Today is Windows' Birthday

[Aminifu]

"When Windows 1.0 arrived 30 years ago, it hardly seemed like a juggernaut. Apple had beaten Microsoft to the punch with the Mac OS, and Windows was mostly a shell on top of MS-DOS. Here's a record of three decades of successes and missteps that took us from Windows 1.0 to Windows 10" (http://www.zdnet.com/article/30-year...tag=TRE17cfd61).

30 years ago I was using DOS with memory extenders and TSRs (at work). Except for the graphics, some of those DOS apps were better in many ways than a lot of the bloated stuff we have today, imo. I didn't try Windows until version 3.1 (which is also when I got my first home computer).

What were you using 30 years ago? Which version of Windows do you like best?

[Sabine Klare]

30 years?... This was the time with my final examen at school, then finally I left the school.

In Spring 1986 I saw the first computers in the university, then again in a library in Berlin (from 1991 to 1992). The words were green with a black background, and LCD didn't exist yet. I have bad memories, because the instructors had harassed us.

But the first PC came home in 1999 with Windows 95, later another one with Windows 98. Mostly Frank used them both.

I myself began with computers very late, in 2009 with my own PC (Windows Vista), although Frank got his first Vista PC already in 2007. in 2011 I began also with my notebook (Windows 7). Nobody had explained me how to work with the software, because only a few friends from our real contacts have remained.

In 2014 I learned to know also XP a little bit more, one of our 2 computers from 2004 was working yet (the first one had died in 2007). But this year also the second one has died.

Since Vista / Win 7 I cannot save edited presets. On XP also the "Only-One-Picture-Videos" (WMV, made with Windows Movie Maker) had caused big problems, it never would have been possible to work with Milkdrop 2.

I will not learn to know Windows 8 / 8.1 anymore and also not Windows 10.

I cannot say something about the versions after Win 7, but I have experiences with XP, Vista and Win 7...

[Aminifu]

Hi Sabine,

In the beginning I only used the computer for work. My first home computer in 1994 just let me avoid long hours of overtime at the office. In the summer of 1998 that started to change with the release of Windows 98 and Winamp 2.0 (and hardware upgrades). I then could work and play music with the computer at the same time.

I was disappointed with the first pre-packaged system I bought, so after that I just bought the parts (hardware and software) and built my own.

I never used XP at home. I stayed with a system that let me use 98 or 2000 as needed, as I used my computer more and more for entertainment as well as work.

Now I mostly use my computer for entertainment (music, video, games, etc.), with a little shopping, news, and educational purposes on the side.

I also have not tried versions 8, 8.1, or 10. So far I've enjoyed using version 7 the most.

[Warrior of the Light]

Heh, sharing files over the school network on windows 98se was fun.
XP added more but always felt bloated.

I still like playing dosgames now and then though

[Sabine Klare]

I could go deeper into the last 30 years...

"When Windows 1.0 arrived 30 years ago...", this means, at first Windows 1.0 had come out, then Windows 2.0 and then Windows 3.0, or am I wrong? We ourselves have learned to know Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows XP, Windows Vista and Windows 7, but not Windows ME, not Windows NT and not Windows 2000.

I remember, for our first 2 PCs we used floppy discs yet, and we had to start the programs with the CD-Roms. I remember the game "Creatures" with the Norns on another planet. Also we had used the first image editor software for some scanned photos with our cats and also with us ourselves. Frank wrote very much textes, and I had to check them for typos.

In the universities and libraries they had at first the EDV-Systems, later also PCs, but I don't know, with which OS. In February 1993 the acoustic coupler had been used yet to access the central database in the central library. This was a very old-fashioned method, and I want to ask, when did the internet come out?

I remember the Atari for the Electronic Music Composer and the Commodore Amiga, and we had contact to some other artists in Berlin. Cubase was one of the first software for the artists, later also Ableton, FL Studio etc. came out.

Mostly I had discovered a new long-existing feature alone, and I myself asked, why didn't I discover that much earlier? In Autumn 2007 I was in a group-chat the first time, then more often from 2010 to 2014. In the SHOUTcast-Radio-Chats there were also professional experts with more experiences, but they didn't answer my very important questions. I feel let down. But I have learned very much also without help in the last 6 years.

When we bought 2 PCs with Windows XP in Spring 2004, we ourselves got also internet, but for the first 3 years with a very slow internet connection. Later also watching videos in YouTube became possible. We changed more and more from paper letters to E-Mails. It was not always harmonic. We experienced many disputes and terminations of friendships, also we got death treatments via E-Mail. The paper letters had become rare, but they didn't die out.

I don't play games anymore, but I am doing the "Live Event Tests". The capacity, CPU, soundcards and videocards have become better and better, that's very good for the video-artists.

Those people, who are allowed to listen to music during their work, have many luck. In our country mostly the people are not allowed to listen to music on work, and then also a little transistor radio is prohibited (or a little portable TV). I remember the chats on Mixlr, where the guests had said many times, that they would currently listen to the live broadcasts on work.

We should search for the history with all Windows Versions incl. the release dates. I think, there is such a history somewhere in the internet...

Edit:
Oh, not bad...
https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Windows
Also in English...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microsoft_Windows
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_o...ndows_versions

[Aminifu]

Originally Posted by Sabine Klare

... This was a very old-fashioned method, and I want to ask, when did the internet come out?

The internet was invented in the US by it's military and universities. Research into packet switching started in the early 1960s and packet switched networks such as Mark I at NPL in the UK, ARPANET, CYCLADES, Merit Network, Tymnet, and Telenet, were developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s using a variety of protocols. The ARPANET in particular led to the development of protocols for internetworking, where multiple separate networks could be joined together into a network of networks. The first two nodes of what would become the ARPANET were interconnected between Leonard Kleinrock's Network Measurement Center at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science and Douglas Engelbart's NLS system at SRI International (SRI) in Menlo Park, California, on 29 October 1969.

I entered MIT in the summer of 1969 and had a very small role in the development of some of these ARPANET protocols. At the time it was just schoolwork, helping some professors and grad students with their projects for extra credit. I had no clue as to what would evolve.

But you are probably asking about the World Wide WEB. I provided a link to an article discussing some of the WEB's history in post #1 of this thread (http://forums.winamp.com/showthread.php?t=375867).

Originally Posted by Sabine Klare

Those people, who are allowed to listen to music during their work, have many luck.

I was talking about listening to music while working at home. But here, music in the workplace depends on the company and type of work being done. It is usually allowed as long as the volume is low (relative to the general background noise) and it does not distract from getting the work done. A minor problem is getting an agreement among the workers on the type of music playing. So, it is usually a mix of things. Most people will tolerate a few tunes they don't particularly like rather than no music at all.

[soundJK]

Wow! My strongest memory from Windows launches, was when Windows 95 came. It was so different and cool

[Sabine Klare]

Thank You for the link to the other thread, Aminfu. Of course I meant the World Wide WEB.

For XP the Updates had ended in 2014, the same will happen to Vista in 2017 and to Win 7 in 2020 etc. What will happen, if no Updates will come anymore for Windows 10? Should Windows 10 really have been the last Windows Version? I have read, there are still problems with Windows 10, it is not yet perfect. I hope, it will be fixed.

And again I have to jump into the cold water, if I use the right-click on the icon and start with the Adminstrator Mode the first time. I never did that before, but my project is waiting, a project with prepared files, which will work only on Windows.

We will need Windows also in the future, and I wish to know, which name will the next Windows Version have...

[Aminifu]

Originally Posted by Sabine Klare

We will need Windows also in the future, and I wish to know, which name will the next Windows Version have...

The gossip now is that Windows 10 will be the last name change. Microsoft will just continue to add features and fix bugs going into the future. Nobody knows what will really happen down the road. But we can be sure that the Windows OS, in some form (desktop and/or mobile), will be around for a long, long time. Too many people use and depend on it for it to be replaced anytime soon.

[Sabine Klare]

Here I have the German Version for the lifecycle...
http://windows.microsoft.com/de-de/windows/lifecycle

Then Windows will keep now the version name, and there are only changings like bug fixes and adding of features. Maybe Windows 10 will become better in the future, and together with a future version of Winamp & Milkdrop hopefully we still can enjoy the music. We musicians and video-artists should keep our eyes open.

Around for a long, long time... How will Windows look after 20, 50 or 100 years? After 100 years I myself and many other people will not be here anymore, but maybe the grandchildren. And I should ask, how will it be after 200 years? Maybe after 300 years we will have finally the Holo-Deck (Star Trek - The Next Generation)...

Now I have remembered again the Commodore Amiga in the Studio of another musician, who made also music-videos with this computer. It was in Summer 1991. And on a computer-exhibition they had 3 exemplars connected each other, and they were running together with music and very interesiting computer animations. In the same year I visited also the Internationale Funkausstellung Berlin, where they had other Animation Shows running...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intern...tellung_Berlin
1 month later I was on an Electronic Live Concert, but instead of the Amiga and a video-projector they used an old-fashioned slideshow with Berlin Photos. Winamp & Milkdrop didn't exist yet.

After 10 or 20 years we could have already features, of which we know nothing yet...

[Aminifu]

Originally Posted by Sabine Klare

Maybe after 300 years we will have finally the Holo-Deck (Star Trek - The Next Generation)...

I don't think that will take 300 years. We already have the 1st generation, but you have to wear gloves and goggles. The technology even exists to do away with the gloves and goggles, but it is currently very expensive.

For the past few years, cars that drive themselves are being tested on ordinary US streets. It won't be long before they will be available to the general public. A few months ago, a policeman stopped one for going too slow. He was shocked to see that there was no driver and he was upset that he couldn't even write a ticket. The car was obeying the law for the top speed a driver-less car is currently allowed to use. So far, there has only been 2 accidents and in both cases the driver-less cars were not at fault.

For hundreds of years, people didn't have electric lights. When I was born color TV was not available to the general public. The pace of invention has picked up so dramatically that you are right, we have no idea what inventions the next 10 or 20 years will bring.

[iomegajaz]

30 years ago... probably closer to 25... we had an Apple IIe at home. No OS, just 5.25" disks containing programs such as text editors and simple games, like rounding up sheep as a sheepdog, or traversing a maze of 2D tunnels as an alien. I distinctly remember one of the programs referred to U.S. astronauts using the phrase "A-OK" for some reason.

My dad used a Mac for his newspaper-related work, and I guess he thought he'd get us an Apple for our home use since it was the same thing... but it was very much not the same. I remember playing grayscale jigsaw puzzles and 3D shuffleboard on Macs. It was the future™.

I've used every version of Windows at home, to some extent. Very limited use of CE, NT and Vista, but the other versions – 3.1, 95, 98, ME, 2000 and XP – saw extensive use in my home computers. We run 7 at home now, which we like, and we won't be using 8 or 10 any time soon: as I've detailed in another thread, I don't like metro, and I don't trust MS not to screw up my machines with unavoidable updates.

Happy birthday, Windows. Please stop screwing us and get your OS back to what it should be.

[Aminifu]

Originally Posted by iomegajaz

No OS, just 5.25" disks containing programs such as text editors and simple games, ...

Yeah, I remember those 5.25" floppy disks. Before Windows was released, my employer provided me a 'lug-a-ble' (a laptop's ancestor) that I took back and forth to work. I've forgotten who made it. That thing must have weighted close to 35 lbs and had 2 of those 5.25" drives, a small monotone CRT display, an attached keyboard and no mouse or hard drive.

[Warrior of the Light]

We started with a 386 33MHz with 4MB RAM and an orange screen. The HDD was 103 MB. Threw the harddrive away last year I think, but it still worked.

We started with (iirc) DOS 3.something and later 5.something. We had a GUI for starting programs called QuickMenu 3. We used PlanPerfect, WordPerfect, played games like Stunts, Gobman, Sitris, Prince of Persia (1, 2 crashed) and Pinball Fantasies. We were even able to run JazzJackrabit 1 on it if we rebooted with a trimmed-down autoexec. Windows 3.1/.11 was slow so we hardly used it. Minesweeper was fun though. My highscore for beginner was 7 seconds.

[iomegajaz]

Originally Posted by Warrior of the Light

We started with a 386 33MHz with 4MB RAM and an orange screen. The HDD was 103 MB.

Pfft™. Noob.

[deeder7001]

I think the first computer I can remember is a Zenith. I think it was an "eazy PC". NEC V40 CPU. Might have been the EZ-3 model. We also had a Tandy 1000 for a while. Also had generic 286 and 386DX PCs as the years progressed.

My dad did have some computer-like thing from RadioShack that hooked up to the TV before the Zenith and Tandy.

[Sabine Klare]

103 MB... That's not very much. We ourselves had started with 1 GB (Windows 95), also not very much, but for the Norns on the other planet it was enough. They had left the eggs and they had grown up.

Also I myself had wished in my childhood and youth, we would have had video games or at least tv games. Many other children and teenagers in my class had them, also their families had movie-projectors and video-recorders. In the cinemas they had a game console, mostly with a Space Game in the style of Star Wars, also in a hotel they had one (but this one had a technical defect). The cinema was the only-one possibility for the teenagers to play at a game console, because in my country children and teenagers are not allowed to enter in an arcade, also not together with the parents. The required minmum age for getting in is 18. Fortunately in the times of today the children and teenagers can play on a computer at home.

I remember, in the seventies my father had a friend in a pub, and on some Sundays we visited the pub, and we played Flipper. I saw there a jukebox the first time, with Singles. Also in Summer 1979 I saw a jukebox in another hotel. I inserted 1 DM, and I had selected the songs. But instead of the favourited artists & songs the wrong Singles with the disliked artists & songs had been played. With Winamp such problems never would have happened, but it was in a time before Winamp.

In the times of today we can select the songs for the playlists. also much better video games are out now. What will we listen and which animations will we let run in the future?...

[sankt]

One of the biggest set backs for Windows is the need to re-think each new version - in lieu of merely fixing bugs in the core architecture. New desktop - new internals etc. Mac and the *nix world work on upgrading and fixing the core systems and allow the user to make adjustments on the Desktop and peripherals. Windows was revolutionary for it's time, but the development road it took got really twisted. Mac and *nix may not be for every one, you may have to learn new tricks - but - I prefer to call the shots in lieu of some one else dictating to me how they feel my computer should provide user functionality.

[Warrior of the Light]

Originally Posted by iomegajaz

Pfft™. Noob.

I know your first system was steam-powered, but I was 7 and it just happened to be the first system my folks bought.
The oldest system I worked with was in school, I know it ran on those small memo-recorder cassettes. After browsing a bit I guess it was a Philips P2000T. It had a game with a plane (or better some triangle thingey) and you had to avoid crashing into the upper and lower wall while the corridor kept getting smaller.

[iomegajaz]

Originally Posted by Warrior of the Light

It had a game with a plane (or better some triangle thingey) and you had to avoid crashing into the upper and lower wall while the corridor kept getting smaller.

Ahhh, that would be Upper Lower Wall Avoidy Corridor Shrinky Triangle Plane, version 1200. A great game for its time. Reminds me of Avoidy Wally Tanky Shooty 'Splosion, on Atari.

Good times. *strokes chin*

[Sabine Klare]

Oh, the Norns on the other planet are still alive...
https://www.google.de/search?q=creat...P_Cn4Q_AUIBigB

Okay, we had also another game, where we had adopted virtual cats. Also I remember City Scope with Berlin from the sky, in a time, before we had internet and before we discovered Google Maps and Google Earth. And we had 3 other software, where we should play with the photos of humans and give them Hair Wigs, glasses, clothes, hats etc., and we did that not only with us ourselves, also with our cats. Suddenly the cats weared the Hair Wigs and glasses...

[Aminifu]

Another article providing a step back in history (http://www.zdnet.com/article/before-...tag=TREc64629f).

Who remembers the Hayes Smartmodem and services like CompuServe, GEnie, and/or Prodigy?

Sometimes it's good to reflect on how far things have come. It helps with our appreciation for what we have now and lessens the current frustrations a little bit.

[iomegajaz]

Originally Posted by sankt

One of the biggest set backs for Windows is the need to re-think each new version - in lieu of merely fixing bugs in the core architecture. New desktop - new internals etc. Mac and the *nix world work on upgrading and fixing the core systems and allow the user to make adjustments on the Desktop and peripherals. Windows was revolutionary for it's time, but the development road it took got really twisted. Mac and *nix may not be for every one, you may have to learn new tricks - but - I prefer to call the shots in lieu of some one else dictating to me how they feel my computer should provide user functionality.

Yar.

If only games were built to work as well (and in such voluminous numbers) on *nix, as they do (and are) on Windows.

Edit: Hmm...