Folder of collaterals from the Windows 1.0 launch event
October 15, 2010 5:23 AM   Subscribe

Microsoft Chief Software Architect Ray Ozzie resurfaced some of Microsoft's history in a recent post on his personal blog. In a sealed packet in his office, he uncovered the original press kit for Windows 1.0 and decided to put the documents online. It's a fascinating look into the beginnings of computing and into a technology that has fundamentally changed our world. from Yahoo News.
posted by Blake (32 comments total) 4 users marked this as a favorite
 
Note: You'll need to have a browser with Silverlight installed to view the docs.
posted by bjrn at 5:28 AM on October 15, 2010 [3 favorites]


The beginnings of computing?
posted by OmieWise at 5:41 AM on October 15, 2010 [8 favorites]


Weird, it looks like the Mac OS!
posted by nomadicink at 5:42 AM on October 15, 2010 [4 favorites]


Soooo....this is really more of a PepsiBlue for Docs.com (a Microsoft site) and their amazing new ability to actually view PDFs in a browser. Something I've been able to do since the turn of the century or so. Oh, wait, they make it possible via a Silverlight layer. Well, in that case...
Need more coffee. Must purge morning snarkiness...
posted by Thorzdad at 5:47 AM on October 15, 2010 [2 favorites]


bjrn: "Note: You'll need to have a browser with Silverlight installed to view the docs."

Plus ça change...
posted by jquinby at 5:48 AM on October 15, 2010 [2 favorites]


Note: You'll need to have a browser with Silverlight installed to view the docs.

Guess they ain't gettin' viewed, then are they? You know, pdf and plain ol scanned jpg's exist for a reason
posted by Old'n'Busted at 5:50 AM on October 15, 2010 [4 favorites]


For the best viewing experience of this doc, you'll need Microsoft Silverlight.

Ha ha, no.
posted by fleetmouse at 5:56 AM on October 15, 2010 [5 favorites]


Remember when Ozzie took over people were so excited about change? I haven't seen anything attributable to that coming out of Microsoft, has there been? Also, "for the best experience" sort of implies I could look at the document with a worse experience without Silverlight.
posted by rhyax at 6:04 AM on October 15, 2010


All these comments bitching about Silverlight are pretty amusing considering every page has a footer line saying "This document prepared on Microsoft Windows using Windows Write."
posted by smackfu at 6:24 AM on October 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


Oddly enough, I could see the documents just fine, as I have Silverlight installed.
posted by nomadicink at 6:27 AM on October 15, 2010


Ha hah!

I love their Silverlight viral advertising. They first tried (AND FAILED!!!!) to get us all to install it to look at BOOBS with that Playboy thing. And now this. Amazing.

What's also amazing is the feature comparison chart left out Macintosh, despite this being from 1985.
posted by Threeway Handshake at 6:32 AM on October 15, 2010


I love their Silverlight viral advertising. They first tried (AND FAILED!!!!) to get us all to install it to look at BOOBS with that Playboy thing. And now this. Amazing.

You need it for Netflix instant play, though. Which was awfully good motivation for me. Netflix instant play is pretty awesome.
posted by mr_roboto at 6:40 AM on October 15, 2010 [3 favorites]


And from the Yahoo article:

Originally called Windows Premiere Edition.1, it soon became the foundation for the world's most prevalent operating system and for one of the most dominant technology companies in history.

The world's most prevalent operating system is still XP, right? XP is based on NT, which had a development process that was pretty much isolated from the (DOS-based) consumer Windows. The technology underlying Windows 1 was abandoned 10 years ago. Really, if you're looking for the "foundation" of XP, you'd have to look at OS/2.
posted by mr_roboto at 6:45 AM on October 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


In addition to the silverlight bullshit, there doing something skeezy with Facebook too. The whole site screams Go Away.
posted by aerotive at 7:02 AM on October 15, 2010


@ Threeway Handshake

Of course they left Mac OS out--it couldn't run on PCs, and thus wasn't their competition. They were selling a PC product to PC users.
posted by sadmarvin at 7:28 AM on October 15, 2010


The world's most prevalent operating system is still XP, right? XP is based on NT, which had a development process that was pretty much isolated from the (DOS-based) consumer Windows.

NT was "new Technology" and for that New Technology they got the main architect of VMS - Dave Cutler.

They were going to make "A better UNIX than UNIX" with NT.

I'd say the idea that OS/2 is foundational is off base.

decided to put the documents online.

For the best viewing experience of this doc, you'll need Microsoft Silverlight.
(Ok. I need that? Hrmmm. I bet it won't work however)
Click the button below to download. It's a quick and easy install.
Install Microsoft Silverilght
(And boom! Fail. Why? Well, for some reason Microsoft has opted to not make it work with FreeBSD. Upside - I can't get infected via some Silverlight vector. If Silverlight == PDF and Microsoft buys Adobe I expect the resulting bastard stepchild will keep computer security people employed up 'till the great UNIX date rollover)
posted by rough ashlar at 7:28 AM on October 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


I'd say the idea that OS/2 is foundational is off base.

So what you're saying is that every major consumer operating system available today is either UNIX-based or VMS-based.

Heh. That's awesome.
posted by mr_roboto at 7:39 AM on October 15, 2010


Well, for some reason Microsoft has opted to not make it work with FreeBSD.

I think people run FreeBSD just so they can be SHOCKED when no one supports it.
posted by smackfu at 7:55 AM on October 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


fwiw, This opened perfectly for me. I'm using Moonlight on Ubuntu.

Thanks for posting this. It's an interesting look into the history of software, hardware and pr. Also, I find it fascinating that when they did a feature comparison, they compare the OS to GEM and TopView, but not the Mac Plus Finder, which had been on the market for about a year.

Fun to see Pam Edstrom's name on those docs, too. She was one of the founding partners of Waggener Edstrom Worldwide. She shaped Microsoft and Bill Gates' image throughout the 80's and 90's. Her daughter Jennifer is the co-author of ''Barbarians Led by Bill Gates: Microsoft From the Inside'. You can read the first chapter of the book here at WashPost.
posted by zarq at 7:58 AM on October 15, 2010 [2 favorites]


Preview fail. What Threeway Handshake said. :)
posted by zarq at 7:59 AM on October 15, 2010


Well, for some reason Microsoft has opted to not make it work with FreeBSD.

I thought y'all could run Linux programs through the FreeBSD compatibility layer. Can you not run Moonlight?
posted by zarq at 8:08 AM on October 15, 2010


I think a FreeBSD user running Moonlight would be like a vampire eating garlic bread. It might be doable, but it just ain't right.
posted by kmz at 8:11 AM on October 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


uncovered?

must be nice to have such a large office come with your job-for-life that items can remain undisturbed for a quarter century.

I smell cheesebag, corporate-turfed marketing bull.
posted by jsavimbi at 8:16 AM on October 15, 2010 [2 favorites]


I think a FreeBSD user running Moonlight would be like a vampire eating garlic bread. It might be doable, but it just ain't right.

*shrug* I've never understood that attitude.

If I want to view something -- be it Netflix or whatever -- I don't cut off my nose to spite my face. I install the software I need, tweak it to my satisfaction whatever way I can and then if I want to uninstall it afterwards, I do. If it doesn't work well in my OS or I dislike the way it behaves, then I've learned something through firsthand experience.
posted by zarq at 8:31 AM on October 15, 2010 [3 favorites]


Note that Windows just an interesting rip off of a Xerox GUI until version 3.1.
posted by shnarg at 10:24 AM on October 15, 2010


shnarg Not particularly surprising. So was the original Mac OS, IIRC.

Xerox invented the GUI, it seems natural that it would take time for others to start building on the base they provided. Heck, just getting a functional duplicate that would run on commodity hardware is an amazing feat, nevermind improving on (or at least changing) the Xerox idea.
posted by sotonohito at 10:31 AM on October 15, 2010


*shrug* I've never understood that attitude.

Oh, I'm not endorsing that worldview, just saying it exists for a lot of folks. I'll install what it takes to view content I care about if it's feasible. I didn't have any qualms about mplayer using QuickTime's libraries to decode Sorenson back in the day. Ugh, fucking QuickTime.

If we're talking about formats and compatibilities, can I just go on a rant about WinZip? That piece of shit obsolete software decided it needed to create its own format, some bullshit called ZipX, that's incompatible with just about every other archive program out there, and it made it the default format. So now we're getting ratesheets in formats I have to jump through hoops to read. Fuck you WinZip.
posted by kmz at 10:50 AM on October 15, 2010


Y'know, Silverlight has an open-source alternative (Moonlight) whereas Flash does not*. So in some ways, I'd like to see everybody using Silverlight rather than Flash.

Of course, the best would be if everybody was using HTML5.

* Actually, gnash is an open-source Flash, but it barely works. Moonlight development is sponsored by Novell with assistance from Microsoft. Gnash has no large backing.
posted by Galaxor Nebulon at 10:59 AM on October 15, 2010


However, I still won't install moonlight, because I don't use netflix, and all the other stuff that I've seen that uses Silverlight is icky enough that I'd just as soon avoid it.
posted by Galaxor Nebulon at 11:00 AM on October 15, 2010


kmz, 7-zip can decode winzip's zip format. I recently had to change my script that was using "unzip" to use 7z instead, to support this format.
posted by Galaxor Nebulon at 11:03 AM on October 15, 2010


Y'know, Silverlight has an open-source alternative (Moonlight) whereas Flash does not.

Why is it that I can imagine Microsoft supporting Moonlight right up until the moment that Flash is no longer the dominant player?


posted by mmrtnt at 12:31 PM on October 15, 2010 [1 favorite]


Ray Ozzie to leave Microsoft.
posted by ericb at 2:57 PM on October 19, 2010


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