Screenshot History of Windows 793
jobugeek writes "Neowin has an article that shows the progression of Microsoft Windows from pre-windows 1.0 through the 2003 server. For those of you who have used all of them, I'm sorry."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
Screenshot History of Windows
Related Links Top of the: day, week, month.
We are each entitled to our own opinion, but no one is entitled to his own facts. -- Patrick Moynihan
Progression (Score:4, Insightful)
windoze schmidoze (Score:2, Insightful)
windows user interface has ALWAYS been prettier than that. even if it always has been pretty damned ugly.
Re:Progression (Score:5, Insightful)
They still bust heads better than just about anything. Lack of revolution just might be a *good* thing.
The great thing about computers though, especially one running Linux, is that it's fairly easy ( in the comparitive sense) for anybody who has a better idea to impliment it.
Have you thought up the new, revolutionary interface that will sweep everything else away before it?
Neither have I, so that's ok. Neither has anybody else.
There a few competing graphical interfaces, and a few command line interfaces, that pretty much seem to cover the bases of people's preferences, and they all approach optimum to one degree or another and direct mind control is still science fiction.
Get used to it. It's going to be like this for a while.
KFG
Re:Man... what a garbage it was (like 1, 2, and 3) (Score:5, Insightful)
If you make make your app run nicely on that configuration, then have 15 years of development for improvement, then you might have something.
Re:Progression (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Windows just gets uglier (Score:3, Insightful)
While Windows XP can be set back to the default appearance, I wish there was a way to deal with all the icons and applications (like the latest version of AIM) that seem to copycat the default uber-cheerful pastel scheme. I want less Prozac in my UI, damnit.
Re:win95..... (Score:3, Insightful)
And
I wouldn't exactly say it's any kind of leap in UI development.
Lots and lots of people used Windows 3.1 for a long time. If it was unusable, people wouldn't have used it. Back then, it wasn't quite a monopoly yet, although that's about the time when they started using shadey business practices to force manufacturers to put Windows on PC's that ship, and nothing else.
Re:NonBloated (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:NonBloated (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Wordstar? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The lies prepetuated (Score:5, Insightful)
That's true, but for the time it was the right thing.
You could run Win95, and do useful work with it, on a PC with 4 MB of RAM. More was better; I ran it with 8 MB. (In 1995, RAM was expensive!)
Part of the reason it was small was because of the stupid thunking into DOS. DOS is small, partly because it started out small and partly because lots of people hacked on it over the years trying to keep it small. (DOS 4 was an exception, but the MS DOS guys were quick to point out that IBM made DOS 4. DOS 5, done by MS, was actually smaller than DOS 4, despite having many improvements.)
Also, Win95 had lots of 16-bit code inherited from Win 3.1, and it thunked into that a lot. Again, this contributed to the small size.
I'm glad that machines are so powerful these days, where 128 MB of RAM is considered a small amount. But part of Win95's success was that it actually ran on the machines of the day.
steveha
So easy to bash the past... (Score:5, Insightful)
Programmers today have no clue what programming was like back in the early days of the PC. The system had to boot in 64k, which is equivilant to a few icons in todays world. The graphics technology was so primitive most programmers today would refuse to write code for it; the pixels weren't square and there was no screen read!
Yet the functionality was substantially similar to what we have today; networking, graphics, spreadsheets, word processors with fonts.
Put down the early days of windows all you want, twenty years from now you will be defending the "boneheaded code" you wrote in your youth and you may just get a taste of it; though not the full course meal since starting a billion dollar enterprise is much much more difficult than coat-tailing on one.
Re:Progression (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A crowd Pleaser (Score:5, Insightful)
Your going to to mention "Blue Screen" one day and no one will know what you are talking about. I have not seen one for over a year now, as the releases progress, Windows is getting more stable. You have to find a different way to poke fun at the man-in-the-glasses.
Ayjay...
Re:A crowd Pleaser (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure I'll be laughing from my Mac when a virus is released that exploits a hole in MSs' DRM system and makes it so you can't back up you own files. he he he.
Re:in response to your automatic windows hatred... (Score:2, Insightful)
The fact that manufacturers spend the time to make drivers for Windows is not a reflection of the quality of Windows itself.
Plus, you could just compile all the kernel modules at once instead of having to recompile when you change your setup. That's effectively what Windows does.
TWW
Re:in response to your automatic windows hatred... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:NonBloated (Score:2, Insightful)
You do not even have to install a GUI if you dont use it... Linux can be as minimal as you need it.. Browser? If you really want you can have 7 or so- or none at all..
However most of windows is not optional. you must have a GUI, a browser etc- otherwise you have to go right back to dos - in which case using a recent linux kernel would give you more functionaly and safety.
As for bonuses microsoft gives you the doctor evil feeding-you-to-sharks-with-lasers brand, keeping you in the lock in, charging you big time, having a premium for office apps that may include nasty DRM tech, and so on.
To me the very basics is a console with a TCP/IP stack, text editor and pine..
in response to your automatic windows zeal (Score:5, Insightful)
People have their views. Sometimes people's views are based upon a line of logic that that person happens to agree with, and a lot of times people's views are based on other things. The people in the latter category are ignorant. You will find these groups of people everywhere. There is really nothing you can do about it. So I would suggest that you simply get used to it or you are going to have a very hard time in life.
Even you yourself appear to be quite ignorant. This is not necessarily an insult, as I am not attempting to challenge your intelligence. But based upon a lot of comments you made in your post you are very uninformed. Although your last comment pushes you into the arrogant (ignorance mixed with ego) category imho. My purpose in saying this is not to flame bit, but to show you that even you express zealousness. So you might want to be a bit more tolerant when you see others expressing that same quality, or you might come across as a hypocrite to some.
Re:So easy to bash the past... (Score:2, Insightful)
Oh. Well then it looks like Windows really was crap then, doesn't it? So was the PC/AT, come to think of it. Crappy hardware and a crappy operating system, and now its the defacto standard. Yay.
Re:win95..... (Score:3, Insightful)
You're right it wasn't a great leap for UIs, but it was a huge leap for Windows. The fact that many people think a huge leap for Windows represents a huge leap for UIs in general shows that most people are still unaware that Microsoft is not the center of the computing Universe, nor is it, in any sense an innovator.
It is possible for a program to be "usable" and yet still horrible to use. This is what Windows was prior to Win9x.
Re:silly remark (Score:4, Insightful)
Silly remark indeed.
Re:What's a 'Blue Screen'?? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The lies prepetuated (Score:1, Insightful)
In 1995, regular workstations had come down to the level where people could easily afford them, and they ran basically the same well-designed software they had been running for a decade. Microsoft and Apple, however, owned the market because they had all those return customers they originally captured a decade earler. But their platforms were saddled with backwards compatibility issues. That's why Windows and MacOS in 1995 were just awful technically compared to the workstations, and why they actually ended up being somewhat more expensive overall.
It's the usual thing: being early to market (though not first), companies often win, but the price to users and technological progress is enormous.
Re:heh. slashdotted already (Score:1, Insightful)
Hammers... (Score:2, Insightful)
Think! Hammers haven't changed much since the days of Thor? Simply untrue!
Basic engineering has given you a far better hammer than your pre-historic and Roman-era ancestors. Materials science has given you a longer lasting hammer and a shock-resistant grip. Ergonomics have saved callusses on your palm. Hammers are no longer powered only by the muscle of your arms, but via chemical reactions, pneumatics, hydraulics, magnetics or springs. The "interface" is no longer only a bar of wood, but a simple release trigger, or sculpted plastic, and padded rubber. Moreover, hammers no longer pound target nails only through wood, but through metal and concrete as well.
Think. All of those advances in the art and science of hammering have occured during the last 100 years! From the perspective of the 6000 year recorded history of the hammer; the evolution of the hammer into the modern form was rather sudden - in archeological terms: a catastrophic revolution. Thor's prototypical hammer is now a shameful implement - long since been relegated to the bargain bin of history.
Will the WIMP metaphor eventually slide into disrepute? All that is required for advance is that we apply the new technologies that we develop or discover to the MMI. We needn't jump to science fiction and direct mind control or any such imaginings: speech interfaces will occur much sooner, as will true adaptive handwriting recognition, not to mention visual and socially cued interfaces. When one of these both reaches fruition and finally clicks with the public, we will have yet another revolution, which will be as profound as the one that brought us WIMP.
Will it occur in my lifetime, which is already over 3/4 done? No, but mark these words: those changes will come to fruition in the lifetime of a teener geek reading this. The revolution of a tool only ends when no-one asks "Will revolution happen anytime soon?", which is the necessary precursor to the demand, "I must change this." People are still asking, and thus change will continue.
Revolution isn't done with MMI yet.
Re:A crowd Pleaser (Score:5, Insightful)
Well... (Score:2, Insightful)
Remember the old phrase "It's easier to ask for forgiveness than permission"? Well, it seems Win2k just coded it. :P
beats your stupid remark (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Progression (Score:2, Insightful)
Hmmm... I should not reply to trolls, but...
I use Red Hat 8.0 at home. The following is true. I am NOT embellishing this and I'm not a Linux expert nor am I Windows impaired.
My hardware is better supported under Linux. That's right. It works BETTER under Linux than Windows98. In particular, my sound card. It is a Sound Blaster Live 5.1. Admittedly, the following is a hole in Creative Labs' support, rather than a true Windows issue, but without the original driver disk, I cannot install the driver that I downloaded from their site under Win98. Maybe I would have better luck with XP, but I don't want to buy it when Linux works so well for me.
Red Hat recognized the card during installation and got it running for me without trouble. ALL of my hardware was detected and works like a champ under Linux including my HP Deskjet 722C which is a known Windows based printer. I bought that printer back when I only used Windows.
As far as having a life... I am married and have a 2 year old son, plus I have all the standard work that comes with home ownership, and I am the only person on call for a system I support, so I'm very busy. But my Linux box just works. I DO admit that I struggled when using Mandrake getting everything working, but Red Hat is a champ. My wife runs Linux on a laptop, and I will admit that I've been impressed with its stability compared with older Windows versions I used.
But Red Hat just works, and I can get things done without supporting a company that I think is terrible for consumers.
Re:Yeah, but solitaire hasnt changed a Bit! (Score:2, Insightful)