Windows 1.0 review: looking back to the start of Microsoft's endeavour to become desktop king
Erik Sandberg-Diment
Published: July 29, 2015 - 2:51PM
March 3, 1986: Probably no category of software has had as difficult a birth as that of operating environments. These software packages, which are in essence traffic directors that permit the user to run a number of different programs on one computer at the same time, have suffered tremendously delayed releases.
In extreme cases, such as Visicorp's difficulties with its Vision environment, the effort of developing the software has torpedoed the whole company.
But at last, these operating environments, also known as windowing programs, have arrived.
Deskview from Quarterdeck, Topview from IBM and GEM from Digi
tal Research were released last year.
Now, after more than a two-year delay, there is Windows, from Microsoft.
Industry pundits have been talking about operating environments and their vast potential for so long that it seems as if the programs have been with us for as long as personal computing has.
Yet, now that they are finally here, is anyone actually using them? Are they, in fact, useful?
Windows ($99 for the IBM PC and compatibles from the Microsoft Corporation of Bellevue, Washington) seems the natural operating environment to turn to for an answer.
Microsoft was the company that developed MS-Dos, the de facto operating system standard for most personal computers in use today, and the window-oriented operating environment is essentially just a patch, or add-on, to this operating system. Windowing allows multitasking, the ability to run several programs at once, a spreadsheet, database manager and word-processing package, for example, with maybe the Game of Life tossed in to keep the screen active during coffee breaks.
My own experience and conversations I have had with other users, however, seem to indicate that few people will ever take full advantage of multitasking.
Most people use but one program most of the time, if not all the time.
The exception might he the intermittent calling up of such memory-resident programs as Sidekick in order to avail oneself of such utilities as a calculator, a notepad or an outline processor.
Windows provides a broad range of such utilities: a notepad, a clipboard for transferring data from one window to another, a communications mode, a rolodex-like card file, an onscreen clock, a calculator and, yes, a game called Reversible that is basically a simplified version of Go.
But Windows is also an extremely memory-hungry piece of software.
According to the package copy, it requires a minimum of 256K of RAM.
Below the specifications, in smaller print, appears the note, "When using multiple applications or Dos 3.3 additional memory is recommended." Why anyone would purchase Windows without the intent of running multiple applications is a mystery to me.
Even the 512K of RAM recommended in the Windows manual is not sufficient for the program to run with any alacrity.
Running Windows on a PC with 512K of memory is akin to pouring molasses in the Arctic.
Also, the more windows you activate, the more sluggishly the program makes its moves.
What you really need is an IBM PC-AT, whose clock speed is considerably faster than that of the standard PC, and preferably one equipped with a RAM disc.
Given all that equipment, the performance speed of Windows would probably be acceptable to most users.
Because the program supports the Lotus-Intel-Microsoft expanded memory specifications, the addition of such an expansion board is also a good idea for anyone planning to use the program to its full capacity.
Oh yes, I haven't mentioned the mouse yet in my perusal of possible accessories to soup up Windows's performance.
Although the cover copy states that the program can be run "using either the keyboard or a mouse", it seems to me that you really need the mouse for this program.
There are keyboard commands, but to execute one of them you must first press the Alt key to display the command menu, then keep pressing the down arrow key until you reach the command you want on the display and highlight it, then press enter.
Compare that with the single smooth motion of sliding a rodent around until the pointer is where you want it and then pressing the mouse's ear.
The menu design of this program was built with a mouse in mind.
Another design parameter lacking flexibility is the program's dialogue boxes.
When you pursue a task like saving a file, which is complex only in the number of steps required, a series of dialogue boxes appear to guide you through the maze. These boxes are very useful when you are first learning to deal with the program.
In the long run, however, I suspect most people would like to have a way of toggling them off, preferring a more direct means of executing commands.
Conversely, the lack of an interactive tutorial may well discourage users who do not live and breathe the digital delights of personal computing on a daily basis.
But let us say all the trial and error is behind you and your computer now does Windows.
What clearer visions of computing will it offer? Primarily what it provides is yet another example of that common computer conundrum, the chicken and the egg paradox.
Right row there is precious little software available that is designed specifically to work with Windows, except the paint and word processing programs included in the bask Microsoft package.
Support has been promised by a number of publishers.
But for the moment the program is dependent on the program information file, or PIF, structure developed for IBM's competitive operating environment, Topview, which, incidentally, has a reputation for being even slower than Windows.
A number of programs, including R:base, dBase II and the IBM Assistant series, will run with Windows as if they were designed to do so, For the rest, there is a PIF editor which lets you define the amount of memory a given application requires and the way in which it uses the screen, the keyboard and the system's memory.
This New York Times article was first published in the Sydney Morning Herald on March 3, 1986.
The New York Times
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윈도우 3.1 버전으로 처음 접했던것 같은데
1.0 버전이 있는줄 몰랐네요
역시나 지금 보면 구린데 기사 보면서 그때 당시의 시대를 떠올리면 놀라움이 전해지는 듯
