Windows 1.0
Microsoft Windows 1.0 is an application developed by company Microsoft graphical user interface. It should encourage the use of the MS -DOS operating system, and unify the appearance of application programs and facilitate the use of peripherals such as printers and displays for the user. For the November 10, 1983 by Bill Gates in New York officially announced product, to which 24 software developers had worked for three years, was announced the delivery of the retail version after a long delay, on 20 November 1985. The following day, the product was officially launched at a press conference.
Microsoft Windows 1.0 was hardly popular with the users since expensive for a meaningful use of hardware components such as mouse, hard disk, memory expansion, and color graphics card were needed. In addition, there were few applications that were specifically tailored to the capabilities of Windows. However, as it contained many features of the successful versions from 1990 Microsoft Windows 3.0 and Microsoft Windows 3.1.
- 2.1 Compatibility with DOS applications
- 2.2 Scope of delivery
History of development
Until the mid- 1980s, the first graphical user interfaces for personal computers appeared ( the Apple Macintosh was released in 1984, others 1985 or a little later ), computers were almost exclusively with command commands served, whose command syntax had to be adhered to, and training required. Intuitive work was thus not possible.
Most graphical user interfaces more or less are strongly oriented at Xerox Alto, the first computer with a surface of this kind These surfaces allow a user to manage files with a mouse click to launch programs and to create files without notice for an exact string need to. Data, applications, resources, and parts of the computer system, such as the Control Panel are represented as objects (in the form of visual symbols or as clickable list items ) and work with them is done by context or selection menu by buttons and other graphic elements or by directly clicking on an icon with the mouse.
Development of Windows 1.0
In September 1981, one month after the delivery of PC-DOS 1.0 by IBM, work began on the project Interface Manager, which form an intermediate layer between MS -DOS and the application programs and facilitate the use of the printers and the monitor connected to the computer should. The Interface Manager should be hardware independent, working in graphics mode, provide support for WYSIWYG and unify the appearance of the application programs. The Manager magazine wrote in 2005 in a historical review, and surface system should be woven into an operating system to ensure that all users were system dependent, which decided on the surface. Originally an alphabetical list of commands at the bottom of the screen was planned as in the published in August 1982 Microsoft Multiplan. Under the impression of the graphical user interface of the Xerox Stars and Apple's Lisa was 1982, the decision to use pull- down menus and dialog boxes, and to enable the display of multiple documents in different windows. A mouse as the input device should be used.
After the company VisiCorp had presented their product Visi On the fall of 1982 at COMDEX, with the scheduled Microsoft product very similar externally in the opinion of Charles Simonyi, Bill Gates made in January 1983 first hints about the evolution of the interface manager. In May 1983, the person responsible for the product manager Jeff Raikes suggested the name Microsoft desktop, but could not prevail. Since the developers were always talking of windows, the PR manager created the simpler name "Windows ".
After the start of the delivery of Visi On in October 1983 and the announcement by IBM to want to develop something with TopView also the interface corresponding Manager, Microsoft was forced, with their own product development to go public. On November 10, 1983 Bill Gates announced in New York to develop a graphical user interface for MS- DOS, which would be by the end of 1984 to more than 90 percent of all MS- DOS computers in use. The delivery date of Windows 1.0, however, had several times to move, which earned a reputation as a so-called vaporware product and by which suffered from the reputation of the company Microsoft. The developers had problems with the performance of the Intel 8088 processor. Windows has taken too much space and was too slow. With the multitasking windowing environment DESQview; Top View ( January 1985) IBM and the graphical user interface GEM ( February 1985) from Digital Research ( July 1985 predecessor DESQ, -May 1984, virtually meaningless ) Quarterdeck, published by Visi On, meanwhile, more competitive products. After the restructuring of the company Microsoft in August 1984 Neil Konzen was given responsibility for the user interface. He defined a number of internal routines of Windows to facilitate adaptation of Macintosh applications to Windows. To demonstrate the power of Windows, along the lines of Apple applications programs Write and Paint have been developed. Under the direction of Tandy Trower came other aids such as calendars, calculators, card manager, the clock and the game Reversi. On the COMDEX in May 1985 and Windows has been presented to the public. Windows could now use both a mouse and keyboard, and it supported the tactics deployed by IBM's TopView PIF files. On June 28, 1985 Microsoft shipped from a first test version for software developers and computer manufacturers.
The final released version 1.01 was presented on 21 November 1985 at a press conference. The delivery of the retail version had been a day earlier announced. 85 percent of the source code were written in the C programming language. Only critical parts of the program were implemented in assembly language. 24 programmers had 110,000 hours required to develop the first version of Windows. The programmers were also testing and documentation teams to the side. During the three -year development period, there were a total of four product managers and three head of development. In May 1986, followed by the European in the main languages , including German, localized version 1.02. The versions of 1:03 ( August 1986 ) and 1:04 ( April 1987) contained only minor improvements, bug fixes and updated device drivers. Windows has been listed in the price lists of dealers under the utility and cost in December 1986, about 340 DM
Functions
After executing the WIN.COM file on the DOS command line Windows starts with the desktop and the program MS-DOS window, a comparable roughly with the later work file manager. It allows the users, for example, to copy without knowing the exact syntax of the MS- DOS commands, files, create directories or to boot into DOS and Windows programs. Active programs were represented at the bottom of the screen as icons. Microsoft called it in this version symbols. Using the Control Panel, it was possible to customize certain features of Windows to the preferences of a user. So the colors used or the blink rate of the cursor could be set. Thanks to the included print spooler was the expression of files while working with Windows in the background. The clipboard allowing the exchange of data between Windows programs. With the system terminal program it was possible to communicate using a null modem cable to other computers.
Compatibility with DOS applications
Since there was hardly any Windows programs that users had to resort to their usual DOS programs. Although this can also be used on Windows, but without the advantages of the graphical user interface with its central graphic and driver management. With the PIF editor, these applications can be configured in Windows for work, such as the use of memory or peripheral devices (see figure below ).
DOS applications that only use DOS system calls (Microsoft calls them " cooperative programs ") can be started in a " DOS box ", a window under Windows. Thus, the demand for memory because DOS programs are loaded in addition to Windows in the memory.
Scope of delivery
The scope of MS -write approximately the for the Macintosh developed by Microsoft Microsoft Word and led for the first time on the PC marked with the file extension. DOC file format of Word a. MS Paint was comparable applications equal and allowed as this only black and white drawings. Windows also contained a computer game Reversi and various utilities that represent things that are typically found on a desk: a calculator, a calendar, a notepad, a flashcards management, as well as a clock.
Furthermore, were included with Windows device driver for a total of 19 printer models from Epson, IBM, Okidata, NEC, C. Itoh, Star, Toshiba, TI and HP. Windows supported memory expansion cards after the LIM EMS standard with which the DOS was limited to 640 Kbytes memory could be expanded to several megabytes. Part of the installation were PIF files with the default configurations for the then popular DOS applications and an editor for editing these configuration files.
The contents of the installation floppy was categorized in contrast to many other operating systems and later Windows versions, according to function. The six 5.25-inch diskettes are called WIN1, WIN2, ANWENDGN, FONTS, HILFSPRG and WRITEPRG ( Version 1.03 ). All installation files are uncompressed.
System
The minimum requirements for the installation of the delivered five 5.25- inch floppy Windows 1:01 were a with a 8088 - CPU -equipped Intel computer that had 256 KB of RAM and two drives, one of which must have a floppy disk drive, and the operating System MS -DOS 2.x or higher. Available at the time of market launch, the network-enabled MS -DOS version 3.1, which was delivered since November 1984. Windows supports the Hercules graphics cards, as well as the CGA and EGA standards.
Windows support in these versions, not all mentioned specifications complete. For example, MS- DOS is only in a later version fully supports ( version 3.2 ) and the CGA standard only black and white is supported.
Resonance
When Windows was released in late 1985, there were on the market four products for IBM-compatible PC, which had a similar level of functions:
- Under Visi On the company VisiCorp only specially programmed for this application applications could run. For the development of a VAX or DEC minicomputer was needed, which were very expensive at about $ 20,000. Therefore, the users were only developed by the company itself VisiCorp word processing, spreadsheet and graphics program. For the operation of Visi On an equally expensive hard drive was required. For these reasons, the sales figures of Visi On was disappointing for the company VisiCorp, which had invested $ 10 million in the product. She had to adjust their business eventually.
- Quarterdeck DESQview, simultaneously several DOS programs could be carried out with the, indeed was the most successful multitasking environment for DOS, but has been largely supplanted by the early 90s by Windows.
- IBM's TopView was no graphical user interface, but used the text mode. TopView could run DOS programs, but only specially developed for TopView applications could be run simultaneously and allowed to exchange data using copy and paste.
- GEM from Digital Research could only run one application, but leaned heavily on developed by Xerox PARC graphical user interface and offered, for example, overlapping windows, the first introduced with Microsoft Windows 2.x.
A survey of the magazine InfoWorld in December 1985 revealed that those responsible would prefer Windows products GEM or TopView in the companies for data processing, but wanted to wait for better integration capabilities. In everyday operation, Windows proved to be too slow. The data required for meaningful use hardware disk, memory card expansion, mouse, color graphics card were at that time still very expensive and therefore widely bit. Only a few manufacturers of IBM compatible PCs delivered from Windows with their products. There was virtually no specially adapted to the capabilities of Windows applications. The first non -Microsoft Windows application was developed by Paul Grayson from the company Micrografx and was the sign program In-A -Vision. The necessary for the development of Windows applications software development kit consisted of seven disks. It contained a special version of the Microsoft C compiler, other auxiliary applications and an approximately 1000 -page documentation of the Windows APIs, and many programmers was too complicated. It was only in December 1986, appeared with the DTP software Aldus PageMaker of the first major application for Windows. Due to the small number of Windows PageMaker was sold with a special runtime environment of Windows. End of October 1987, Microsoft released Excel 2.0, the first own specially adapted to Windows application program. It seemed to coincide with Windows 2.0 and put a computer with an Intel 80286 processor ahead.
Journalist Jim Seymour (1942-2002) judged Windows shortly after its publication in the magazine PC Week as follows:
"I 'm a fan of Windows, not because of the features that it offers today, but because of the role that it will play for sure one day. [ ... ] In my opinion, the programmers who do not ensure new products compatibility with Windows and create new versions of Windows successfully existing products, not in his senses. "