Happy Birthday Windows

For many people, Windows 3.0 will be the first graphical user interface (GUI) based operating system they ever saw. While Windows 1 and 2 were available, they failed to properly displace the MSDOS command prompt, which was the most common way of controlling your computer in the early days of the PC, and it was Windows 3.0, followed by 3.1, that really heralded the start of graphical computing for the home and business user. With all the versions of Windows we’ve had the ‘pleasure’ of enjoying since 3.0, it’s hard to believe that it was only 20 years ago since it was released, but in technological terms it might as well have been the last ice age.

In the last 20 years we’ve seen the PCs memory grow from 1-2 MB to 3-4 GB, 1000 times greater, with similar increases in processor speed, and much greater leaps in hard disk capacity. We’ve gone from Windows needing different software modes to run on different types of processor, which could be very flaky indeed, to a more stable system in Windows 7 that can run on hardware manufactured by thousands of different companies, and with millions of available applications. Indeed the fact that Windows was not tied to hardware made by a single manufacturer has been key to its success and uptake across the world.

If you’re still running Windows 3.0, or 95, 98, Me, 2000, XP or Vista, it really is time for a change.

I am saving up to get Windows 7. I really enjoyed the trial version that I used.

I remember using Digital Research's GEM on the first of the Amstrad PC's back in 1985 which would have been about the same time as Windows V1.0 was coming out

You bring back great memories Alex my first computer was an Amstrad. I believe that CPU was the operating system then, it did not have a hard drive and and software was on cassettes. The first computer I had with a hard drive was an Epson and the hard drive was 20 megabytes. Ah! nostalgia ain't what it used to be. I had the first gui windows and I think that it had 12 or more floppy discs.

My first computer was a commodore 64...

As a mater of fact I still have it. :)

My earliest memory is at High School...1979
An Apple Computer. Someone created a spaceship shooting game.
You had to nominate the angle (degrees). It would take b/w 30secs to a minute for the laser to work it's way from the gun to the Spaceship. Then the program was saved to a cassette.
The following year was at a Tafe college. I think it was "cobol" where you had to use cards to load a program. A boring tedius thing that was.... and so many mistakes !!

Yes Alby, we have certainly come a long long way in such a short time. :cheers1:

I remember my Dad having the Texas Instruments TI-99 back in I think 1981 or 82. hahaha.. wow was that a long time ago!!! :shock:

sanshoe wrote:My first computer was a commodore 64...

As a mater of fact I still have it. :)

You mean it didn't blow up :lol:
I learned on the Vic20, didn't think I'd ever like computers. We were using a program called turtle I think, point and graph type of thing. My wife had a commodore 64 she absolutely loved, and played Mean Streets on it (great game)! We eventually gave it away to nieces and nephews back in the late '90s, when we got word processors and super nintendo and genesis.

startreksuite wrote:

sanshoe wrote:My first computer was a commodore 64...

As a mater of fact I still have it. :)

You mean it didn't blow up :lol:
I learned on the Vic20, didn't think I'd ever like computers. We were using a program called turtle I think, point and graph type of thing. My wife had a commodore 64 she absolutely loved, and played Mean Streets on it (great game)! We eventually gave it away to nieces and nephews back in the late '90s, when we got word processors and super nintendo and genesis.

Nintendo that's my favourite. Started off by winning a NES console pack back in the 80's including R.O.B a little robot that assisted you with a couple of games, Gyromite was one of them.. then went to Super Nintendo then N64 then Game Cube, now the Wii.

Still enjoy playing Nintendo :)

got a nes for my 16th bday, later left with my little brother, got one later at a local consignment shop, didnt really like many of the snes games, loved my n64 and still regret giving it away to my nephew. wii looks cool, may eventually buy when my son gets bigger!

Wow...the memories.
Apple IIe, Vic 20, Commadore 64, IBM PC, IBM PCjr. I ran Windows 3.0 on my first pc that I built. That was a long time ago. I still have the case (somewhere) with beer stickers mostly in tact.