7 ms·
I was part of a Windows system install in 1993 for a mid-sized corporation. At that time, Windows 3.11 was wonderful. People were amazed by it. There were no wr
by 16s 13y ago
I was part of a Windows system install in 1993 for a mid-sized corporation. At that time, Windows 3.11 was wonderful. People were amazed by it. There were no writable CDs back then (floppies ruled), but it was being researched and people were excited about the huge storage potential. Things have changed a lot since that time, but some things have stayed the same (red black trees are still red black trees). MicroSoft is still a heck of a systems programming shop, but back then, they were God.
The Linux name change is a fitting tribute to Windows system programmers everywhere.
- spudlyo 13y agoAlthough Windows for Workgroups was largely considered a joke (Windows for Warehouses) I also remember it being pretty wonderful. It brought to Windows all the SMB stuff that I enjoyed from OS2 as well as an actual built-in TCP/IP stack. I was happy to ditch WinSock.
- tnuc 13y agoFrom the depths of my bad memory; To get TCP/IP in windows 3.11 you needed an extra disc to load up their winsock version. And it was a shitload better than anything else available at the time.
- fsckin 13y agoAre you thinking of Trumpet Winsock? ISPs bundled it along with their software and never paid the original author a dime.
- mhurron 13y agoI thought at first they were talking about that myself, but it seems that there was a separate winsock client released by Microsoft for 3.11 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_3.1x#Windows_for_Workgroups_3.11 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_3.1x#Windows_for_Workgr... Also, for your historical needs http://www.trumpet.com.au/index.php/downloads.html http://www.trumpet.com.au/index.php/downloads.html
- nknighthb 13y agoIndeed. In the early 90s, it wasn't necessarily obvious that everybody needed a TCP/IP stack. "The Internet" was still essentially academic, and something the average person didn't really know anything about. Small PC LANs typically ran on some combination of IPX/SPX and NetBIOS. 3.11 laid the foundations for modular Windows networking, but included TCP/IP support was two years away in Windows 95, and even then it still wasn't installed by default(!). Microsoft took a while to catch on.
- jasomill 13y agoThe Microsoft TCP/IP stack didn't include dial-up support until Windows 95, though, so it was useless for the vast majority of home users.
- pjmlp 13y agoOn those days home users were lucky if they had at least a BBS to connect to!
- josephscott 13y agoI worked for a placed that used the Reflections TCP/IP stack on Windows 3.x. I recall it working fairly well for that era.
- pbsdp 13y agoAs a Mac user at the time, the love for Windows 3.11 left me scratching my head something fierce. By comparison to System 7.1+, Windows 3.11 was awwwwful. Of course, around that time you could also run an Irix desktop, complete with Photoshop and SoftPC and even (later on) IE, but that was sadly beyond the reach of most consumers.
- SwellJoe 13y agoOne word: Networking. Mac OS and Windows were awful at networking at that time (and Mac OS remained awful at network for some time beyond this point). UNIX variants, OS/2, and the BSDs were the options at the time for decent networking...Mac OS wasn't in the running.
- wmf 13y agoOTOH, in those days classic Mac OS was quite popular as an Internet server running WebStar and AIMS.
- pbsdp 13y agoMacTCP was acceptable, but certainly didnt stack up against the UNIX variants.
- __david__ 13y agoNot sure why you would say this. My first job was running phone lines through the lowered ceiling to hook up localtalk for the Macs. It worked wonderfully. Even back then Apple was very auto-configure-y which made finding printers and file servers very easy. Just go into Chooser and there they all were. IP over localtalk was not difficult either. After a couple years it moved to ethernet (coax, yay!) and that worked fine too. Networking Macs has always been extremely easy.
- fzzzy 13y agoI agree. The Mac was great at networking in 1993. Sure, MacTCP and MacPPP may have had strange configuration UI but localtalk and ethertalk Just Worked, and getting MacTCP and MacPPP working wasn't too hard.
- yuhong 13y agoPersonally, I don't think it was all that wonderful, particularly when WfW 3.11 required a 386 anyway. This is part of why I hate the MS OS/2 2.0 fiasco quite a lot.
- HNJohnC 13y agoThank you for not making me feel like such an oldtimer here. As soon as I saw the name I thought "I bet I'm the only one who remembers it". windows 3.11 aka "windows for warehouses" was actually pretty nifty and in a prior life I installed it at many small businesses who took full advantage of it's built in network mail client and many other very useful features. It absolutely killed Lantastic which, at the time was pretty much pervasive in small businesses. Also at about the same time we replaced a lot of Arcnet and Token ring networks with UTP ethernet which I would have been amazed back then to hear would still be widely in use in 2013.
- sokoloff 13y agoYou might equally amazed that we're STILL running TokenRing on part of our manufacturing floor. Today.
- erichurkman 13y agoI've not yet been to the Computer History Museum. How is it? That's pretty cool that they have a TokenRing network set up!
- HNJohnC 13y agoI am amazed. I just did a quick search and couldn't find any token ring network cards for sale, you guys must be hoarding them to keep it all running.
- hristov 13y agoIt is not a tribute. It is obviously a sarcastic joke cued by the coinciding version numbers. I am not sure how good Microsoft was at systems programming at the time, but I guarantee you Linus has very little regard for Microsoft's systems or any other type of programming acumen and is not about to start making tributes to Microsoft.
- shadowfox 13y ago> Linus has very little regard for Microsoft's systems or any other type of programming acumen Perhaps true. On the other hand: http://www.osnews.com/story/21887/Linus_Microsoft_Hatred_Is_a_Disease_ http://www.osnews.com/story/21887/Linus_Microsoft_Hatred_Is_...
- dandrews 13y agoThis photo of Linus always makes me smile: http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2009/10/torvalds_windows_7.jpg http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2009/10/...
- i386 13y agoWhenever I think of Linus, I recall being at LCA to witness to Linus being 'dunked' for charity http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bclhry9F9Bc http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bclhry9F9Bc
- hnriot 13y agoObviously the version number is the reason, but tribute vs sarcasm, that's tough. It lacks any actual sarcasm, so I think Linus might have inadvertently made it a tribute, by mistake. While I like linux, and I am writing this on an Ubuntu 13.10 install, there's really nothing very innovating about Linux, for anyone that has a unix history, it's just another variant, like the myriad of other ones [1]. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Unix_variants http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Unix_variants
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- e12e 13y agoWow. I think my first run-in with Windows 3.11 was in high-school -- and after having lived for years with an Amiga 2000 -- Windows was a complete joke of an OS. I do remember having fun typing in single letters to files, and renaming them "somethin.com" -- I seem to recall eg: a "b" would predictably crash the computer instantly. Not too long after that, as the pc hardware caught up with, and surpassed the Amiga, I got started with Slackware GNU/Linux. I find it hard to accept that anyone would seriously consider Windows 3.11 a good example of systems programming...
- peterkelly 13y agoI'm not sure I would describe a team that releases an OS without memory protection, pre-emptive multitasking, or a 32-bit API several years after the introduction of the 386 a "heck of a systems programming shop". The NT kernel, developed around that period, was good for its time though. Windows 3.x ... not so much.
- UnoriginalGuy 13y agoI hate retrospective analysis of computing history which try to criticise things without understanding the context/reasoning, and instead look at it in a modern lens (e.g. people that call Windows 95 "bad"). You just contrasted Windows NT (1993) with Windows 3.0 (1990). Apart from the fact that NT is a MUCH newer OS released later (with 3.1/3.11 being upgrades onto an earlier OS), the system requirements of the two are quite starkly different. For one example, Windows 3.0 runs on 384K of RAM. Windows NT 3.1 runs on 12 megabytes. Windows 3.0 also runs on 8 and 16 bit CPUs, while NT is 32 bit only. If they had released Windows 3.0 as a 32 bit OS Microsoft literally might not exist as they do today, since Windows 3.0 was targeting cheaper IBM clones which were very behind the curve technologically. 32 bit would also have meant perhaps doubling the minimum memory requirement of the system. In general I think very little of your post.
- brokenparser 13y agoWindows 3.0 also runs on 8 and 16 bit CPUs, while NT is 32 bit only. There isn't a version of Windows for any 8-bit CPU. It did, however, run on an Intel 8088 which is a 16-bit CPU with an 8-bit external data bus. (Until Windows 3.1 came along which dropped real address mode support.)
- mcv 13y agoThis is not a modern lens. People back then also called it bad. I remember when Windows 95 was released, people mockingly called it MacOS 89, RiscOS 88, or AmigaOS 85.
- andyjohnson0 13y ago
- Patrick_Devine 13y agoMy first experience with Windows for Workgroups was in 1994 when we were forced to use it at work. By that time I'd already been using Linux for a few years (since before 1.0). In my opinion, WFW didn't really hold a candle to X11 and Linux, and the networking options were frankly laughable. Even with Linux's crummy NFS implementation at the time, it was far superior to using Netbeui/IPX and connecting to a Novell Netware server. Wow. I sound like a crotchety old man.
- xradionut 13y ago"At that time, Windows 3.11 was wonderful. People were amazed by it." These must have been people with little computer experience. In '93 I also ran 3.11, at home. At work I had access to Big Iron, VMS, DG UX, and a hand full of other OSes. There wasn't a really decent Microsoft OS until Windows 2000. Microsoft was only god on the desktop because it allow the average user tools like Office. The engineers and professionals used Sun workstations and Macs, production used VMS, which was decades ahead of any of the PC OSes at the time.