Filed under: OS Updates, Windows, Microsoft, Commercial
Windows at 20: 20 things you didn't know about Windows 1.0
by Marc Perton Nov 20th 2005 at 11:00AM
Believe it or not, it's exactly 20 years since Microsoft released Windows 1.0. And, although the company is being fairly low-key in its celebrations of the event (except in Japan), I think it's worth commemorating. To celebrate the 20th, here are 20 facts about Windows 1.0:- Bill Gates wanted to call Windows 1.0 "Interface Manager." Marketing exec Rowland Hanson persuaded him that Windows was a better name.
- Microsoft began work on Interface Manager in 1981, though at that point, it lacked a GUI and many of the other features that would later come to be associated with Windows.
- Early prototypes of Interface Manager used menus at the bottom of the screen, which was consistent with the UI of Word for DOS and some other popular DOS programs.
- Microsoft sent out a press kit featuring a squeegee and washcloth to announce the launch of Windows 1.0. The press kit was sent out in November 1983, a full two years before the program was eventually released.
- In 1983, Microsoft pitched Windows as a potential GUI for Atari's ST computer. Atari, however, didn't want to wait for the program, and settled on Digital Research's GEM instead.
- Despite claims that Windows was Microsoft's attempt to copy the Mac (or Lisa) OS, the real inspiration, according to some histories, was the VisiOn desktop environment, which was released in 1982. Bill Gates was reportedly so impressed by a demo of the system that he saw at Comdex that year, that he sat through it three times, and flew in other MS execs to check it out.
- The system requirements for Windows 1.0 were 256KB of RAM, DOS 2.0 and two floppy drives.
- After taking a look at a very early pre-release version of Windows in 1983, Byte Magazine declared it a system that would "offer remarkable openness, reconfigurability, and transportability as well as modest hardware requirements and pricing."
- Windows 1.0 used a primitive file manager called MS-DOS Executive. A later version of this program, which is largely unchanged from the original, is available for download, and still runs under Windows XP.
- Windows 1.0 included multitasking capabilities, but did not allow windows to overlap.
- Microsoft bundled a calculator, clock, calendar, notepad and a handful of other small apps (including the games Reversi a puzzle) with Windows 1.0.
- Despite the limitations of the bundled apps, early ads for Windows boasted that the system included "an extremely useful set of applications."
- In addition to failing to get other companies to create apps for Windows 1.0, Microsoft was slow to port its own programs to Windows. Excel and Word were available for the Mac in 1985, but didn't bow on Windows until, respectively, 1987 and 1989. So few customers had purchased Windows that Microsoft had to include a runtime version of the GUI environment with the programs so that they could be used.
- Among the applications featured in early ads was a terminal session used to retrieve stock quotes. The stocks listed on the screen were IBM, Compaq and Apple. Microsoft wasn't included for the simple reason that it was a private company at the time; it didn't go public until 1986.
- In 1984, PC World said that Windows "provides a simple, powerful, and inexpensive user interface that works with most popular programs. That alone is enough to guarantee consumer support to make it the de facto standard of the personal computer market." The magazine was right, of course, though its prediction took several years to come true.
- Shortly after its release, PC Magazine gushed of Windows 1.0: "If you’ve ever complained about DOS and envied those more skillful at reaping its inherent productivity bonuses, Windows is just what you need. It makes dealing with DOS a snap and opens up all sorts of new possibilities. Once you try it, unless you’re already a DOS master, you’ll wonder how you ever got along in DOS without it."
- Windows 1.0 was out for only about two weeks before Microsoft released version 1.01, in order to fix several bugs. This was the beginning of a long tradition of dot releases, service packs and other incremental fixes that continues to this day.
- An early PR photo for Windows 1.0 shows Bill Gates sprawled on a desk leaning on a computer monitor. Behind him are several other computers, including an IBM PC —and a Mac.
- From the beginning, Windows could display color, if hooked up to a color monitor with an appropriate graphics adapter, while Macs available at the time were strictly black and white affairs. This led PC Magazine to declare that "after an hour In-a-vision (the first of the native applications to be offered for Windows), even the most devoted Macintosh user will be a convert."
- The retail price for Windows 1.0 was $100. Adjusted for inflation, that's equivalent to $177 in today's dollars — roughly the same price you'd pay today for a full retail edition of Windows XP Home.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
Wade Kelly said 7:45PM on 11-20-2005
"The system requirements for Windows 1.0 were 256MB of RAM, DOS 2.0 and two floppy drives." Doesn't 256MB of RAM sound a little suspect? I think you mean 256KB.
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Weasel said 6:19PM on 11-20-2005
Wow, Windows 1.0 required more RAM than Win XP Pro!
Ok, just teasing. You have a little typo when you state 256 MB of RAM is the minimum. Surely you meant 256 KB?
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Marc Perton said 6:28PM on 11-20-2005
Doh! Thanks. Fixed.
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michelle said 1:02AM on 11-21-2005
hah that pic with him and a mac in the background is funny..
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miscblogger said 1:40AM on 11-21-2005
man that old windows box looks scary! i wonder if they had Blue Screens of Death back then.
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elitegg said 6:12AM on 11-21-2005
miscblogger > I'm sure it wouldn't have been Blue Screens of Death, since this version was in B&W it would have been more like [A Dark Shade of Grey Screen of Death]
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elitegg said 6:14AM on 11-21-2005
lol I remembered wrong, should have read the whole article. It could quite possible be a BSOD
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Coffee & Cr@sh said 7:25AM on 11-21-2005
We make the funny out of windows.
http://geek2us.net
Coffee
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Chuck said 12:12PM on 11-21-2005
That would be an IBM PC AT in the pic, not an IBM PC.
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km said 12:49PM on 11-21-2005
looks like an IBM PC XT in the pic
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Matthew said 1:04PM on 11-21-2005
No, I believe that is an AT.
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Paranoised said 3:13PM on 11-21-2005
Wow. Imagine Interface Manager XP...
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shakeydeal said 12:53AM on 11-22-2005
well without hacks rushing hobbled-together hardware drivers out to their company download sites, i think the BSODs were probably kept to a minimum
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Ian T said 4:13AM on 11-22-2005
20 years of Windows and still no GUI version of "XCOPY /S" (which doesn't copy empty folders) and "XCOPY /B [file1] + [file2]" (to merge binary files together). At least the days of finding free INTs and PORTs for your soundcard are long gone!
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krizoitz said 11:41AM on 11-27-2005
Maybe 20 years from now Windows will almost have caught up to the Mac OS. Gotta love it when some of the features they are touting for Vista are allready out in Tiger (and some were available in Panther etc)
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Greg said 11:29AM on 11-29-2005
Silly mac! Go Bill
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Pellie said 9:40AM on 12-07-2005
How d'ya get windows 1 up and running again, if the oldest running bucket is an IBM Aptiva 133 mhz, 48 mb EDO ram and (i still have...) an IBM 121 mb HDD... IS it possible?
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