kit/

======
maguay
Windows Write and Windows Paint were included as part of an introductory
special offer? Wonder if that makes their modern incarnations, WordPad and
Paint, the longest running special introductory offers ever?

At any rate, on very interesting part of the document was that it emphasized
that it was created on Windows Write. Often I open promotional PDFs for Office
2010, iWork, and more just to look at the properties, and usually they're
created in Adobe InDesign, not the program they're promoting. Would make more
sense to show you're "eating your own dog food" and make your promotional
materials in your own program as they did here.

~~~
rimantas
I guess advertising agencies do not code Office or iWork, so they are not able
to eat their own dog food. On the other hand, Keynote is aptly named :)

------
acangiano
Notice how the focus was on the benefits the product brought to the end user
and the industry, not on how it actually worked.

Technical people tend to get this wrong with pitches that are all about the
"how", when they should be about the "why".

We hackers tend to love the details of how something works. Regular people
just care about the benefits that a black box brings to them.

------
points
GEM was still _so_ superior.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Graphical_Environment_Manager>

If ever there was a good lesson it's this - DRDos was lighyears ahead, and far
superior to MSDos. GEM was ridiculously more advanced than Windows, yet they
lost. Having the better product doesn't always translate to winning.

Of course things like this helped MS:

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AARD_code>

(MS put some code in place to detect DR-DOS and make things not work
properly).

"Microsoft Senior Vice President Brad Silverberg later sent another memo,
stating: "What the [user] is supposed to do is feel uncomfortable, and when he
has bugs, suspect that the problem is DR-DOS and then go out to buy MS-DOS."

It'd be great to see a movie made of this period of time when MS were engaging
in so many dirty tricks.

~~~
drtse4
100% agree, i still have my x86 GEM's 5 1/4" floppies somewhere (with the
additional painting and writing apps, i guess it was an "ultimate" edition).
Another interesting thing is that the GEM release i had already contained a
basic interpreter with windowed graphics support (not complete as visual basic
that was released in 1991).

EDIT: Looks like i had GEM2, the "lawsuit friendly" version. DRI had been sued
by Apple for similarities between the MacOs of Lisa and GEM, they removed some
features like overlapping windows on the desktop and a few animation effects.

------
d_r
_Originally called Windows Premiere Edition..._

Interesting that even in 1985 (with relatively few products released)
Microsoft still couldn't resist from using fluff terms like "Premiere"

Windows Vista Enterprise Premium Gold Edition.

~~~
hernan7
Premiere = First Performance

So they were technically correct.

The jury is still out on that "Premium Gold" part, though.

------
brc
For me, it was Windows 3.0 that was the game changer on the IBM platform.
While Windows 1.0 was neat, it was the mac-like GUI on 3.0 that really got
people going.

Still, I miss being a command line encyclopedia.

------
rbanffy
> it was the beginning of an era that brought personal computing to billions
> of households worldwide.

This is plain wrong.

------
danielnicollet
It would funny to get stats on how much usage newer features of today's
windows get compared to the core features that were already in that win 1.0
release. I think we'd find that a large portion of PC users could do just fine
today with win 1.0 and a $50 PC hardware architecture it requires.

~~~
csomar
Having visited some offices and friends homes, most of them use the computer
to browse the web, watch videos, play games and also use Office.

I don't think Win 1.0 can run Pro 9 or play a HD movie. I don't think also
that $50 hardware at enough to open 3/4 browsing tabs.

~~~
bitwize
Maybe they'd get more stuff done then?

~~~
danielnicollet
This is soo true. I wonder if we could have a discussion of the social
consciousness level of consumer software product managers at MS. Windows is
stuffed with features that I sometimes think are more there for selling
hardware and third party applications that to really improve people's lives.
Then again, people should vote with their dollars for what they need most.

------
mynameishere
Well, notepad and calc haven't changed.

~~~
hakl
If Notepad understood Unix newline characters, I'd have no complaints.

~~~
derefr
Microsoft justifies this by saying "Notepad is for notes" (in the same way
that a Stickies dashboard widget is.) That is, Notepad is "Microsoft OneNote
Extra-Lite," in the same way that Wordpad is "Microsoft Word Extra-Lite."
Hackers think Notepad is actually "Visual Studio Extra-Lite," but it's not,
and it's not trying to be. I think everyone would be happier with debugging
and automating a default Windows install if Microsoft just shipped a SciTE-
like accessory separately from Notepad, and defaulted .ini files and such to
opening in it.

------
rimantas
Where I live license plates are three letters + three numbers. Whenever I see
XXX 311 I cannot help but think about Windows for Workgroups… And then the
nostalgia for blue two-panned Norton Commander screens kicks in. Yep, I got
passionate about computers around 1990…

~~~
arethuza
I have a similar attachment to 403 because of SunOS 4.0.3.

Someone working on Tron Legacy must have a similar feeling as if you look
_really_ closely at the desktop in the trailer you can see it shows "SolarOS
4.0.1".

------
aresant
If ever the quote "A picture's worth a thousand words" resonates, the original
press release vs. the video of Windows 1 in action it is.

------
thought_alarm
> Windows 1.0 was the beginning of the Control Panel and the Clipboard

Wait, what?

~~~
metageek
Yeah, those were definitely present in the first Mac.

------
killdashnine
Mute!

------
adlep
If you like it so much, I suggest you install it on your home computer.

~~~
kprobst
It would be a killer iPhone app.

