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Windows 1.0 site – everything there is to know about the first Windows version
- FirmwareBurner 3y agoDamn, I forgot how harsh on the eyes the default color scheme/theme was. It's like a road worker's high-vis jacket.
- input_sh 3y agoWell to put it mildly, monitors at the time weren't exactly color accurate.
- TazeTSchnitzel 3y agoIt was also probably a better experience in black-and-white: easier on the eyes and potentially higher-resolution (with a Hercules card for instance).
- bogtog 3y agoIf everything was a bit duller, this scheme wouldn't be too bad? I don't know much about old monitors, but I presume they weren't as bright as what we have nowadays
- anthk 3y agoThey had a much better contrast and brightness.
- jasode 3y ago>default color scheme It wasn't so much a "default" but rather the only colors because graphics hardware of that time period was 4-bit which is limited to 16 colors: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Graphics_Adapter#Color_palette https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_Graphics_Adapter#Color_p...
- p1mrx 3y agoWindows 1 on CGA was 640x200 black and white. EGA was required for 16 colors in graphics mode.
- qwerty456127 3y agoI would guess an UI like this (maybe with some minor tweaks) could make a perfect fit for a lo-fi (in a pragmatic sense - low-distraction, eye-friendly, "dopamine detox" etc) eInk PC.
- peoplefromibiza 3y agoI find it actually pretty cool. Also, on a CRT monitor of the time, it looked much better. https://i.redd.it/lcez4td885e61.jpg https://i.redd.it/lcez4td885e61.jpg Colors were much less saturated back then.
- Narishma 3y agoIt looked much better on contemporary monitors than it does on modern ones.
- pointlessone 3y agoIt doesn’t look like there’s a lot to know… I mean, Wikipedia article has a screenshot at least.
- iam-TJ 3y agoApricot Xen (not IBM PC/AT compatible) used Windows 1.0, 80286@7.5MHz, and had a paper-white monitor - was fantastic to use. Windows performed really well on it.
- twoodfin 3y agoManaged to find a brochure! https://classic.technology/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/ApricotXEN.pdf https://classic.technology/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Aprico...
- a1o 3y agoThat's a beautiful machine! The ball roll for mouse, the phone that fits the keyboard. Amazing aesthetics.
- pavlov 3y agoAlso the pixel art Apricot logo. Very nice. It almost feels like this is not an actual company or product, but a convincing retro design created by a designer today. I know Apricot was real, but something about it feels like it’s winking ironically, in a “what if this had taken off” kind of way. Imagine the pixel art Apricot on the back of a 2006 smartphone in that alternate universe. (Steve Jobs never went back to Apple and instead Apricot teamed up with ARM and Psion to create the Jesus Phone, turning Britain into the new Silicon Valley…)
- rasz 3y agoRelease date October 1985 and it already had 1.44MB HD floppy :o
- NikkiA 3y agoThey were 720k not 1.44MB. I don't think apricot released anything with a 1.44MB before they gave up on the PC market.
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- Lex-2008 3y agoAlso worth noting that you can run Windows 1.0 in the browser: https://archive.org/details/windows-1-0 https://archive.org/details/windows-1-0
- zabzonk 3y agoi never used win1 - did anyone? i did use win2, because at the BBC all our horrible Apricot IBM-compatibles (hollow laugh regarding compatibility) came with it installed. what we used it for was playing the othello game, and that alone. basically, win3 was the first useable version of windows, and the one that got me into windows programming. and say what you like about MS, they do tend to stick with things once they get started,
- jasode 3y ago>i never used win1 - did anyone? i did use win2, Some users were exposed to the early versions of Windows 1.0 and 2.0 because they were "bundled as runtimes" for some applications. Aldus Pagemaker was an example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_PageMaker#:~:text=Aldus%20Pagemaker%202.0%20was%20released,the%20application%20from%20MS%2DDOS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_PageMaker#:~:text=Aldus%.... So consumers weren't necessarily going out of their way to buy Windows 1.0 as a separate item and then later installing apps on it. This was also similar to how a competing GUI like Digital Research GEM was distributed where people didn't make it a deliberate purchase. Instead, Ventura Publisher included it as a runtime: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corel_Ventura#:~:text=It%20ran%20under%20an%20included%20run%2Dtime%20copy%20of%20Digital%20Research%27s%20GEM.%5B1%5D https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corel_Ventura#:~:text=It%20ran...
- NikkiA 3y agoTimeworks was the one that I was forced to use GEM for, I loved GEM on ST, but the PC version was awful after the lawsuit.
- fortran77 3y agoYes. The first versionI used Windows 1.03 It wasn't until Windows 3 that I used Windows most of the time.
- rwmj 3y agoYup, used Windows 1.0. At the time the technology seemed space age to me. You could run two COMMAND.COM windows side by side! (Just don't try running any DOS applications, that didn't work so well). I also remember Windows 2.0 being a major breakthrough because it allowed overlapping windows!
- beardyw 3y agoWow, yes, I remember not having a mouse. Someone in the office had an expansion board which would add one, which I borrowed. Then I wanted a graphics program, but it was really hard to find one. Wish I could remember what I used.
- a1o 3y agoThere's a lot of things there that looks like they should be links but clicking goes nowhere. Like when it mentions available versions, clicking on the versions does nothing for me. :/
- kyledrake 3y agoCool site. I was surprised to learn that Gabe Newell was one of the people that worked on the first version of windows.
- qwerty456127 3y agoVery cool. Nevertheless I have an idea of how to make it even more cool: Having already built the UI we can now enjoy, it should be reasonably easy to imitate a whole Windows 1.0 environment, also all/some essential bundled apps and make what's already there just an app among them.
- Kwpolska 3y agoThis site seems devoid of actually useful content, and there doesn't seem to be a single screenshot. A better resource might be BetaWiki: https://betawiki.net/wiki/Windows_1.0 https://betawiki.net/wiki/Windows_1.0
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- bluesounddirect 3y agohttps://web.archive.org/web/20240310130612/https://win1.krnl386.com/ https://web.archive.org/web/20240310130612/https://win1.krnl...
- udkl 3y ago> Users could still run DOS programs under Windows 1.0, many of them even in a window, > many of them even in a window I think I now understand the possible historical reason why the OS was named 'windows' - I used to think the windows name was related to 'a window into a new world', esp considering the scenic Win XP default wallpaper and 'Vista'
- tgma 3y agoWindows did not invent the concept. "Window Systems" predated Windows by quite a bit and applications ran in "windows". Quite obviously the name was not originally coined by Microsoft.
- tgma 3y agoThis shows Steve Jobs was not exaggerating to claim personal computers wouldn't have had proportionally-spaced fonts had it not been for the Mac. Windows 1.0 and 2.0 font was a horrendous-looking fixed-width thing.
- LocalH 3y agoWindows 1.0 had proportional fonts available for use, open up Write and go ham. Also, the Amiga independently has proportional font support. You can't say computers would "never" have had them if it weren't for the Mac
- Koshkin 3y agoNumber of developers: 2