If Windows 3.11 required a 32-bit CPU, why was it called a 16-bit OS?

blogs.msdn.com

21 points·scw··7 comments

Every time I read about compatibility layers, I flash back to this passage:

Toilets in modern water closets rise up from the floor like white water lilies. The architect does all he can to make the body forget how paltry it is, and to make man ignore what happens to his intestinal wastes after the water from the tank flushes them down into the drain. Even though the sewer pipelines reach far into our houses with their tentacles they are carefully hidden from view, and we are happily ignorant of the invisible Venice of shit underlying our bathrooms, bedrooms, dance halls, and parliaments.

Eh. Milan Kundera, going on to "And as she voided her bowels, Tereza was overcome by a feeling of infinite grief and loneliness. Nothing could be more miserable than her naked body perched on the enlarged end of a sewer pipe.”

Although today Google gives Philip K. Dick running a close 4th.

I take it you haven't seen a German toilet. A small kink in the porcelain forms a delicate watery bowl holding your offering, so that you can examine it before committing it to the underworld.

That probably explains a lot.

Eponysterical!

It was actually a 2-bit os.

/rimshot

I rather enjoyed Windows 3.11

I actually ran win32s (!) for a bit. Needed it for a PCB layout program, and couldn't swing NT at the time.

It was a joke! Why all the downvotes?

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