If I had the points, I would sooo mod you up for that! I'm still giggling - thanks! :D

Win 3.x would pre-emptively multitask DOS windows if you had a 386. It was one of its touted features. (There may have been a setting to turn this off and on, it may have been off by default). Personally during this period I used DESQview (or however it was capitalized) as a multitasker.

Windows 3.0/3.1 would pre-emptively multitask DOS windows if running on an 80386.

So did the Acorn Archimedes (the computer the ARM CPU was originally made for). RiscOS even had things like anti-aliased fonts by then, and certain user interface concepts that didn't show up elsewhere until Mac OSX came out.

However, the PC and Microsoft was already massively entrenched, and the news was huge - finally the computers most people actually used at work were going to catch up with the Mac, Amiga, Archimedes and other machines.

But anyone could tell that Windows was going to be huge. The PC was already dominant and Microsoft was already nearing monopoly position in the PC market (and IBM compatibles at the time had fallen in price such that they were price competitive with the Amiga) and the upgrade path for most people was not to buy a whole new computer but just add Windows.

I remember the news at the time. It was huge. Finally, the PC that nearly everyone was using was catching up to the Mac, Archimedes, Amiga etc.

It was a big deal for me, and I still consider Win 3 as *the* most significant Windows' release, and I wonder what other Slashdotters think, looking back on Win 3?

Honestly, the Steaming Heap of IInnovative Technology that was Windows 3 is what led me to Linux and UNIX and much of the rest of my career.

Right when nearing the end of Uni a free UNIX came along in the form of Linux ... because I had witnessed first hand what a steaming pile of crap was Windows 3, and then eventually Windows 3.11 (which sucked somewhat less, but not enough), I knew I wanted UNIX experience. It led to my first jobs.

I will be marked troll by people who weren't there, but Windows 3 was such a steaming pile of shit compared to what Linux (and at some point FreeBSD) could do on the exact same hardware, it's almost impossible to describe.

In 1993 no fewer than 3 other science nerds, to whom I said "hey, if you like Windows, far be it for me to judge ... but if you're asking for my Slackware disks and some install help, no problem -- I'll wipe out your new computer". They all switched to Linux because it was far more usable than Windows was on the same hardware. Even if Linux did occasionally crash, it was more robust than Windows. Because they could actually do several things at once.

On the same hardware, Linux destroyed Windows 3/3.11.

Windows 3 is significant in that it forced me to realize Windows wasn't anywhere NEAR being able to do what I'd learned in operating systems class ... I wrote an instance of pre-emptive multi-tasking before Microsoft made a commercial instance of it.

That doesn't mean that I could write a better OS than Microsoft, but it means when Linux was doing pre-emptive multitasking with proper virtual memory ... Microsoft was doing time-slicing ... it was a hell of a better operating system than Microsoft had written.

It just didn't have Word. It did, however, have LaTex ... yet another bit of awesome for a university student.

So, Kudos to Windows 3 for being such an out-dated pile of crap technology by the time it was released that it wasn't even fully utilizing a 386's inbuilt hardware features for multitasking, and wouldn't until Windows '95 ... which made possible (and preferable) for the widespread popularity of Linux.

If it hadn't sucked, we might not even know who Linus even is.

Oh, my, but I bet you'd squeal like a pig.

You're a whiny little punk with nothing intelligent to say.

But, hey, you can tell all the other whiny little punks at your playdate tomorrow how tough you were on the intertubes.

I'm sure your mom will be impressed.

Childish little asshole.

I can't imagine it is really a big water treatment issue since they have a different density than water and you could separate them with settling tanks and skimmers.

I dare you to tell us the cost of fitting tanks and skimmers into every sewer in California. Or every other body of water it flows into .. like apparently 471 million plastic microbeads are released into San Francisco Bay alone every single day.
Filtering the inputs to San Francisco Bay would be ridiculously expensive. Outlawing this plastic crap makes far more sense.

What you describe is theoretically possible, but utterly absurd in reality.

It's not a nothing issue. It's huge amount of crap dumped into waterways which acts like silt, doesn't break down, and otherwise serves to give people whiter teeth (or whatever the hell it's used for).

California has decided that's a dumb idea.

Wow ... calibrating the sights to cross the streams. Only really wee streams to cross.

Or is it more analogous to the beam hits an object (hence the guy)?

That actually makes sense, thanks.

Pew pew!! Way cooler than lasers!

Tech Seargent Chen please report to the bridge for plot exposition.

It sounds so good, and it's the LHC ... but I honestly have no idea of what it means.

I can't have a serious discussion with you if you believe racist things. No one intellectually honest and capable can have a serious discussion with a racist, because it is only possible to believe in racist things if you are of low intellect. Objectively true. To correlate skin color and intellect is gross prejudice composed of logical fallacies. It is ironic too (you need to be low iq to commit to the fallacies and believe this arbitrary link between skin color and intellect).

I can't have a serious discussion with a creationist or an antivaxxer or a ufo cultist either. Because to firmly believe these things is only possible if you are a person with a serious defect in intellect. I'm being 100% serious and sincere. You are a stupid person. Objectively true based on you having a racist belief. You are not worth the time of anyone serious, and you will never find the "fair" airing of your thoughts that you seek because everyone intelligent has discarded your entire domain. No one intellectually honest is interested in indulging and entertaining an idiot's idea. And that is exactly what racism is: the "thoughts" of the dumb people.

And if you want to improve the gene pool: don't have children. Again, I am completely sincere. You are a dumb person. To have a racist belief is only possible if you are.

You disrespect people based on the color of their skin. Therefore you deserve no respect. You withhold respect for ignorant reasons. You see a skin color, and make a baseless judgment on intellect and character from that. Which, ironically, is proof you are unintelligent and of low character. Because to believe racist thoughts is only possible if you lack cognitive capacity in certain areas of reasoning and social intelligence, and if you have bad intent on society and individuals in general.

You're a disrespectful asshole, so you get nothing but insults and disrespect in return. You get what you give you ignorant douchebag.

Want to improve the gene pool? Don't have children. I mean that sincerely. The quality of your words here belies low intellect and low character on your part, objectively speaking.

Related question: What smart phones out now are (or can be reasonably outfitted to be) closest to a dumb phone, considering reliability, simplicity, and battery life? I don't especially want to give up a swiping keyboard, a decent camera, or podcast playback, but I do miss being able to go 5 or more days on a single charge.

So, you want a dumb phone, but you want it to have smart phone features, and a huge battery charge, and lots of doo-dads and stuff ... just like a smart phone?

Well, good luck with that.

What joking? I wasn't joking.

I totally think delivering ass-whoopings to MBAs and CEOs for corporate malfeasance would solve a lot of problems.

Because it would be better than this "non est mea culpa" shit we have now where CEOs issue some drivel apology and have no consequences.

I'm not joking at all.

I envision that one day there will be a series of tubes that give us access to this type of information from nearly anywhere and not a severely limited number of physical locations.

Yeah, but then they'll charge access for it, and the copyright cartel will insist we're not allowed to see anything without paying them a trillion dollars.

Hey, wait a minute ... that's exactly what we have now.