Gallery: Windows 95 - 15 years after

From Windows 3.1 (I think) to Windows 95, what a great leap that one was: Gallery: Windows 95 - 15 years after

I remember Windows 1.0, but was not impressed. And 2.0 was not any better and OS/2 getting my serious attention. Windows 3.0 was the first I thought had potential, but it was not until 3.11 (Windows for workgroups) that I was convinced Windows was worth it.

I've still got customers running Windows for Workgroups 3.11…. ( but that's nothing out of the ordinary, some are still refusing to move to Windows at all..they much prefer DOS… I have just been working on a Toshiba laptop running WFWG 3.11..its a "mighty" machine….. with a 500 MB hard drive and a full 16Mb of Ram ( I updated it from the original 8Mb)……many folks would think it must be incredibly slow, but running the software of the time its just fine…… Boots up to the WFWG in about 20 to 30 seconds…….. Opens MS Word 10 seconds later Its quicker in these times than almost everything "modern and up to date" that comes into the shop…..come to think of it it prints a lot quicker as well…… via DOS ! The person uses it for mainly MS Office applications (so Word, and Excel) and it does everything they want it to …. I expect the 486 processor (75Mhz) helps it along !

I worked for IBM on OS/2 from 1993 to 2000, in Boca Raton Fl then later in Austin Tx. It was a great OS, with a far superior user interface, file system and reliability than Windows, but IBM never could figure out how to market or support it successfully.

Amazingly enough, there are still quite a few business, including some Super Markets and ATM machines still running OS/2 Warp 4. There is still an active OS2UG too: http://www.os2world.com/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,93/

I worked in support on OS/2 fixpacks which are the predecessor to MS's Windows Updates. I designed and wrote the entire interface in in VisiPro Rexx backed by some web pages stored in Boulder Colorado that customers connected to to download fixpaks from. Install was fully automated though the UI was ugly. Had a lot of fun with it.

Its good to know that some folks are really getting their money's worth from their old OS or software..!
I Had a customer a little while ago who had all their letters/invioices for the last 20 or more years for their business on a Word processing application called Topcopy from TopLevel Computing Ltd….they wanted me to convert everything to MS Word….. all the usual tricks failed and eventually I found in my "software archive" (other wise known as the back of my garden shed)…a version of TopCopy Plus that hadn't seen the light of day for many a long year.
I fired it up on a test machine and it opened the Topcopy files (.tcd) on about 800 floppy discs just fine….. it must be a fine piece of software as it won the "Which Computer" 1988 award for "Best Buy"….
the trouble is… the system requirements specify something quite powerful…..

MSDOS or PCDOS 2.0 or later and an IBM Compatible personal computer XT or AT with a single floppy, dual floppy,

or heavens above one of those new fangled hard drives!

I worked for IBM on OS/2 from 1993 to 2000

When I got out of the AF and started working for Sterling Software (later acquired by Northrop Grumman IT), we were contracted by the State of Nebraska to set up distributed computing to the 93 counties from the IBM mainframe in Lincoln. 800 OS/2 nodes scattered across the state and you are right - very stable platform.

but IBM never could figure out how to market or support it successfully.

What's funny is OS/2 was initially developed as a joint venture between IBM and Microsoft. Obviously, Microsoft put their marketing team's focus elsewhere.

Bill Gates was a far better businessman (and cheat and liar and ….) than IBM, but it resulted eventually in Windows 7 which makes me happy ….