history

A History of the Personal Computer and Microsoft

"How Microsoft Changed the World"

(Draft) eBook by Richard Lewis

How did we get to this point in history? How come this was typed on a personal computer? If you are interested in the history of Personal Computers then read on. If you are keen, check out the Television movies called "The Pirates of Silicon Valley" and "Triumph of the Nerds". Even more geeky, read a book called "Accidental Empires: How the Boys of Silicon Valley Make Their Millions" by Robert X. Cringley, summarised in a fantastic article here.

If you are still reading, then I assume you have some vague interest in computers. What follows is a brief history of Personal Computers drawn from the authors experience and the opinions of others gathered from around the water cooler. This story looks at how Microsoft became the most successful company in the world by breaking laws in many countries, lead by a convicted monopolist. How the the richest man in the world made his money and how the biggest company in the world exercised dominance over the market has had a massive effect on our lives; computer users and non-computer users alike.

If you are the sort of geek that may find this offensive in any way then please stop reading now, it might save your blood pressure. Having established that this is an opinionated and biased view, any flaming should be restricted to criticism of style and grammar. Of course, factual corrections are welcome.

This story has many twists and turns. Several fascinating side-stories are not directly relevant to Microsoft or the PC theme of this document but are included here as interesting asides to the main theme. I will try to stay on topic but this is my personal rant after all.

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Table of Contents

1. Introduction
2. Early Personal Computers (1975-1980)
3. DOS Emerges (1980-1985)
4. From Windows 1.0 to Windows 2003 Server (1983-2003)
5. Bibliography

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A History of the Personal Computer

Introduction

Microsoft was founded on the idea of creating a monopoly by ensuring that they produced the first viable operating system for the first readily available PC. When Bill Gates and Paul Allen partnered to create a BASIC interpreter for the Altair, they were afraid they were already too late.

Background

No history of Personal Computers would be complete without starting at Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC). This was where Xerox built an experimental computer that would change the world. Its just that no one knew it. In 1974, the folks at PARC developed what was to become the first personal computer. Their research machines Alto and Star had a graphical user interface, mouse, menus and even a network, years before any of us considered these things possible or even necessary. It would be almost ten years before these ideas would be included in commercial computing products.

The Xerox Star. A great PC in 1981 but was too little, too late. Microsoft and the rest of the competition had already copied every single one of the ideas that Xerox invented. Try it now and Microsoft would sue you to prove it! In the mid-1970's, Xerox was only focused on their very popular photocopiers and management didn't understand the importance of their inventions. The outcome of this research was never sold as a successful commercial product. The Xerox Star was a good attempt but it came too late to enter the market that Xerox themselves, had unwittingly created.

Electronics enthusiasts in the seventies had to assemble circuit boards as a kit or make their own circuits from kits or from parts found at electronics stores. This hobbyist underground eventually led to the development of the "personal computer" and this story is how it happened.

Some of the early kits included a pattern to cut out plywood supports for the circuits that the hobbyist had to create themselves. So, when you hear me joking about "back when computers were made of wood", I'm only sort of joking! Big business was not interested in what was merely a hobby for a dedicated few. But it wouldn't be long before big business would take notice as this small hobby literally changed the world, and our lives, completely.

Many new operating systems emerged for hobby computers during the seventies. Most of these were compared to Digitals RSTS/E which ran on the DEC PDP-11 and for many, set the benchmark for operating system functionality. In fact, some early versions of DOS were based on the PDP command line interface and could be ported to many different "personal computers" as they later became known. CP/M predated DOS by some years and was to become the most popular operating system in history up until that point.

DOS concepts were "borrowed" from CP/M and early UNIX implementations to become the "command line" computer geeks the world over would love or hate, depending on their religion. None at that time considered it a crime because the concepts where not considered commercial or because no one thought of a way to patent them.

This story is mostly about how Bill Gates and Paul Allen started the worlds most successful company and became the worlds richest men based on the (then) new hobby of personal computers.

You may think that Microsoft Windows was the first commercial windows interface for computers but no history lesson is complete without talking about other windowing systems that pre-dated Microsoft Windows. The Apple Lisa included much-copied technology that predated GEM and Microsoft Windows by several years. GEM was effectively copied from the Apple Lisa interface and was the brain child of Gary Kildall of Digital Reseach fame.

Atari ST 68k-based computers running GEM were sometimes called Jackintoshes as a consequence (in reference to Jack Tramiel). This resemblance later caused legal trouble to the manufacturer, Digital Research, who was obliged to seriously cripple the desktop appearance and functionality of the product.

GEM did not multitask, so users had to close one program in order to run another one. Collections of related programs, like GEM Draw, had tricky File menu items like Close (to Edit) to facilitate switching. GEM was merely a GUI toolkit for applications rather than an integration environment like Windows.

An alternative multitasker released shortly before was DESQview, a successor of IBM's failed TopView from 1984. It did not have graphical capabilities initially, but was able to multitask DOS applications in windows.

Before Microsoft

1968

In the spring of 1968, Lakeside prep school (read that "rich-kids school" for readers outside the U.S.) decided that it should acquaint the student body with the world of computers [Teamgates.com, 9/29/96]. Computers were still too large and costly for the school to purchase its own. Instead, the school had a fund raiser and bought computer time on a DEC PDP-10 owned by General Electric. A few thousand dollars were raised which the school figured would buy more than enough time to last into the next school year. However, Lakeside had drastically underestimated the allure this machine would have for a hand full of young students.

Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and a few other Lakeside students (many of whom were the first programmers hired at Microsoft) immediately became inseparable from the computer. They would stay in the computer room all day and night, writing programs, reading computer literature and anything else they could to learn about computing. Soon Gates and the others started running into problems with the faculty. Their homework was being turned in late (if at all), they were skipping classes to be in the computer room and worst of all, they had used up all of the schools computer time in just a few weeks. [Wallace, 1992, p. 24]

Autumn 1968

Computer Center Corporation opened for business in Seattle. It was offering computing time at good rates, and one of the chief programmers working for the corporation had a child attending Lakeside. A deal was struck between Lakeside Prep School and the Computer Center Corporation that allowed the school to continue providing it's students with computer time. [Wallace, 1992, p. 27] Gates and his comrades immediately began exploring the contents of this new machine. It was not long before the young hackers started causing problems. They caused the system to crash several times and broke the computers security system. They even altered the files that recorded the amount of computer time they were using. They were caught and the Computer Center Corporation banned them from the system for several weeks.

Bill Gates, Paul Allen and, two other hackers from Lakeside formed the Lakeside Programmers Group in late 1968. They were determined to find a way to apply their computer skills in the real world. The first opportunity to do this was a direct result of their mischievous activity with the school's computer time. The Computer Center Corporation's business was beginning to suffer due to the systems weak security and the frequency that it crashed. Impressed with Gates and the other Lakeside computer addicts' previous assaults on their computer, the Computer Center Corporation decided to hire the students to find bugs and expose weaknesses in the computer system. In return for the Lakeside Programming Group's help, the Computer Center Corporation would give them unlimited computer time [Wallace, 1992, p. 27]. The boys could not refuse. Gates is quoted as saying:

"It was when we got free time at C-cubed (Computer Center Corporation) that we really got into computers. I mean, then I became hardcore. It was day and night" [Wallace, 1992, p. 30].

Although the group was hired just to find bugs, they also read any computer related material that the day shift had left behind. The young hackers would even pick employees for new information. It was here that Gates and Allen really began to develop the talents that would lead to the formation of Microsoft seven years later.

1971

The Intel 4004

The first microprocessor appeared in 1971, with the introduction of Intel's 4004 (named for the number of transistors on the chip). Prior to this computers relied on non-integrated transistors and prior to that, valves. Computers based on the Intel 4004 were little more than programmable calculators, but more powerful and less expensive microprocessors hit the market soon after.

1972

In 1972 Gates and Allen founded Traf-O-Data [microsoftusernetwork.com, 2003], a company that designed and built computerised car-counting machines for traffic analysis. The project introduced them to the programmable Intel 8008 microprocessor.

1973

At the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), Xerox began an experimental computer project on what was to become the first personal computer. Their research machines had a graphical user interface, mouse, menus and even a network, years before anyone imagined these things were possible or even necessary. It would be almost ten years before these ideas would be built into commercial computing products.

1974

By 1974, there was a small market for computer software and languages, dominated by Digital Research, which sold the popular CP/M operating system and several programming languages

Early Personal Computers (PCs)

Hasn´t there always been PCs?

January 1, 1975

The MITS Altair 8800 was announced to the world on the cover of Popular Mechanics magazine. This inspired a new generation of technology enthusiasts, including Bill Gates and Paul Allen, who were among the first of these early hobbyists to realize that the future of personal computing lay in the unlimited potential of software. The MITS Altair is recognized today as the one of the first commercially available (i.e. assembled) personal computers.

The MITS Altair 8800

Paul Allen was on his way to visit Gates when along the way he stopped to browse through some magazines. What he saw changed his and Bill Gates' lives forever. On the cover of Popular Electronics was a picture of the Altair 8800 and the headline "World's First Microcomputer Kit to Rival Commercial Models." He bought the issue and rushed over to Gates' dorm room. They both recognized this as their big opportunity as someone would need to make software for the new machines. Within a few days, Gates had called MITS (Micro Instrumentation and Telemetry Systems), the makers of the Altair. He told the company that he and Allen had developed a BASIC that could be used on the Altair [Teamgates.com, 9/29/96]. This was a lie. They had not even written a line of code. They had neither an Altair nor the chip that ran the computer. The MITS company did not know this and was very interested in seeing their BASIC.

So, Gates and Allen began working feverishly on the BASIC they had promised. The code for the program was left mostly up to Bill Gates while Paul Allen began working on a way to simulate the Altair with the schools PDP-10. Eight weeks later, the two felt their program was ready. Allen was to fly to MITS and show off their creation. The day after Allen arrived at MITS, it was time to test their BASIC. Entering the program into the companys Altair was the first time Allen had ever touched one. If the Altair simulation he designed or any of Gates code was faulty, the demonstration would most likely have ended in failure.

This was not the case, and the program worked perfectly the first time [Wallace, 1992, p. 80]. MITS arranged a deal with Gates and Allen to buy the rights to their BASIC [Teamgates.com, 9/29/96] Gates was convinced that the software market had been born. Within a year, Bill Gates had dropped out of Harvard and Microsoft was formed soon after.

February 1, 1975

Bill Gates and Paul Allen license BASIC to their first customer, MITS of Albuquerque, New Mexico, the manufacturer of the Altair 8800 personal computer. This is the first computer language program written for a personal computer since until then programming languages ran on expensive commercial minis or mainframes. Microsoft as a company did not exist for almost a year after this. Microsoft started selling their Altair BASIC interpreter and quickly established a reputation. Just in case you are thinking that Bill Gates magically invented BASIC. See the Appendix for a real history.

Back to the Windows story. As the popularity of BASIC grew, other manufacturers adopted Microsofts version of BASIC syntax to maintain compatibility with existing BASIC implementations. Because of this feedback loop, Microsoft BASIC became a de facto standard, and the company cornered the market. Later, it tried (unsuccessfully) to extend their grip on the home computer market by designing the MSX home computer standard.

November 29, 1975

The name "Micro-soft" (for microcomputer software) was used by Bill Gates in a letter to Paul Allen for the first time.

December 31, 1975

The 1975 year-end sales total equals $US16,005 dollars, as detailed on Form 1065 U.S. Partnership Return of Income.

IBM 5100

The IBM 5100 was also released in 1975 (the follow up 5120 model was released in 1980 just before the legendary IBM PC) and wdesigned as a data collection and analysis system for small labs. The 5100 had an integrated CRT, keyboard, and tape drive. It was capable of running popular software for IBM's mainframes in emulation.

February 3, 1976

Bill Gates shocks the hobbyist community by raising the thorny issue of software piracy; a new concept in those times. In his "An Open Letter to Hobbyists," first published in MITS newsletter "Computer Notes" and later in several other newsletters and magazines), Gates accuses hobbyists of stealing software and thus preventing "...good software from being written." "If you are STILL using Altair BASIC 1.1, you have a copy that was stolen in March 1975!" proclaims Bill.

Quote from "An Open Letter to Hobbyists" written February 3, 1976

"Almost a year ago, Paul Allen and myself, expecting the hobby market to  expand, hired Monte Davidoff and developed Altair BASIC. Though the initial  work took only two months, the three of us have spent most of the last year documenting, improving and adding features to BASIC. Now we have 4K, 8K,  EXTENDED, ROM and DISK BASIC. The value of the computer time we have used  exceeds $40,000.
The feedback we have gotten from the hundreds of people who say they are using BASIC has all been positive. Two surprising things are apparent,  however.
1) Most of these "users" never bought BASIC (less than 10% of all Altair owners have bought BASIC), and
2) The amount of royalties we have received from sales to hobbyists makes the time spent of Altair BASIC worth less than $2 an hour."

One of Gates's arguments was this rhetorical question:

"What hobbyist can put 3 man-years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his product and distribute for free?"

In a way, he was stating the case against open source or "free" software. These arguments look very outdated in the light of the wide-spread useof Open Source software in enterprises world-wide. Gates argues that "closed source" is better since they are being paid to improve the software. Of course, open source advocates argue this is not necessary and demonstrates the grasping greed of commercial software interests like Microsoft.

March 27, 1976

Bill Gates gives the opening address at the First Annual World Altair Computer Convention held in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

April 1, 1976

During 1975 and while working at Hewlett Packard, Steve Wozniak developed a rudimentary computer based on the MOS Tech 8-bit 6502 processor. By 1976, Steve Wozniak, Steve Jobs and Atari engineer Ronald Wayne founded Apple. The company’s first product was Wozniak’s first computer the Apple I.

During April of 1976, Marc McDonald becomes Microsoft’s first official employee. (Other people did work on Microsoft products before that, but on a contract basis).

July, 1976

Microsoft’s first advertisement appears in Digital Design magazine.

November 1, 1976

Paul Allen resigns from MITS to join Microsoft full time.

November 26, 1976

"Microsoft" became a registered trademark when it was registered with the Office of the Secretary of the State of New Mexico.

September 1, 1976

Microsoft leases official office space in the Two Park Central Tower Building at 300 San Mateo Blvd, N.E., Suite 819, Albuquerque, New Mexico. 1976 head count totals six people and revenues are $US22,496

1977

Eventually, Microsoft would seek to escape from the clutches of MITS and begin selling BASIC on their own. MITS did not agree and the dispute was settled through mediation, in Microsofts favour.

The Apple ][ was released in 1977 as a much lauded follow up from the simple Apple 1 although still based on the 6502 processor. The ability to display in colour was a first.

1977 also saw Commodore Business Machines produce the Commodore PET an 8-bit home computer that would sell for at least three years until the VIC-20 was released to great success. The MOS 6502 CPU in the PET was designed to be economical but was only sold through authorised dealers which may have limited its sales. However the competition included games consoles that ran off cartidges and when the competition introduced colour displays, the PET would be replaced by the famous VIC-20 to could compete on even terms.

1978

Further development of BASIC for other PC platforms expanded the company rapidly. Many other kit computers entered the market during the late seventies and one of the most famous was the Tandy TRS–80 (or "trash80" as we called it).

Tandy TRS–80 is a Model–1 like the author used at school

At school, very few of us were interested in using the Tandy. I still remember getting frustrated with the cassette tape as it was hideously unreliable. I was also a crap programmer and really had no idea what a Z80 processor was but it was fun hacking around with it. Although I really had more fun writing a golf game on my Casio calculator, the TRS-80 was the first true micro that I programmed.

Apple ][ with twin disk drives

Many users added optional extras to their Apple ][ machines with additional disk drives, cassette adapters, memory cards and some great software including legendary dungeons and dragons games and digdug.

1979

The Atari story is one that follows a path similar to that of other low cost computer manufacturers that appealed to the home computer market but also had asperations of capturing the business market that was potentially more lucrative.

The Atari 800

In 1979, IBM were planning a personal computer, code-named Acorn that would eventually become the IBM PC. Bill Snydes, (the manager responsible for the IBM 5120), was selected to lead the hardware engineering team working on a prototype and was given a staff of 12 engineers.

At the time, IBM had no microprocessor ready for release (the predecessor to POWER, the IBM 801, would not be ready for almost two years), so Snydes decided to use the Intel 8088 processor. Though it was a 16-bit processor (meaning that it could handle larger numbers than other microcomputers), it used an older bus design that slowed it down, unlike the more expensive 8086.

Also in 1979, Software Arts released VisiCalc, a popular spreadsheet application for the Apple ][ - years ahead of its time. The history of spreadsheets starts here and is as interesting as the rest of geek history with all the usual dramas.

This may be a future chapter of this book so revisit this link in the future, I'll be providing regular updates and corrections to this.

1980

The Apple /// was released in 1980 but the Apple ][ would soldier on for years as expansion packs and a lots of new software constantly improving what could be done. In the same year, Microsoft announced the XENIX operating system "based on" proprietary UNIX for 16–bit microprocessors. It was called XENIX because the UNIX name was already taken, true!

The Apple ///

At the same time, XENIX was an interactive, multi-user, multi-tasking system that ran on Intel 8086, Zilog Z8000 and Motorola M68000 processors as well as the DEC PDP-11 series. Years ahead of its time, all of Microsoft's existing system software (COBOL, PASCAL, BASIC and DBMS) was adapted to run under XENIX and all existing software written for UNIX was intended to be compatible as well. Microsoft was been still kicking themselves over this aborted effort as it is the only part of the PC market that they did not conquer.

The history of UNIX is a much longer story than this one (see summary at the end of this document) so I won't recount the whole story here. In summary, Microsoft later transferred its rights to XENIX to The Santa Cruz Operation who later became SCO (www.sco.com) who are currently ending their existence in baseless litigation exploits against IBM and Novell. All funded by Microsoft, albeit, indirectly.

Even more interesting is that, over ten years later, NT would be based on an operating system not too dissimilar from UNIX but suffer horribly at the hands of backward compatibility. Many UNIX advocates are very scathing of Microsoft operating systems for their lack of UNIX features.

At the same time Apple advocates laugh at the Windows interface as a watered-down copy. Suffice to say, this was one of the many direction choices (considered blunders by the anti-Microsoft lobby) that Microsoft (and their users) would pay dearly for in years to come.

1980 Commodore VIC-20

A lot cheaper than mainstream business PCs, the VIC-20 was also somewhat limited in terms of functionality. It only had 5Kb of RAM and the same 8-bit CPU as the Commodore PET.

However, machines like the VIC-20 and the Sinclair ZX-80 would introduce many hobbyists to their first computer.

Significantly, QDOS was written in 1980 by the Seattle Computer Company who released QDOS 0.10 in August of that year. QDOS itself was a port of CP/M by Tim Patterson (who was hired after Microsoft acquired QDOS), which meant that it also used CP/M's arcane commands. Microsoft subsequently changed to to a less arcane language that is still partially with us now at the command line.

1981

IBM was seeking Gary Kildall from Digital Research so they could use CP/M as the operating system for the IBM PC. For some reason, IBM asked Bill Gates to arrange a meeting of IBM representatives with Kildall but instead, Gates offered them his own deal. It is said that Garys wife Dorothy refused to sign a non-disclosure agreement, further strengthening Microsofts case. This was a defining moment in history that has really gained in significance since the rise of the personal computer.

The sad demise of Gary Kildall put an end to any possible competition that may have arisen at the time. IBM were about to establish the de facto standard in hardware and operating systems. Why did IBM ask Gates to do this when they could have found Kildall themselves? Perhaps because Bill Gates was already connected with IBM executives through his parents. He was part of the circle of communication and merely exploited the fact.

In June 1981, Microsoft were without an operating system capable of running on the IBM PC. So without revealing their ties with IBM, Microsoft approached Seattle Computer, a small company that had developed an Intel x86-based operating system, called QDOS (Quick and Dirty Operating System). A deal was struck and QDOS was purchased for a mere $US50,000 in July.

The first item IBM made Microsoft sign, before any talks, was a confidentiality agreement. Microsoft sold the concept to IBM who agreed that it would be better if they could outsource the operating system rather than developing it themselves. If things had panned out differently, the world would have been a different place - we would have CP/M-86 [seanet.com] instead of MS-DOS and GEM Desktop [geocities.com] instead of MS Windows.

Bill Gates convinced IBM to purchase "his" version of DOS based on Microsofts reputation with BASIC, however, at the stage, neither Microsoft nor Bill actually owned a copy of DOS much less programmed one! Bill pulled the deal of the century when he purchased QDOS. Microsoft renamed it to MS-DOS and subsequently licensed it to IBM. From that point on, Microsoft worked very hard to ensure that only its own version of MS–DOS (Microsoft Disk Operating System), was sold with every computer system.

Strangely, a renamed MS-DOS was released by IBM as IBM PC-DOS 1.0 with the introduction of the IBM PC in 1981. This machine set the benchmark for price performance and would be optimised (i.e. copied and improved) to become the most popular piece of hardware in electronics history up to that point.

Spectacularly successful, this deal was challenged in court by Seattle Computer on the grounds that Microsoft had concealed its relationship with IBM in order to purchase the operating system cheaply. Microsoft lost and there was a settlement, but no admission of duplicity or guilt. Gates' reputation was further sullied by a series of major antitrust actions brought both by the U.S. Department of Justice and individual companies against Microsoft in the late 1990s.

The IBM 5150 and PC/XT

In contracting to IBM, (through either good luck or good management) Microsoft retained the rights to license "their" software to other computer vendors as well. The early 1980s saw a flood of IBM PC clones, and Microsoft were quick to leverage their position to dominate the operating system market, notably via exclusionary contracts (later determined to be illegal) under which the PC manufacturers were required to pay for an MS–DOS licence even when the system shipped with an alternative operating system.

Steve Jobs of Apple visits Microsoft in 1981 to give them a sneak preview of the revolutionary Macintosh computer. Microsoft subsequently becomes the first major company to develop products for the Mac but to Steve Jobs dismay Bill Gates "borrowed" the graphical user interface and only three years later, had a viable alternative to the Apple.

So Bill Gates didn´t invent DOS (many still think he did), he didn´t invent BASIC and he certainly didn´t invent Windows! In fact, Microsoft has consistently purchased rather than invented every single innovation they have brought to the market. What Bill did invent, was a method for enforcing a license scheme that entrenched Microsoft as a monopoly. The fact that this monopoly was later proved to be illegal was irrelevant, because by that time, the monopoly already had dominance over the market and the planet would never be the same again.

In 1981, software running on PC hardware was not technically better than the mainframe software it started to replace. But it had two advantages, it offered more freedom to end-users and it could do so at much lower cost. Microsoft's success rode on the PC boom.

This boom was partially fuelled by the PCs "killer app", the spreadsheet. Every technology needs a killer app and what made PCs indispensable to many businesses was Lotus 1-2-3. The rise and fall of Lotus 1-2-3 is a story worthy of its own book but VisiCalc was the precursor to subsequent copy-cats like Lotus 1-2-3. PC would quickly take over some of the functionality of much more expensive mini and mainframe machines.

1982

Microsoft started developing LAN technology after Novell announced their plans to provide networking based on their own software.

Microsoft logo 1982

The now cash–rich Microsoft diversified into a wide variety of software products including compilers and interpreters for programming languages, word processors, spreadsheets and other office software.

1982 IBM 5170 PC/AT 286

Some of these products were successful, and some were not. In most cases, early versions of Microsoft software were buggy, feature-poor, and inferior to competitors, but later versions usually improved rapidly as the software grew in popularity.

Importantly for 1982, Intel released the 286 chip and IBM released the 5170 or IBM PC/AT.

Kaypro II 1982 an early example of portable hardware

Portable machines were also starting to appeal to businesses that could take the solution to the customer. Known as luggables due to their luggage sized carry cases, they were not generally battery powered and usually very expensive. My first luggable was a Sharp twin-floppy machine that I ran dBaseIII and IV on.

1982 Commodore 64

An important machine for Commodore and the burgeoning home computer market, the Commodore 64 captured a large share of that market but ultimately did not turn that success into business success.

1983

Competition from "clone" hardware manufacturers was fierce and at the same time, Apple released the Lisa. The first machine based on the research done at Xerox. For all its bells and whistles, the Lisa was a disaster in market terms and crippled Apple due to lack of sales and high production costs.

The Lisa was unbelievable compared to anything anyone had seen before. It could run artificial intelligence applications and programmable logic games displayed using graphics. I did get to hack around on a Lisa at university, but for all its brilliance, I actually had as much fun porting Startrek from Casio Basic to the University VAX 11-780. Business applications for the Lisa were few and far between despite the huge cost of the machine.

And it was the high cost of the Lisa that nearly killed off Apple. In the dark days of near-bankruptcy, Steve Jobs tried a last ditch effort to sell the graphical user interface to a world eager to see where all this was heading, no one really new what the future of computing would look like and it was Jobs who would try and push his vision with a religious fervor never before seen in the computer industry. Jobs with a team of absolute genius, spent the next two years developing the product we now know as the Apple Macintosh.

Apple Lisa from my days at University

Back to the story. At a time of high profitability, Microsoft devoted huge amounts of effort and cash to marketing as opposed to further developing their products. This set them apart from most of the competition who were not so cash rich but also not so media savvy. By focusing both of these posers on the integration of their software products Microsoft created a more consistent computing environment for the user which tied them to other Microsoft products, further entrenching their dominant position, a truly brilliant strategy, or a disaster for mankind depending on your religion.

Microsoft has since continued to leverage the Windows brand into many other markets, with products such as Windows CE for PDAs and their "Windows powered" Smartphone products and Digital Rights Management (DRM) software copyright controls, so how did they get there?

Part II - Windows Desktop Operating Systems

From Windows 1.0 to Windows Vista (1983-2007)

1983

Microsoft announced Windows in November 1983 and although it was not until November 1985 when it was finally released. To put things in perspective, 1983 was the year that the DNS system was created at the University of Wisconsin. We are talking a complete lack of the fundamental building blocks of what we know today as the Internet. Given this "simple" environment and lack of standards, you can see how any player will a new idea had the potential to spark huge changes in future technology directions. I started my first year at University that year so I was relatively clueless as to the importance of all this.

February 1983, MS-DOS® 2.0 is released and on November 10, 1983, Microsoft announced Microsoft Windows, an extension of the MS-DOS® operating system that would provide a graphical operating environment for PC users. Microsoft called Windows 1.0 a new software environment for developing and running applications that use bitmap displays and mouse pointing devices. With Windows, the graphical user interface (GUI) era at Microsoft had begun. Somewhere aroudn this time Microsoft changed their logo.

Microsoft logo circa 1983

We should also remember that Microsoft were not alone in the GUI business. The GEM desktop was a common alternative and there were others...but where are they now?

Anyone that had already seen the Apple Lisa would dismiss Windows 1.0 as a joke, as its rudimentary graphics were the sort of thing that Xerox was playing with ten years before. Even so. it would take Microsoft another two years to actually release Windows v1.01.

Before Windows, this is a pre-Windows 1.0 Interface Manager, yuk!

To explain the many advances since Windows 1.0, the following pages summarize milestones in the development of Windows desktop operating systems at Microsoft.

Many longtime PC users trace Windows to the 1990 release of Windows 3.0, the first widely popular version of Windows and the first version of Windows that many older PC users know of. However, Microsoft released the first version of Windows six years earlier, in 1985.

The Apple Macintosh desktop looked great even in black and white.

There was a lot of resistance to adding colour to the Macintosh interface and that part of the operating system had to wait for cheaper memory and faster processors before users got the benefits of a colour interface. Photo editing and other now-standard features where not considered important since digital cameras were years away and scanned photos where still very low-resolution.

1984

Microsoft Excel 1.0

1984 saw the release of Microsoft Excel. Excel was originally written for the 512K Apple Macintosh (the Fat Mac) and it was one of the first spreadsheets to use a graphical interface with pull down menus and a point and click capability using a mouse pointing device. The Excel spreadsheet with a graphical user interface was easier for most people to use than the command line interface of PC-DOS spreadsheet products.

Apple Macintosh

Many people bought Apple Macintoshes so that they could use the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet program. There is some controversy about whether a graphical version of Microsoft Excel was released in a DOS version. Microsoft documents show the launch of Excel 2.0 for MS-DOS version 3.0 occurred on the 31st of October 1987.

1984 IBM PC/Jr

When Microsoft relaunched the Windows operating system in 1987, Excel was one of the first applications released for it. When Windows finally gained wide acceptance with Version 3.0 in late 1989, Excel was Microsoft's flagship product. For nearly 3 years, Excel remained the only spreadsheet for Windows and it only received competition from other spreadsheet products after 1992.

Also in 1984, the term "cyberspace" is coined in William Gibson's Neuromancer.

1985

Microsoft releases Windows 1.0 and Intel releases the 386 processor.

In 1985, most people with PCs were still soldiering on with DOS running an IBM XT or a "clone" as the copycat hardware was called. The Intel processors in these machines churned out a massive 4.77MHz. If you were lucky you might have enjoyed a 6MHz hot-rod or even a 286 "Turbo" that would clock over 8MHz. Whoo hoo! Although graphical operating systems (like STAR and GEM) had been around since 1975, Windows 1.0 was already showing its age compared to slick alternatives like Apple.

Windows 1.0

Nevertheless, the first version of Windows was a milestone product because it allowed PC users to switch from the MS-DOS® method of typing commands at the C prompt (C:\) to using a mouse to point and click their way through functions, such as starting applications. It is often forgotten though, that Windows at this time was still a DOS application and not a true operating system in the current sense of the term.

The first Microsoft Mouse

Windows 1.0 also allowed users to switch between several programs, without requiring them to quit and restart individual applications. And it introduced many to the mouse, a concept that Apple users had already discovered. Windows 1.0 included a set of desktop applications, including file management, calendar, card file, notepad, calculator, clock, and telecommunications programs.

Windows 1.0.1 was the first version released to users and this image shows the new tiled windows graphical user interface (GUI)

One of the interesting aspects of Windows 1.0 was the non-overlapping windows, which were tiled next to each other instead. Only dialog boxes could appear over other the top of other windows.

Another interesting fact was that Windows 1.0 executables, while having the same .exe extension and initial file header as MS-DOS programs, did not yet contain the so-called MS-DOS stub which prints the "This program must be run under Windows" or similar message and exits when the program is run outside of Windows. Instead, the file header was formatted in such a way as to make DOS reject the executable with a program too large to fit in memory error message.

Almost 20 years later, Windows XP is still able to run Windows 1.0 applications to a certain extent.

1986

August 1986 Windows v1.03 released. Support for MS-DOS 3.2 is added.

August 1987 Windows v1.04 released. Support for IBM PS/2 hardware is added.

Compaq DeskPro/386. Compaq showed IBM how to make a PC faster, cheaper and still appeal to businesses. At the same time clone manufacturers were creating new markets at the cheaper end of the scale.

From the beginning, Windows was intended to multitask programs (although this originally only applied to specially-written applications and for many versions the multitasking was non-preemptive), so Windows programs always had their own menu bar rather than switching a single menu bar at the top of the screen like Apple Macintoshes did (and still do).

1987

November 1987 Windows 2.0 - With the second version of Windows, Microsoft took advantage of the improved processing speed of the Intel 286 processor, expanded memory, and inter-application communication capabilities using Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE). Windows 2.0 featured support for the VGA graphics standard, and also allowed users to overlap windows, control screen layout, and use keyboard combinations to move rapidly through Windows operations. Many developers started writing their first Window-based applications for Windows 2.x. Following the release of Windows 2.0 was Windows/386 2.03, which took advantage of the protected mode and extended memory capabilities of the Intel 386 processor. Subsequent Windows releases continued to improve the speed, reliability, and usability of the PC, and improved the interface design and capabilities.

IBM PS/2 Model 30

None of these changes would truly capture the massive DOS market. By this time there were a significant number of DOS games and many business applications including accounting software and databases all running on DOS machines with a maximum of 640kb of memory.

Many businesses and most individuals simply could not afford a 386 to run the latest version of Windows. Even if they had the hardware, many users had no applications that could use Windows efficiently.

1988

Microsoft Windows/286 and Windows/386 v2.10 released that were optimised for their respective chipsets. In November 1988 Microsoft formally announces it had hired Dave Cutler from DEC (a month prior) to work on an advanced version of OS/2 soon to be renamed Microsoft Windows NT. The NT team start work in Building 2 of the Microsoft campus.

It is easy to forget that during these years, many business were running Lotus 1-2-3, WordPerfect and dBase under DOS and quite happily, however as data requirements grew, the memory limitations of DOS became more and more apparent.

1989

Microsoft Windows/286 and Windows/386 v2.11 are released. In June the NT development team finally give up on trying to build NT using C++ and resort to C for performance reasons. By July the first chunks of NT code are running on an Intel i860 processor. In October the first of the infamous shipping dates is given as March 1991 - 2.5 years later it would finally emerge.

Intel releases the 486 but it would be a few years before machines based on them would be affordable for the average user.

1990

By February 1990, Dave Cutler's NT development team is formally created.

IBM PS/1

In 1990, there was still plenty of activity on the Windows front and the Windows team, who were now seen as the B-team to the NT high flyers, had something to prove. In May 1990, Microsoft releases Windows 3.0 Microsoft's first mainstream graphical computing platform offered er, 32-bit performance, advanced graphics, and full support for the more powerful Intel 386 processor.

A new wave of faster 286 and 386 PCs (20/25Mhz!) helped drive the popularity of Windows 3.0, which offered a wide range of new features and capabilities, including better use of extended and expanded memory, graphical utilities such as application management (Program Manager), file management (File Manager), and Printer Management (Print Manager).

Windows 3.0 was the first "real" Windows in the authors humble opinion since it delivered where the others couldn't, ease of use.

A completely rewritten application development environment with modular virtual device drivers (VxDs), native support for applications running in extended memory, and fully pre-emptive MS-DOS multitasking allowed users to take advanced of extremely high cost memory.

Windows 3.0 could be run in three different memory modes:

• Real mode, intended for older computers with a CPU below Intel 80286
• Standard mode, intended for computers with an 80286 processor, and corresponding to its protected mode
• 386 Enhanced mode, intended for computers with an Intel 80386 processor or above, and corresponding to its protected mode and virtual 8086 mode.

Windows 3.0 featured File Manager, wow, (not!)

The Windows 3.0 interface featured an improved set of Windows icons and allowed users to more easily develop applications that could be built for less technical users, thus encouraging the spread of personal computers.

The popularity of Windows 3.0 blossomed with the release of a completely new Windows Software Development Kit (SDK), which helped software developers focus more on writing applications and less on writing device drivers. Widespread acceptance among third-party hardware and software developers helped fuel the success of Windows 3.0.

1991

Windows 3.0b

The first wave of spectacular growth in Windows usage came with the advent of Windows v3.1. The interface was noticeably more usable than v3.0 and did not seem to have that gaudy childish quality that Microsoft graphical interfaces had up until this time. After all, Microsoft should have got it right, the Apple Graphical User Interface (GUI) had already been around for ten years!

This was a tumultuous year for Microsoft. IBM found out Microsoft was plotting a mutiny and were looking after their own operating system rather than producing updates for IBMs OS/2 platform. Worse than that, Microsoft were using the very same concepts in their product. History was repeating itself.

At this time Microsoft spent a lot of time and money on Windows 3.0 to improve the GUI. Spending millions on public opinion on the best size and object colours for its GUI and this resulted in a significant improvement over the primitive prior versions however none could argue it was as elegant or effective as the Macintosh interface, albeit delivered at a lower cost.

Surprisingly, Windows v3.1 is not well documented on Microsofts web site. Their version of history jumps straight to v3.11 otherwise known as Windows for Workgroups. That was a version of Windows 3.1 that added very rudimentary network support. It did not come into common usage until Microsoft supported Ethernet, ARCnet, AppleTalk and Token Ring provided by trusted mainstream hardware manufacturers like 3COM, Novell. IBM and Western Digital. Even then, Novell had 93% of the server market so Microsoft were determined to add networking to their feature set as soon as possible.

During the early 1990s Utah-based Novell Inc. allowed most operating systems including Windows and Macintosh operating systems to connect to their servers, had had a near monopoly in the server market save for a few niche market competitors like 3COM 3OPEN and IBM Personal Network products.

The reason for Windows desktop popularity at this time is due in no small part to applications like Microsoft Excel. Prior to Windows 3.1, most people were using applications like WordPerfect (word processing), dBase (database) and Lotus 1-2-3 (spreadsheet) and these needed a very low cost machine running DOS.

Strategists for many companies refused to believe that Windows was the next big thing and hung on to the idea that if Windows was a fad, they would not bother releasing versions of their products for Windows. By the time they did, it was too late for many including the biggest in the business. WordPerfect, Lotus (1-2-3) and Aston-Tate (dBase).

1992

IBM PS/2 Model 70 386

During this time, Microsoft developed their own versions of equivalent products that would eventually lead to the Microsoft Office suite of tools.

At the same time, most games written for PCs were still running under DOS. Under the DOS4G memory manager, games could take advantage of expensive extended memory. Keen enthusiasts bought memory manager software to maximize the this memory in PCs that has more than the 640Kb maximum usable by DOS.

It's hard to believe that the early Macintosh had just 64k of memory. It just beggars belief that Apple did so much, with so little. Interested readers should research the Apple story (apple.com).

DOS programmers had a programming model readily available and had the ability to write code to directly access the rapidly improving graphics capabilities of PCs without the overhead of Windows virtual device driver (VxD) model. So for years after the initial domination of Windows, gamers continued to use DOS. It wasnt until the advent of patched versions of Windows 98 that many took the plunge - over five years later... a long time in computer terms.

1993

Windows for Workgroups 3.11

WfW v3.11 looked pretty much the same as v3.1 but added peer-to-peer networking with support for both domain and workgroup connections to Microsoft networks. For the first time, Windows was network-aware and became part of the emerging client/server computing evolution.

Typically for Microsoft, rather than embracing the current standards, they went about writing their own. This emerged in the form of peer to peer local area networks (LANs) that used proprietary protocols and could only connect to the (then rare) Microsoft LAN Manager and IBM LAN Server networks.

Windows for Workgroups added features of special interest to business users, such as rudimentary centralised configuration and security, significantly improved support for Novell NetWare networks (now 85% of the server market), and a remote access service (RAS). Windows for Workgroups also offered the dubious performance benefits of Microsoft's new 32-bit file system.

For all this though, the corporate standard for network servers was Novell NetWare that had established itself as the first choice for most PC and many Macintosh networks in the eighties and early nineties.

Importantly, Microsoft released the first versions of Visual Basic around this time. It offered a visual dialog and form designer where you add widgets with drag and drop, the easy to learn BASIC had developed from all those years ago as well as a corresponding interpreter. The Integrated Development Environment (IDE) would not mature for years but even from v1.0 Visual Basic was event driven. A code editor was part of the IDE to add commands and programming logic to define what should happen when an event occurs (e.g. a click).

Although not a revolution, Visual Basic is still the most widely used programming language and, to a lot of hard-core programmers, the source of all evil - pun intended.

The release to manufacturing of Microsoft Windows NT® on July 27, 1993, marked an important milestone both for the author and for Microsoft. On the authors birthday Microsoft completed a project it had begun in the late 1980s - to build an advanced new operating system from scratch.

Dave Cutlers involvement in the development of NT is another significant sidebar to this story which I will not repeat here. The interested reader should read any one of the books related to the early days of the development of this Windows NT as it provides a very interesting insight into the mind of a man who would attempt to build the ultimate operating system under the management of another man who values the almighty dollar higher than functionality, security or quality.

(Insert reference to books on Deathmarch and other tales of the Cutlers development of NT)

Notes here about the introduction of code from OS/2 and VMS (i.e. stolen).

"Windows NT represents nothing less than a fundamental change in the way that companies can address their business computing requirements" Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates said at its release. This release may be more significant in future than many people currently think as it may be the last mainstream operating system project to be started from scratch, at least in the authors lifetime. Excluding different flavours of UNIX and Linux, the author hopes he is proved wrong.

Operating systems are now just too complex and expensive to be considered viable for a single company to produce from scratch.

Windows NT 3.1 sported the old Windows 3.1 interface so it didnt look much different but it was the first Windows operating system to combine support for client/server business applications with existing productivity applications. Even then, many applications didnt work or didnt work as expected when ported from earlier versions of Windows so it was quite some time before big business began to take notice of what was effectively NT 1.0

However, NT 3.1 was intended to break new ground in security, operating system power, performance, scalability and reliability. These included a pre-emptive multitasking scheduler for Windows-based applications, integrated networking, domain server security, management utilities like Performance Monitor, OS/2 and POSIX subsystems, support for multiple processor servers and the initially dreadful NTFS file system.

Windows NT 3.1 contained overlapping windows like Windows 3.1

The first version of Windows NT used version number 3.1 to maintain consistency with Windows 3.1, which at the time was well established. Windows NT was geared (read that priced) toward business users and was initially available in both a desktop (workstation) version and a server version called Windows NT Advanced Server. Early NT hackers discovered that differences between the two versions were merely two registry entries! Many geeks remain cynical to this day because of baseless claims like this from Microsoft. With greater complexity of NT, rather than a full and frank publishing of the inner workings of the operating system, Microsoft relied on security by obscurity but the power of the Internet was about to make a fool of anyone who thought security holes could be ignored just they were hard to find. In the face of instant global communication it was increasingly easy to share information about security weaknesses as Microsoft would find out in the decade that followed.

Some would say they still haven't learnt their lesson.

The desktop version of Windows NT was well-received by developers but users complained of not having enough memory or disk space to make it viable. Certainly the author remembers installing it on the fastest machine we had at work. It also had the most memory (16Mb) and it was an absolute pig to get running. Nothing worked, the drivers were buggy - when we finally got it going, it was slow to the point of being unusable.

The Win32® Application Programming Interface (API made it easier for developers to provide powerful new programs it would take some years for many to reverse engineer the system to learn how to do things that Microsoft where obviously able to do - but where unwillingto share with any of their devoted flock.

Windows NT was positioned as a strategic platform for business that could integrate client/server applications with existing Windows-based desktop applications, or function as a technical workstation to run high-end engineering or scientific applications. However, most people just didn't take it seriously until cheaper hardware become available sometimes, several years later.

The reasons for calling it NT have been lost in the mists of time, or at least conveniently forgotten, there are so many stories about how it might be New Technology or WNT being a transcription of VMS (Dave Cutler had a geeky sense of humour). The official line from Microsoft is that "it has no meaning" - yeah right! ...spoons? There is no spoon...

The fact that it was replaced inside six months is an indication that perhaps NT v3.1 didn't live up to all the promise of the original marketing material.

Windows NT Workstation 3.5 supported the OpenGL graphics standard, which helped power increasinly graphic applications for software development, engineering, financial analysis, scientific, games and most importantly, screen savers.

The Windows NT Workstation 3.5 release was touted as providing the highest degree of protection yet for critical business applications and data. The intention was to provide what the marketing team called "32-bit performance" but most of us were struggling to afford 4Mb to 8Mb of RAM so we couldn't have been more peeved to see we needed 16Mb or 32Mb. Application support had improved and this included support for NetWare file and print servers as well as improved productivity features such as the ability to use 255-character file names.

1994

Windows NT Workstation 3.51

Many compatibility problems, memory management issues and new hardware support forced Microsoft to provide better backward compatibility for users migrating from existing Microsoft systems. This issues coupled with the hype surrounding the up-coming Windows 95 release consigned this version to history relatively quickly.

It would be the first and last time Microsoft would number an operating system release as a point release of a minor numbering scheme.

1995

Windows 95

Windows 95 was the successor to Microsofts three existing general-purpose desktop operating systems, Windows 3.1, Windows for Workgroups, and MS-DOS. Originally code-named Chicago, Windows 95 included both 16 and 32-bit components including an integrated 32-bit TCP/IP stack - very buggy and dial-up networking, plus new Plug and Play capabilities that made it easier to install compatible hardware and software - which almost nothing affordable was.

Touted as a 32-bit operating system, Windows 95 also offered better multimedia capabilities, more powerful mobile computing (DUN), and integrated networking (sort of). In order to keep memory requirements to a minimum, it did not include support for system-level security or Unicode, which came later. Unix has always had these features but hey, who are we to question the guru?

Significantly, the Windows 95 development team stole the march on the NT team by delivering plug and play and hardware detection features that would take years to enter the NT code base. Not only that, but they did it with a tiny budget and no guidance from the almighty Cutler.

Cutler would later regret the battles he had with Gates and eventually ceded control to Gates when it was clear that Gates was not interested in sacrificing compatibility for quality.

Until 2002, there were still more Windows 95 users than all other operating systems in existence combined!

The Infamous Start Menu from Windows 95

"...start me up..." - The Rolling Stones were paid to sing at the launch.

Millions of copies were sold in the first few days with some fan-boys camping out over-night to get the first copies...Windows 95 was the most popular piece of software sold ever. In August 1995, Microsoft released the plus! Pack for Windows 95. Later Plus! would be bundled with Office 95 but amoung the games and utilities was a seldom-used program called Internet Explorer 1.0.

At that time, users that had internet access used NCSA Mosaic or similar browsers. Microsoft saw a gap in a very new market so build their own browser using code from Spyglass Mosaic which was also based on NCSA Mosaic. IE1 was very basic compared to the competition. At this time, browsers cost money for commercial use but were usually a free download for personal use.

IE1 was rarely seen and was replaced in November with IE2 that added support for Windows 3.1 and Windows NT 3.5 and 4.0 as well as SSL, cookies, VRML, and an internet news reader. These and later versions were subsequently bundled with Windows for free - this was the start of what is commonly known as The Browser War.

1996

Windows NT Workstation 4.0

September 1996, the first major upgrade for two years, NT 4.0 was released and became the backbone of Microsofts business strategy. In the early days, NT 4.0 was fraught with reliability and compatibility issues and many patches were released before anything like business-grade reliability could be assumed. Years later, the need to regularly restart NT 4.0 is a common complaint amongst users.

Windows NT was designed with the intention to bring increased ease of use and simplified management, higher network throughput, and a more complete set of (graphical) tools for developing and managing intranets. For the geeks it was seriously lacking command line tools and this became a point of contention for many years hence.

Interestingly, Windows NT 4.0 used the Windows 95 user interface. It did provide improved networking support, was more secure than previous versions and provided better access to the Internet using built-in tools.

Of course Microsoft web site does not mention the browser wars where Microsoft dumped IE for free, forcing Netscape out of business. This was later declared anti-competitive and illegal.

August 1996, Microsoft releases Internet Explorer 3.0 with features almost identical to the, then most popular browser, Netscape. IE3 had a new code-base but still used technologies owned by Spyglass. IE3 was the first version to support Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) albeit poorly. IE3 can runs under most versions of Windows up to XP SP2 (Vista not tested).

November 1996, and Bill Gates released his infamous book called The Road Ahead which among other things, described the Internet as a toy and a distraction. Two weeks later Bills people had obviously read it and Bill immediately announced a completely revised and updated [roadahead.com] edition where Gates said he would refocus his entire company on the Internet, such predictive powers! It took him another year to write it.

1997

In January, Microsoft announces the availability of Office 97, which added internet (in)compatibility to Microsofts proprietary file formats. Web standards advocates are horrified.

In August, Internet Explorer 4.0 is released for free amidst wide accusations of monopolistic behaviour towards Netscape, the primary internet browser up until that time.

1998

October 1998, Microsoft announced that Windows NT would no longer carry the initials "NT," and that the next major version of the operating system would be called Windows 2000. By forcing themselves to deliver to a deadline that included the date in the name of the product, Microsoft spawned another death-march last seen during the development of Windows NT 3.1.

1998

Windows 98

Windows 98 was the upgrade to Windows 95. Described as an operating system that "Works Better, Plays Better," Windows 98 was the first version of Windows designed specifically for consumers as opposed to business.

Windows 98 enabled users to find PC- or Internet-based information easily, it opened and closed applications more quickly, and it included support for reading DVD discs and connecting to universal serial bus (USB) devices.

1999

Windows 98 Second Edition

Microsoft Windows 98 SE was an incremental update to Windows 98 that offered better hardware compatibility and a few additional Internet-related features.

Microsofts contribution to progress was introduce a new version of their browser so incompatible with currently accepted standards, it would spawn a whole industry of developers to cope with it. Internet Explorer 5 and Windows NetMeeting® version 3.0 conferencing software also spawned their own round of litigation with competitors labelling them illegal. Windows 98 SE also included Microsoft DirectX® API 6.1 that was intended to deliver multimedia performance improvements as well as new home networking capabilities through Internet connection sharing (ICS). Windows 98 SE was also Microsofts first consumer operating system capable of using device drivers that also worked with the Windows NT business operating system.

2000

Windows Millennium Edition (Windows Me)

Microsoft marketing brochureware described Windows ME as offering consumers numerous music, video, and home networking enhancements and reliability improvements. Users experience would be somewhat less cool than this. Windows ME was widely castigated as over sold, under performing, unreliable and just plain crap.

While the System Restore feature let users roll back software configuration changes this was a frequent necessity. Windows Movie Maker was introduced to edit digital home videos and Microsoft Windows Media™ Player 7 was included to play digital media but the writing was on the wall.

Windows Me was the last Microsoft operating system based on the Windows 95 kernel. Microsoft announced that all future operating system products would be based on the Windows NT and Windows 2000 kernel.

2000

Windows 2000 Professional

Windows 2000 Professional was the upgrade to Windows NT Workstation 4.0, but it was more than just that. Windows 2000 Professional was designed to replace Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows NT Workstation 4.0 on all business desktops and laptops.

This is interesting because although it was always intended to converge existing versions of Windows into Windows 2000, it seemed to users that most new features were borrowed from Windows 98, already several years old.

Built on top of the proven Windows NT Workstation 4.0 code base and sporting the Windows 98 interface, Windows 2000 did show improvements in reliability, ease of use, Internet compatibility, and support for mobile computing. However, proprietary versions of previously standard software. The bastardization of Java would be a much talked about feature. Microsoft would later lose their court case in favour of Sun and be forced to remove incompatible MS-Java code from the operating system only to buy off Sun years later for a few billion dollars in exchange for adding it back again!

Windows 2000 Professional also made hardware installation easier than Windows NT 4.0 by adding support for a wide variety of new Plug and Play hardware, including new networking and wireless products, USB and IEEE 1394 (firewire) and infrared.

2001

Windows XP. Almost two years later, in October 2001, Windows XP is released still promising the integration of all Windows versions and features into one platform. With Windows XP, they almost achieved this but they also ported the security holes and bugs that plagued earlier versions. There are more than eighty separate patches AFTER Windows XP Service Pack 2!

With the release of Windows XP Home Edition cynical computer geeks recognised that crippleware had reached new heights with XP Home Edition being somewhat hobbled compared to Professional Edition albeit at lower cost.

According to Microsoft they "succeeded in merging its two Windows operating system lines for consumers and businesses, uniting them around the Windows NT and Windows 2000 code base".

The demise of the Windows XP codebase for Vista forced the development teams to stop and restart coding the next version of Windows. A whole new programming effort based on Windows Server 2003 code was started in 2003 which was to become Vista.

According to Microsoft: "With Windows XP, consumers and home users now have performance, stability, and security that business users benefited from in Windows 2000".

Of course the reality is a little different as the promised convergence has never materialised more than ten years after it was first announced.

Windows XP includes a redesigned interface and includes the broad application and hardware compatibility of Windows 98, while adding remote control, a revised user interface and many other smaller improvements that make it easier to use.

Windows XP Professional offers features for business and home computing, including Remote Desktop, encrypting file system, system restore and new networking features including wireless 802.1x networking support, Windows Messenger, Remote Assistance, and the System Restore feature.

Windows XP Home Edition offers a simplified visual design that makes frequently accessed features more accessible. The product offers many enhancements aimed at home users such as the Network Setup Wizard, Microsoft Windows Media™ Player, Windows Movie Maker, and enhanced digital photo capabilities.

Windows XP 64-Bit Edition is intended for power users with workstations that use the Intel Itanium or x86-64 compatible processors. The Itanium story is worthy of another chapter but suffice to say, the sad story of the HP/Intel IA-64 processor caused many pundits to rename the Itanium, the Itantic. Use of these processors is currently limited to niche (read that expensive) server markets where they compete with cheaper multi-core 32-bit processors.

Note that in the graphic above (courtesy of microsoft.com) even Microsoft dont admit the dates of the release of the original Windows product, perhaps way too embarrassing to admit that the first two versions were hardly used by anyone. It would be almost fifteen years since the release of Windows v1.0 that Microsoft finally brought together the two previously separate lines of Windows desktop operating systems (Windows 95/98/SE/ME and Windows NT/2k) into a single product Windows XP/2003 however they do not share a common code base.

Microsoft was attempting to rationalize its development effort and leverage new hardware that finally was fast enough to drive the operating system without holding up the user.

With the release of Windows 2003 Server (aka .NET Server), Microsoft continues a cycle of server operating system upgrades it began a decade ago in 1993, with the release of the first version of Microsoft Windows NT® Server. To understand the progression of Windows server operating systems you have to look back earlier than 1993.

The kernel build numbers and OS versions make interesting reading for geeks like me:

Windows NT 3.1 = build 511

Windows NT 3.5 = build 887

Windows NT 3.51 = build 1057

Windows NT 4.0 = build 1381

Windows 2000 (5.0) = build 2195

Windows XP (5.1) = build 2600

Windows Server 2003 (5.2) = build 3790

Windows Longhorn alpha 2 (2004) = build 4053

Windows Vista beta 1 (2005) = build 5048 (or 5112 July 2005)

Windows Vista beta 2 (2005) = build 5219 (or 5384 May 2006)

Windows Vista RC1 (2006) = build 5600

Windows Vista RC2 (2006) = build 5744

Windows Vista RTM (2006/2007) = build 6000

2006

Windows Vista. After five years development, Microsoft has stashed tens of billions in the bank and many are running Windows XP but Windows Vista is here. The operating system is still insecure and expensive and we still don't have fast enough hardware to run it. Linux desktops are still looking good and although Linux has strengthened its market share in the server space, desktops are still ruled by Windows. Apple is approaching the market share it held in its hey day (almost 10%) and runs on Intel hardware yet the defacto standard is still Windows.

Despite their size and cash, Microsoft have been unable to cure basic security faults because of fundamental design issues. Market share for Vista at the time of writing (2007) is still very small and many are reporting the same compatibility and speed issues that plagued Windows XP for a couple of years until we were all forced to go along for the ride when the old version of Windows was withdrawn.

As long as executable files are based on the files name there will be holes. The stagnation in Windows development has resulted in a fairly large drop in confidence away from Microsoft software. It remains to be seen if this confidence can be won back.

The market still pays a "Microsoft tax" on every PC bought bought regardless of whether you actually want Windows installed or not so there is still no real competition for Microsoft in the PC market.

Part III - Server Operating Systems

Microsoft Windows server operating systems have a shorter history than Windows desktop operating systems, but they share the same legacy.

In 1988, Microsoft formed what would become the development team for Microsoft Windows NT®, with the goal of developing a fully 32-bit, multi-tasking multi-purpose operating system.

In 1991, at the Microsoft Windows Developers Conference, Microsoft demonstrated Windows Advanced Server for LAN Manager, a high-end operating system that would later be renamed Windows NT. The product offered the familiar Windows user interface and programming model, and was capable of running all the applications developed for Windows 3.0.

1993

Windows NT Advanced Server 3.1

At the same time Microsoft released the first desktop version of Windows NT in July 1993, it also released Microsofts first Windows Server operating system. Windows NT Advanced Server 3.1 was designed to act as a dedicated server in a client/server environment, offering power, scalability, enhanced fault tolerance, and standards-based interoperability.

Well thats if you could stand the installation from 22 floppy disks or that new fangled CDROM thingy. Microsoft promoted Windows NT Advanced Server as an application server for Novell NetWare, Banyan VINES, and Microsoft networks, capable of providing a platform for sophisticated business solutions such as financial, accounting, and vertical applications. As an application server, Windows NT Advanced Server was touted as a powerful platform for database servers such as Microsoft SQL Server™, communications servers such as Microsoft SNA Server, and mail servers such as Microsoft Mail.

For network management, Windows NT Advanced Server provided customers with centralised security and server management using graphical tools to manage multiple systems. It was also sold as a system that could provide a single logon for enterprise users however in those days it was common to have just a few servers so this was not difficult to achieve however the growth of PC networks caught Microsoft napping and it wasn't long before "enterprise" meant several hundred servers rather than just several PCs.

The overriding intention of Windows NT Advanced Server 3.1 was to combine the ease of use of Windows with the power of Microsoft LAN Manager network services.

1994

Windows NT Server 3.5. The next release of Windows NT Server was built on the stability of version 3.1, but with greatly enhanced processing speed and improved connectivity to other systems, particularly in Novell NetWare and UNIX environments.

Enhancements included new administration tools, improved client software configuration, an auto-reboot and dump facility, better tools for NetWare, and better remote access capabilities.

1995

Windows NT Server 3.51

This incremental release included a tool to help customers manage Client Access Licenses (CALs) for the Microsoft BackOffice® family of server products, a utility to enable over-the-network installation of Windows 95, and support for remote booting.

1996

Windows NT Server 4.0

September 1996, Windows NT Server becomes a full 32-bit operating system and gained the popular look and feel of Windows 95. Windows NT 4.0 also added many advanced features for business and technical users, including:

• Higher network throughput
• Faster file and print services
• Robust application support
• Standards-based communications features
• An integrated Web server (Internet Information Server)
• A complete set of tools for developing and managing intranets

Subsequent service packs and option packs offered additional features, including public-key and certificate authority functionality, smart card support, improved symmetric multiprocessing (SMP) scalability, clustering capabilities, and component object model (COM) support.

1997

Windows NT Server 4.0 Enterprise Edition

Windows NT Server 4.0, Enterprise Edition built on the benefits of Windows NT Server 4.0 by adding features and capabilities designed to appeal to large corporate customers with mission-critical requirements. Windows NT Server 4.0, Enterprise Edition added greater performance and scalability, higher availability, and expanded services for developing enterprise applications.

The product also included Microsoft Transaction Server to facilitate the development of Internet and intranet applications, and Microsoft Message Queue Server (MSMQ), which enabled applications running at different times to communicate across heterogeneous networks and systems that may be temporarily offline.

Windows NT Server 4.0, Enterprise Edition also supported critical server resources with the Microsoft Cluster Service and Windows NT Server load balancing service, large SMP servers, and memory-intensive applications.

In October 1998, Microsoft announced that it would drop the "NT" suffix in the next major version of the Windows NT operating system, which would become known as Windows 2000.

1998

Windows NT Server 4.0 Terminal Server Edition

Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition gave the Windows NT Server operating system the capability to serve 32-bit Windows operating system-based applications to terminals and terminal emulators running on PC and non-PC desktops. The terminal server environment was, by definition, a thin-client architecture where all application processing occurred centrally on the server.

Because Terminal Server clients were available for many different desktop platforms, including Macintosh and UNIX, Terminal Server provided access to 32-bit Windows based applications from virtually any desktop. Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition, offered a bridging technology for organizations that were transitioning to a pure 32-bit desktop environment, by allowing their existing non-Windows-based computers to connect to a Windows network.

Windows NT Server 4.0, Terminal Server Edition, consisted of three components:

• The Windows NT Server multi-user core, which made it possible to host multiple, simultaneous client sessions.
• The Remote Desktop Protocol, which allowed communication with the a server that has Terminal Server enabled over the network.
• The "super-thin" Windows-based client software, which displayed the familiar 32-bit Windows user interface on a range of desktop hardware.

2000

Windows 2000 Server Family

Bill Gates unveiled Microsofts family of Windows 2000 client and server software at an elaborate launch event in February 2000 that featured dozens of companies demonstrating Windows 2000 compatible hardware and software.

Windows 2000 was released in both desktop (Windows 2000 Professional) and server versions. The desktop version has since been upgraded to Windows XP Professional, while the server versions of Windows 2000 will be upgraded when Microsoft releases Windows .NET server (that would be renamed Windows Server 2003).

The three server versions of Windows 2000 offer a wide range of features that provide the reliability, scalability, and manageability required by businesses of all sizes.

Windows 2000 Server offers a next-generation, multipurpose network operating system for departmental file, print, Web, and entry-level application servers.

Windows 2000 Advanced Server offers a server operating system for business-critical Web and line-of-business application servers.

These operating systems offer a broad set of capabilities for Web developers, including a high-performance Web server featuring Active Server Pages (ASP), COM+ component services, transaction and message queuing support, and end-to-end XML support.

Windows 2000 Datacenter Server offers a server operating system for the most demanding levels of availability and scale.

For IT professionals, the Windows 2000 Server family offers advanced features, centralized, policy-based management with new technologies such as Microsoft IntelliMirror® management technologies and the Microsoft Active Directory™ service, and faster deployment options that lower cost of ownership for organizations of all sizes.

2002

Bill Gates predicts in five years time that 80% of machines will be tablet or touch-screen laptops. Another pearl of wisdom from the legend.

2003

Windows 2003 Server (aka Windows .NET Server)

In April 2003, Windows 2003 Server is released but is effectively Windows XP plus server components minus the multimedia components albeit with a slightly different code base. It was due for final release in late 2002 but was finally released on April 24, 2003. Windows 2003 Server was intended to meet the needs of businesses of all sizes, from small, centralized organizations to the largest distributed enterprises. In addition, Microsoft included Microsoft .NET functionality in the operating system but for most businesses this will of little assistance because these tools are out-of-date and updates need to be downloaded from Microsofts web site to ensure they are both compatible and secure.

The big kicker is the lack of application compatibility with non-2003 aware applications. This means that on the day of release, only three applications actually run on Windows Server 2003 and these are all Microsoft products. Clearly this is not going to convince users who, in early 2003, are mostly stuck on Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 95.

Windows 2003 Server incorporates the Microsoft. NET Framework but by the time it ships security holes would force the user to download massive patches of hundreds of megabytes of files to fix known problems. The .NET framework allows developers to create XML Web services and next-generation applications that blend these XML Web services with traditional applications. This simplifies the process of building, deploying, and maintaining applications, and can allow businesses to improve their communication, collaboration, and connectivity by becoming fully Web-enabled.

Because Windows 2003 Server is built on Windows 2000 Server, it includes all the basic functionalities customers expect from a Windows server operating system, such as "dependability", "security" and other "features". Scalability is improved a little but not compatibility. Although Windows 2003 Server integrates with existing Windows 2000 based directories, Web, application, network, and file and print services, while running in compatibility mode however to leverage 2003 benefits this mode must be discarded in favour of native mode.

Microsoft Server 2003 comes in several flavours, each intended for a particular size and type of business (and priced accordingly):

• Small Business Server
• Web Edition
• Standard Edition
• Enterprise Edition
• Datacenter Edition

Small Business Server

Windows Small Business Server 2003 is a low-cost entry into this product line, incorporating various restrictions upon networking, licensing, development tools, and application redundancy.

Web Edition

Windows Server 2003, Web Edition is mainly for building and hosting Web applications, Web pages, and XML Web Services. It is designed to be used primarily as an IIS 6.0 Web server and provides a platform for rapidly developing and deploying XML Web services and applications that use ASP.NET technology, a key part of the .NET Framework.

Standard Edition

Windows Server 2003, Standard Edition is aimed towards small to medium sized businesses. Flexible yet versatile, Standard Edition supports file and printer sharing, offers secure Internet connectivity, and allows centralized desktop application deployment.

Enterprise Edition

Windows Server 2003, Enterprise Edition is aimed towards medium to large businesses. It is a full-function server operating system that supports up to eight processors and provides enterprise-class features such as eight-node clustering and support for up to 32 GB of memory. Enterprise Edition also comes in 64-bit edition for Intel Itanium-based computers capable of supporting 8 processors and 64 GB of RAM.

Datacenter Edition

Windows Server 2003, Datacenter Edition is the flagship of the Windows Server line and designed for immense infrastructures demanding high security and reliability. Datacenter supports up to 32-way SMP and 64 GB of RAM with the 32-bit version and up to 128-way machines with individual partitions of up to 64 processors and 512 GB of RAM with the 64-bit version. Datacenter provides both eight-node clustering and load balancing services as standard features and includes Windows System Resource Manager facilitating consolidation and system management.

It's 2001, "the future is Longhorn!" they screamed. Delivery dates had been revised so many times, people were wondering if it was real. Fast forward to 2008 and it's finally here as Windows Server 2008...now along comes Blackcomb...due around 2012...or who knows when!

Timeline (all dollars are in $USD)

• 1983 Microsoft Windows was announced November, 1983
• 1984 nothing major
• 1985 Microsoft Windows 1.0 is introduced in November, 1985 and is initially sold for $100.00
• 1986 nothing major
• 1987 Microsoft Windows 2.0 was released December 9, 1987 and is initially sold for $100.00
• 1987 Microsoft Windows/386 or Windows 386 is introduced December 9, 1987 and is initially sold for $100.00
• 1988 Microsoft Windows/286 or Windows 286 is introduced June, 1988 and is initially sold for $100.00
• 1989 nothing major
• 1990 Microsoft Windows 3.0 released May, 22 1990. Microsoft Windows 3.0 full version was priced at $149.95 and the upgrade version was priced at $79.95
• 1991 Microsoft Windows 3.0 or Windows 3.0a with multimedia was released October, 1991 and Visual Basic announced in May, MS-DOS 5.0 ships
• 1992 Microsoft Windows 3.1 was released April, 1992 and sells more than 1 Million copies within the first two months of its release
• 1992 Microsoft Windows for Workgroups 3.1 was released October, 1992
• 1993 Microsoft Windows NT 3.1 was released August, 1993
• 1993 The number of licensed users of Microsoft Windows now totals more then 25 Million
• 1994 Microsoft Windows for Workgroups 3.11 was released February, 1994
• 1994 Microsoft Windows NT 3.5 was released September, 1994
• 1995 Microsoft Windows NT 3.51 was released June, 1995
• 1995 Microsoft Windows 95 was released August, 1995 and sells more than 1 Million copies within 4 days
• 1996 Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 was released August, 1996
• 1996 Microsoft Windows CE 1.0 was released November, 1996
• 1997 Microsoft Windows CE 2.0 was released November, 1997
• 1998 Microsoft Windows 98 was released June, 1998
• 1998 Microsoft Windows CE 2.1 was released July, 1998
• 1999 Microsoft Windows 98 SE (Second Edition) was released May, 1999
• 1999 Microsoft Windows CE 3.0 was released 1999
• 2000 Microsoft Windows Server 2000 was released February 2000
• 2000 Microsoft Windows ME (Millennium) released July 2000
• 2001 Microsoft Windows XP is released October 25, 2001
• 2002 Microsoft Windows XP SP1
• 2003 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 is released
• 2004 Microsoft Windows XP SP2
• 2005 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 SP1
• 2006 Microsoft Windows Vista
• 2007 Microsoft Windows Server 2003 SP2
• 2008 Microsoft Windows Vista SP1
• 2008 Microsoft Windows Server 2008
• 2008 Microsoft Windows XP SP3

Microsoft Browser History - Internet Explorer

• 1995 IE1
• 1995 IE2
• 1996 IE3
• 1997 IE4
• 1998 IE5
• 2001 IE6
• 2006 IE7
• 2009 IE8*

* Predicted

Bibliography

Facts and some interesting notes I took from research into Microsoft anti-trust cases

Zakary. Showstoppers

Wallace, James. 1993. Hard Drive: Bill gates and the Making of the Microsoft Empire,
Harper Collins Publishers, New York, NY.

TeamGates.com. Sept 29, 1996, Bill's Life, http://www.teamgates.com/library/life.htm

Wikipedia

T. Carlson. Sept 29, 1996. Altair 8800

http://www.softwarehistory.org/

http://bricklin.com/visicalc.htm

http://www.seattleweekly.com/features/0422/040602_news_microsoft.php

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/APIWar.html

History of their web site: microsoft.com

Very funny video and commentary from Microsofts past

Power, D. J., "A Brief History of Spreadsheets", DSSResources.COM, World Wide Web, version 3.6, 08/30/2004. Photo added September 24, 2002

The origins of "Office" software suites, Roughly Drafted

A Technical History of Apple's Operating Systems, Amit Singh, May 14, 2006

A history of the Amiga, Jeremy Reimer, arstechnica.com, 31 July, 2007

A geneology of Unix

History of the X86 microprocessor

Ten years of Apple iMac

Browser History IE5.5 Quirks

Microsoft Hits and Misses

London Stock Exchange failure

A "true" history of Microsoft (video)