Like any technology company, Microsoft has had its share of ups and downs over the years…but there’s no denying that they have played a major role in molding our Internet and computing experience. Thirty years ago today Microsoft introduced Windows 1.0 and to this day hundreds of millions of computers run the Windows operating system. Some versions of Windows have been better than others (Vista vs Windows 7) yet the company always seems to land back on its feet.
From early in Windows’ history Gates viewed it as Microsoft’s future. He told InfoWorld in April 1984 that “Our strategies and energies as a company are totally committed to Windows, in the same way that we’re committed to operating-system kernels like MS-DOS and Xenix. We’re also saying that only applications that take advantage of Windows will be competitive in the long run.”IBM was notably absent from Microsoft’s announcement, and by late 1984 the press reported a “war of the windows” between Windows, IBM’s TopView, and Digital Research’s GEM. Microsoft meanwhile had promised in November 1983 to ship Windows by April 1984, but now denied that it had announced a release date, and predicted that Windows would ship by June 1985. Deemphasizing multitasking, the company stated that Windows’ purpose, unlike that of TopView, was to “turn the computer into a graphics-rich environment” while using less memory. Windows 1.0 was officially released on November 20, 1985. ~From Wikipedia
Now you can relive the glory days of Windows 1.0 right in your browser by heading to pcjs.org and hitting up their Windows 1.0 emulator. This should bring back some memories for those of us that are “older” and might be fun for some of the younger readers who’ve never experienced Windows 1.0. You should be patient though, the emulator isn’t exactly fast, considering we’re all obsessed with speed and load times you might get frustrated. Hit the link below to fire up the emulator and be sure to share this post with your friends so they can join in the fun! For those who don’t care to run an emulator, you can watch the video below to get an idea of what Microsoft Windows 1.0 was like.
[button link=”http://www.pcjs.org/devices/pc/machine/5160/cga/256kb/win101/” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Source: PCJS.Org[/button]Last Updated on November 27, 2018.
