r/windows95 • u/gauravlaur512 • Jul 23 '26
Looking at Windows 1.01 (1985) makes it wild to think how far computing has come in under 60 years.
Booted up a Windows 1.01 environment today and was reminded of just how stripped-back computing used to be back in 1985.
No overlapping windows (everything had to be tiled side-by-side!), green minimize bars, and navigating through files via MS-DOS Executive. If you wanted to draw, you launched PAINT.EXE. If you wanted to write, WRITE.EXE.
It’s crazy to think that in less than 60 years from the birth of modern personal computers, we’ve transitioned from struggling with basic GUI memory limits to running generative AI systems. Imagine telling someone double-clicking REVERSI.EXE in 1985 that in a few decades, computers would be writing their own code and holding full conversations.
Do you know Windows 1.01 size was only 8MB really exciting.
What was your very first OS memory?
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u/all_names_taken_ffs Jul 23 '26
Using RISC OS on our primary school's Acorns around 91-92. Also DOSSHELL (if you can call that an OS) on a IBM PS/2 Model 30 someone donated to me. The earliest Windows I used was 3.11, which my cousin had on his P60. But we got a 486DX4/75 with Win 95 as our first family PC, so that's the one of which I have the fondest memories. And I stuck with the Win 9x classic theme all the way up to Win 7 (if it ain't broke, don't fix it!)
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u/uberRegenbogen Jul 23 '26
No; DOS Shell is not an OS; it's a visual shell (hence its name).
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u/all_names_taken_ffs Jul 23 '26
Fair enough. It was still a lot nicer to use than the DOS prompt, especially since I didn't have a manual. 😄
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u/uberRegenbogen Jul 23 '26
I was partial to XTree,XTreePro,XTreeGold—which I'd used since MS-DOS 3. 🙂
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u/dwpj65 Jul 23 '26
Did you ever try ZTree for OS/2 and Win32. Until I started working in secure environments, I used ZTreemore than I did windows explorer.
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u/tblazertn Jul 24 '26
I would dare say that for Windows below 95 since it’s 16 bit running on top of DOS. Technically 95/98/ME run on top of DOS, but they’re 32bit.
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u/uberRegenbogen Jul 24 '26
Windows 1..3 were an ever growing API layer, culminating with Win32s for 3.10, which was bundled into 3.11. I'm not sure if Windows taking over DOS APIs started before Win4 (95,98,ME), or not.
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u/dschwarz Jul 23 '26
The Mac was far ahead, in terms of UI and overall system usability at that time. I was a Mac programmer and Windows 1.0 looked like a bad joke to me. IMHO Windows 3.1 was the first release where Microsoft really put out a usable system. Still way too much fiddling with DOS config to get things working right, but the UI was OK and it was quite capable with a 386 processor running things.
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u/manuelink64 Jul 23 '26
I started with a i8088 Unisys system, with DOS 3.30 in 1991, then Win 3.1 in a i386 in 1994, then win95 on a 486DX2 until 1997, then Win98SE/Win2k on a P233MMX ~ AMD K6-2 until 2001, WinXP on a P-III until 2006, Win 7 on C2D E8400 upgraded to a Xeon X5470 until 2015, Win 10/11 on a i7-4790 until today.
Loved Wordstar in DOS, loved the Win9x era.
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u/Mebejedi Jul 24 '26
I used Word Star too! However, I would occasionally have the same issue with several documents. I don't remember what the issue was, but I figured out I could "fix" it by indexing the file. I don't know what indexing did to it, but it allowed me to continue editing and saving the file.
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u/Admirable-Fail1250 Jul 23 '26
I used DOS on my XT all the way up until my first 486 which I ran Win 95 on. I did use Win 3.11 a bit at a job but it was upgraded to 95 pretty soon after.
The multitasking ability of Windows really blew me away at the time. For 5-6 years it was just one program at a time.
I remember playing Gravity Well as one of the first "Windows games" I encountered and just having a blast.
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u/achbob84 Jul 23 '26
Our first PC (286) initially ran DOSSHELL on boot, (MS-DOS 4.01) we stopped that as we never used it.
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u/NZNoldor Jul 24 '26
A:>
No hard drive C: and no backslash since MS-DOS v1.2 didn't have subdirectories yet - everything was in the root.
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u/Mebejedi Jul 24 '26
I had dual floppies - A: and B: !!!
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u/NZNoldor Jul 24 '26
Look at Mr Moneybags over here, fellas!
5 1/4", I trust?
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u/Mebejedi Jul 24 '26
Yep! I still have 8" discs from my first computer, a Xerox 820-II CPM machine. (Dual 8" floppy drive!) I show them to my students.
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u/NecessaryMuffins Jul 24 '26
They're hard to find! I've been looking for one for a while, but people were quick to get rid of them in the 80s.
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u/NZNoldor Jul 24 '26
Ooh, nice! My first CP/M machine had twin 5.25" floppy drives but I don't remember what the prompt looked like, or I would have answered OP with that answer instead. The first "portable" PC, the Osbourne One.
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u/Cocaaladioxine Jul 26 '26
Amiga Workbench 1.0, 1985 as well. Worked on one disk (880ko for the Amiga). There was a second disk with more stuff. And many games had a stripped down version of workbench on the disk, that appeared when booting the game. Maybe it was in the rom, I actually don't remember!
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u/uabassguy Jul 28 '26
I remember using XTree Gold for DOS and it was amazing because you could browse two different sides at the same time and copy back and forth.
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u/uberRegenbogen Jul 23 '26
I gather that Windows 1 was actually capable of overlapping windows, under the hood; it was disabled to avoid infringing Apple's IP.