Windows 1.0 users recall their experiences
Microsoft released the very first version of Windows nearly 25 years ago, but the chances are you don't remember it. We talk to some Windows 1.0 users who recall their experiences.
Guy Gilbert, a Microsoft group product manager, first encountered Windows in the early 1990s, and used it to run Excel and some presentation software.
Switching between Windows and more rudimentary systems was frustrating, Gilbert says.
"It was still a world where you did part of your work in Windows and there was still a good chunk of your work you were doing on the mainframe," he says. "I was an analyst at Exxon Mobil in the early '90s, spending a lot of time with Excel, which was great, and then you had to go back to their proprietary email system which was on a mainframe, which was really horrible. Things like attaching a document were so horrible compared to the graphical user interface [of Windows]," he says.
Despite joking about his first encounter with Windows, Bryan says he was impressed.
"I was impressed because I had been using all text interfaces. It's a pretty big change, to go from having to type everything in to point and click," he says. "It was a metaphor change, it was a way of interacting with computers in a much different way."
Windows was particularly helpful to those who might be called computer-illiterate.
"It made it accessible for a lot more people," Bryan says. "I remember buying a [DOS] computer with my family for the small business they had. ... I was excited and telling them about what they could do with the PC and then we turned it on and it comes up with a flashing A prompt. Well what do we do now?
"It's so intimidating to start off at a command prompt, with just like a blank screen and a blinking cursor with an A, and people have no idea what to do. They're just like 'I guess we turn it off now.'
"But with Windows you click over here and you're in the program. ... It definitely was a revolutionary change in terms of the experiences people had and the accessibility it brought to so many more people."
See also: The nine best free Windows 7 downloads
- Windows 1.0 users recall their experiences
- Excitement over Windows 3.0
- Switching between systems was frustrating
Comments
cakeboy said: i remember windows 286lol
Paul said: My first Pc was a 386SX26 it did not even come with dos I got a copy of DRDOS as a freebie from my brother who was in the IT industry This was followed by OS2 amp OS3 Warp which to be honest I preffered to Windows 31 amp 311 Windows really came of age with Windows 95 amp improved with Windows 98 Milenium was a nightmare repeated again with Vista But Windows 2000 amp then XP were based on NT hence the corporate amp business adoption Windows 7 has yet to offer something they dont have already hence the home amp new market is really driving Windows 7 Companies with 500 PCs just cannot afford the cost to upgrade
Barry James, said: Both Borenstein and this article entirley miss the point Market DominanceMicrosoft achieved this with DOS and parleyed that into a similar position for GUIs and later Browsers It helps to be GoliathI was around at the time and remember how pathetic Windows was - the first usable version was 311 IIRCBut that hardly matters if you can hold of the competition long enough to hang on to critical massWould that persistence and excellence were the deciding factors