4 ms·

Windows 3.1 Turns 30: Here’s How It Made Windows Essential

23 points by myth_drannon 5y ago

ddingus 5y ago
3.1 and 3.11 for Workgroups was the first Windows I ran hard, taking some advantage of the limited ability to run multiple apps at once. For me, prior versions were a curio. Didn't need them. For me, 3.11 was very nice to have CAD, Office, and some basics, like uncompressing files in a DOS window while running CAD, all working together. (Some big archives would take 20 minutes!) My home setup included dialup Internet, both shell and Winsock, just enough to get online and communicating. That was a huge advantage back then! Got DSL the day it was possible. I scored a few gigs actually demonstrating the Internet and doing basic literacy and manufacturing/engineering specific workflows, useful apps, case studies. Would dial up live and show n tell to people wanting a quick look at what they could do, and they came away from it with a glossary, basic roadmap and apps needed to do business. For a short while during that time, I did side work programming and CNC programming, and selling a manufacturing app I had written on a DOS 640k 8088 PC. It was the absolute minimum to build the application, which ran so slowly on that box as to be unusable except for debug and test. Every user I had at the time had a far better experience than I did! But that all funded the fun to come! Each system did. I cobbled together a 386 with 5Mb of RAM running 3.11 Just enough to do most things and a small 40Mb hard disk, just enough to hold Win 3.11 CAD, browser, Office and a few games. That was the machine I developed the literacy courses on and it got me consulting gigs and my first big jump out of manufacturing and into bigger systems capable of running high end CAD and Animation software on SGI machines. Got an Indy for home use the moment I could and that was my primary online computer until the very late 90's. CAD, all the technical computing and most Internet tasks happened on that box, until Wjndows caught up some and I could get a fast Pentium. Yeah, Win 3.1 was the launch point for a lot of good in my life. It is striking me to think about right now. Unexpected memories, PC speaker only sound! That early era, through the 90's was a fun ride! Apple //e, 6502, Color Computer 3 6809, PC XT 8088,AT 386, 486, Pentium 90, 200, 600, Win 98, SGI IRIX 6.2, 6.5, Red Hat 5.2, Mandrake 8.1, 9.0, NT 3.51, Win 2K, Win XP! Total blast!
- HeckFeck 5y ago
  Loved the story, thanks for sharing. That SGI box must've set you back a goodly amount, but worth it to get using IRIX. I've a few memories of 3.x too (none of SGI alas). My experience of Windows 3.1 was retroactive. I began with Windows 98, but my neighbour was given an old Mitac 486 that ran Windows 3.1. My ten year old self initially found it strange that there was no start menu, but I quickly found my way around. It was enough to have fun with the DOS games and the few rudimentary Windows 3.1 games, something called the "funpak" with slapdash clones of arcade classics. Sadly, it never went online. But I upgraded the HDD to a 256MB IDE job that someone else gave me (Quantum Maverick Prodrive, I still remember that). Good times indeed.
  - ddingus 5y ago
    That GUI was probably a good exposure for 10 year old you! The early system diversity was a very good thing. Forced people to understand more about all the parts where a more rote homogeneous environment is not as beneficial. I was in my early 20's running Win 3.1. Actually got to run time share systems via modem and teletype at around 10. Loud, but cool! And I had a few retroactive experiences myself. The most notable one that impacted me was... Using the Tektronix storage tube computers! They had a 6800 running at 1Mhz and a basic OS and BASIC in ROM, with tape and paper tape as primary common storage, and could use disk drives, but I never had the opportunity to do that. Check this out: https://youtu.be/aFfp8JHmFjA https://youtu.be/aFfp8JHmFjA https://youtu.be/dcoL5lT3tbY https://youtu.be/dcoL5lT3tbY 1024x1024 vector storage CRT! In a room with the right kind of dim, indirect lighting, running one of these was super cool! Basically, it worked a lot like a pen plotter for a CRT. One could keep drawing to the screen and the phosphors would keep glowing. Or, refresh to a clean screen. Etch a Sketch is another pretty good analog to understand how it worked. In my case, I would run some CNC programming software off the tape drive, then use paper tape to either store a completed G-code program for a CNC machine and or read one in so it could be modified or maybe just backplotted to understand what the program was going to do and whether that was intended! After a time, I realized I could put other things on the paper tape and later on, understanding paper tape meant having similar fun on a PC some few years later. At one point I had written invaders.com to a tape to read in as a curio for others wanting to experience it. And yes, sadly I have no idea where my small stash of paper tapes ended up. Today, I could make a reader and check them out, or worst case, just read the tape visually! That was no joke. I did that a number of times to edit a program on the shop floor late nights, also using a little hand punch machine to put a few characters on a small piece of tape to be spliced in! Literal, physical patch! https://www.cryptomuseum.com/telex/repair/ https://www.cryptomuseum.com/telex/repair/ Another fun thing was making a physical program loop. One literally taped the ends of the program tape together, checked to make sure it moved smoothly through the reader on the machine, and then have it run the program over and over for production. That CNC machine had no full program storage and literally read the tape in real time as it made parts! This was very late 80's through early 90's. Anyhoo, I really loved the Tek storage tube computers. The one I got to use had the bigger screen, and a joystick input right on the keyboard. Nice analog type, and I forget how many bits of resolution it had. Probably 8. It had a pretty powerful BASIC like language that ran fairly fast and that included sophisticated graphics, math, transforms and other goodies one would need for graphical, technical computing. https://w140.com/tekwiki/wiki/4051 https://w140.com/tekwiki/wiki/4051 http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/tektronix/405x/ http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/tektronix/405x/ One thing that struck me was how having a cassette tape type storage (cartridge, not a literal music cassette) and paper tape, was how the main program, or sets of programs were on the tape, and where a user might have a home directory on a mainframe / unix / time share computer, or floppy and or hard disk on a mini or micro computer, user data ended up on paper tapes! My "home" directory, or "data disk" was a cabinet with all these little pop top containers with paper tape in them! Those tapes could hold G-code CNC programs, or "source code" to generate G-code for various machines, BASIC programs, data to be plotted, compute results, each one like a file is to us today. The machines were created in the 70's and I used them late 80's and early 90's. Using these was one of the most fun computing experiences. Was also quite productive and capable too. 8 bit technical computing!
orionblastar 5y ago
I was a PC Specialist when Windows 3.1 and WFW 3.11 came out. We had to convert from Wordperect for DOS, Lotus 123 for DOS, DBase for DOS, etc to MS-Office 4.3 Pro. 1-800-SOFTWARE gave us a discount on bulk MS-Office licenses. Everything copied and pasted between Windows. We had IBM OS/2 2.X holdouts on IBM PS/2 machines. We upgraded them with Kingston RAM and HD expansions and to WFW 3.11 and MS-Office 4.3 Pro. Everyone got a MS-Mouse as well. It was the dawn of Windows and the start of Microsoft dominance against OS/2 and Macintosh.
- ddingus 5y ago
  I think so too. Win + Office was plenty good enough. There was better, but people had to really need it, because this combo was an easy deal, priced right and free for anyone willing to mooch. Interestingly, that same basic GUI on NT 3.51 was the same thing in workstation space. SolidWorks came out in 95, a clear signal that this was all going to happen. And for anyone willing to try back in those days you could new real Computing and engineering.
  - rnd0 5y ago
    1994, I remember being able to get a free copy of DOS 6.22 with the purchase of either a motherboard or new hard drive. I think that's how I got Windows 3.11 too, but I may have gotten that used from a bookstore. I'm not sure.
    - ddingus 5y ago
      I mooched my copy. Bought blanks, went to friends at university and had a music and copy evening. DOS Cane with some Amstrad XT class PC I got at a thrift in 92 ish timeframe.

23 points by myth_drannon 5y ago

3.1 and 3.11 for Workgroups was the first Windows I ran hard, taking some advantage of the limited ability to run multiple apps at once. For me, prior versions were a curio. Didn't need them. For me, 3.11 was very nice to have CAD, Office, and some basics, like uncompressing files in a DOS window while running CAD, all working together. (Some big archives would take 20 minutes!) My home setup included dialup Internet, both shell and Winsock, just enough to get online and communicating. That was a huge advantage back then! Got DSL the day it was possible. I scored a few gigs actually demonstrating the Internet and doing basic literacy and manufacturing/engineering specific workflows, useful apps, case studies. Would dial up live and show n tell to people wanting a quick look at what they could do, and they came away from it with a glossary, basic roadmap and apps needed to do business. For a short while during that time, I did side work programming and CNC programming, and selling a manufacturing app I had written on a DOS 640k 8088 PC. It was the absolute minimum to build the application, which ran so slowly on that box as to be unusable except for debug and test. Every user I had at the time had a far better experience than I did! But that all funded the fun to come! Each system did. I cobbled together a 386 with 5Mb of RAM running 3.11 Just enough to do most things and a small 40Mb hard disk, just enough to hold Win 3.11 CAD, browser, Office and a few games. That was the machine I developed the literacy courses on and it got me consulting gigs and my first big jump out of manufacturing and into bigger systems capable of running high end CAD and Animation software on SGI machines. Got an Indy for home use the moment I could and that was my primary online computer until the very late 90's. CAD, all the technical computing and most Internet tasks happened on that box, until Wjndows caught up some and I could get a fast Pentium. Yeah, Win 3.1 was the launch point for a lot of good in my life. It is striking me to think about right now. Unexpected memories, PC speaker only sound! That early era, through the 90's was a fun ride! Apple //e, 6502, Color Computer 3 6809, PC XT 8088,AT 386, 486, Pentium 90, 200, 600, Win 98, SGI IRIX 6.2, 6.5, Red Hat 5.2, Mandrake 8.1, 9.0, NT 3.51, Win 2K, Win XP! Total blast!

HeckFeck 5y ago
Loved the story, thanks for sharing. That SGI box must've set you back a goodly amount, but worth it to get using IRIX. I've a few memories of 3.x too (none of SGI alas). My experience of Windows 3.1 was retroactive. I began with Windows 98, but my neighbour was given an old Mitac 486 that ran Windows 3.1. My ten year old self initially found it strange that there was no start menu, but I quickly found my way around. It was enough to have fun with the DOS games and the few rudimentary Windows 3.1 games, something called the "funpak" with slapdash clones of arcade classics. Sadly, it never went online. But I upgraded the HDD to a 256MB IDE job that someone else gave me (Quantum Maverick Prodrive, I still remember that). Good times indeed.
- ddingus 5y ago
  That GUI was probably a good exposure for 10 year old you! The early system diversity was a very good thing. Forced people to understand more about all the parts where a more rote homogeneous environment is not as beneficial. I was in my early 20's running Win 3.1. Actually got to run time share systems via modem and teletype at around 10. Loud, but cool! And I had a few retroactive experiences myself. The most notable one that impacted me was... Using the Tektronix storage tube computers! They had a 6800 running at 1Mhz and a basic OS and BASIC in ROM, with tape and paper tape as primary common storage, and could use disk drives, but I never had the opportunity to do that. Check this out: https://youtu.be/aFfp8JHmFjA https://youtu.be/aFfp8JHmFjA https://youtu.be/dcoL5lT3tbY https://youtu.be/dcoL5lT3tbY 1024x1024 vector storage CRT! In a room with the right kind of dim, indirect lighting, running one of these was super cool! Basically, it worked a lot like a pen plotter for a CRT. One could keep drawing to the screen and the phosphors would keep glowing. Or, refresh to a clean screen. Etch a Sketch is another pretty good analog to understand how it worked. In my case, I would run some CNC programming software off the tape drive, then use paper tape to either store a completed G-code program for a CNC machine and or read one in so it could be modified or maybe just backplotted to understand what the program was going to do and whether that was intended! After a time, I realized I could put other things on the paper tape and later on, understanding paper tape meant having similar fun on a PC some few years later. At one point I had written invaders.com to a tape to read in as a curio for others wanting to experience it. And yes, sadly I have no idea where my small stash of paper tapes ended up. Today, I could make a reader and check them out, or worst case, just read the tape visually! That was no joke. I did that a number of times to edit a program on the shop floor late nights, also using a little hand punch machine to put a few characters on a small piece of tape to be spliced in! Literal, physical patch! https://www.cryptomuseum.com/telex/repair/ https://www.cryptomuseum.com/telex/repair/ Another fun thing was making a physical program loop. One literally taped the ends of the program tape together, checked to make sure it moved smoothly through the reader on the machine, and then have it run the program over and over for production. That CNC machine had no full program storage and literally read the tape in real time as it made parts! This was very late 80's through early 90's. Anyhoo, I really loved the Tek storage tube computers. The one I got to use had the bigger screen, and a joystick input right on the keyboard. Nice analog type, and I forget how many bits of resolution it had. Probably 8. It had a pretty powerful BASIC like language that ran fairly fast and that included sophisticated graphics, math, transforms and other goodies one would need for graphical, technical computing. https://w140.com/tekwiki/wiki/4051 https://w140.com/tekwiki/wiki/4051 http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/tektronix/405x/ http://bitsavers.trailing-edge.com/pdf/tektronix/405x/ One thing that struck me was how having a cassette tape type storage (cartridge, not a literal music cassette) and paper tape, was how the main program, or sets of programs were on the tape, and where a user might have a home directory on a mainframe / unix / time share computer, or floppy and or hard disk on a mini or micro computer, user data ended up on paper tapes! My "home" directory, or "data disk" was a cabinet with all these little pop top containers with paper tape in them! Those tapes could hold G-code CNC programs, or "source code" to generate G-code for various machines, BASIC programs, data to be plotted, compute results, each one like a file is to us today. The machines were created in the 70's and I used them late 80's and early 90's. Using these was one of the most fun computing experiences. Was also quite productive and capable too. 8 bit technical computing!

orionblastar 5y ago

I was a PC Specialist when Windows 3.1 and WFW 3.11 came out. We had to convert from Wordperect for DOS, Lotus 123 for DOS, DBase for DOS, etc to MS-Office 4.3 Pro. 1-800-SOFTWARE gave us a discount on bulk MS-Office licenses. Everything copied and pasted between Windows. We had IBM OS/2 2.X holdouts on IBM PS/2 machines. We upgraded them with Kingston RAM and HD expansions and to WFW 3.11 and MS-Office 4.3 Pro. Everyone got a MS-Mouse as well. It was the dawn of Windows and the start of Microsoft dominance against OS/2 and Macintosh.

ddingus 5y ago
I think so too. Win + Office was plenty good enough. There was better, but people had to really need it, because this combo was an easy deal, priced right and free for anyone willing to mooch. Interestingly, that same basic GUI on NT 3.51 was the same thing in workstation space. SolidWorks came out in 95, a clear signal that this was all going to happen. And for anyone willing to try back in those days you could new real Computing and engineering.
- rnd0 5y ago
  1994, I remember being able to get a free copy of DOS 6.22 with the purchase of either a motherboard or new hard drive. I think that's how I got Windows 3.11 too, but I may have gotten that used from a bookstore. I'm not sure.
  - ddingus 5y ago
    I mooched my copy. Bought blanks, went to friends at university and had a music and copy evening. DOS Cane with some Amstrad XT class PC I got at a thrift in 92 ish timeframe.