Microsoft Windows Turns 40 | Hacker News Reader

Microsoft Windows Turns 40

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27 pointslsllc20 comments

I have to hand it to them, I’m impressed. And annoyed.

Many years ago I made a bet that Windows as we knew it wouldn’t make it to 50. That they would decide to go the UNIX route and compete directly with Apple and Linux, but allowing the windows ecosystem to be a backstop for software that hadn’t been ported yet.

Instead, the opposite. I absolutely didn’t foresee things like WSL.

Microsoft accomplished the thing that a quarter century of FOSS evangelism couldn't manage: bringing Linux to the desktop.

Hey, if Android counts as a win for Linux (which it doesn't, not really), running as a subsystem firmly under Windows' thumb surely has to count too.

As someone who has been working as a systems engineer with both Windows and Linux/UNIX for about 25 years now, I would not consider UNIX to be superior a priori.

Both philosophies have their merits.

And I think Linux‘ strongest selling point was and is being free. And I mean free as in beer.

Yeah, Linux came in at a time when companies were paying big for Solaris and other Unix and its primary advantage was being free replacement. For long it wasn't technically better than Solaris other than being on x86.

I‘m sure you‘ll find people who will say it’s still not better ;)

To be fair, Windows 1.0 was unusable. Windows 2.1 was "almost there," as was Windows/286. I think we should list the "birth of windows" as happening somewhere around 1990 when Windows 3.0 escaped from Redmond.

I will give MSFT credit. With the exception of ME, Vista and Windows 8, every version of Windows was a noticeable improvement upon the last.

Even as a Unix(tm) admin, I would even argue Server 2008 was not crap.

That's quite a controversial statement, claiming that even Windows 11 was a noticeable improvement upon the last. Care to elaborate?

Windows 11 and Windows 10 are the same OS.

Tbh, until windows xp or 7, it is a struggle to support.

But some of my users really like windows 98.

And for server, those click click click and try to remember what have you set or repeat it, give me unix (not linux for large firm. Even red hat is a hard sell … we use hp or aix) any time. I still wonder in the last few year I watch my team to maintain these windows server. Some issues… good luck I would say deep in my heart, but put up a brave face as management and tried my best pretending it is not that hard to diagnostic and fix.

Well, even the 3.0/3.1 versions worked under direct supervision of MS-DOS and Windows wasn't a true OS on its own. The Windows-95 is what I'd call birth of the "real Windows"!

But not the "real mode windows."

There was already a Windows NT 3.1 (up to 3.51) for which this was already not the case anymore.

From a technical point of view it has to be said that todays Windows NT variants, starting in consumer-land with Windows XP, have not much in common with their DOS based predecessors up to Windows Me.

So one could argue the Windows we use today is in fact a bit younger, not much though.

What they say. From outside it may be 40 but on inside still 30.

I used windows NT and 2000, both were super reliable and I don't remember if I got a single Blue Screen on those. Gaming on those was also fine, no issues. Windows ME on the other hand was a burning garbage can and a meme at best. Never understood why they did have those two worlds. And somehow managed to market the shitty product to the masses (windows 98 and ME).

Around the time of Windows 1.0, there were several competing multi-tasking windowing systems that were character based, notably DESQview [0] and TopView [1]. They got a lot of buzz at the time but never really took off.

I worked on a TopView clone (eventually released as Mondrian) for Dynamical Systems Research that had pre-emptive multitasking (years before Windows ever did) and was quite snappy on an 8086 processor running multiple apps. DSR was acquired by Microsoft for the TopView tech, but the big payoff for them was Nathan Myhrvold [2], who went on to become CTO, and David Weise, who figured out how to get Windows to run in protected mode [3], really launching Windows as a usable product (and ultimately inaugurating the split from IBM over OS/2).

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DESQview [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_TopView [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nathan_Myhrvold [3] https://www.wincustomize.com/article/63898/david-weise-the-m...

You plan a baby does not give birth to it.

May I quote “ The first version of Windows was released on November 20, 1985, as a graphical operating system shell for MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces (GUIs).”

Quite strongly remember it is not 1983, as I have to do an analysis of this and report them not that useful. By the time it reached us it is already late 1980s. Can’t that so long to reach us. The tile based approach is no good, as my recommendation went.

Windows is a ship of Theseus situation. I would imagine there is no Win 1.0 cruft in 11.

> Windows is a ship of Theseus situation. I would imagine there is no Win 1.0 cruft in 11.

The colors and window borders are really close to Win 1.0

And what does it have to show for it? WLS and ads.

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