Amazing 1993 Video of Windows NT 3.1

By Atomic Wanderer Chicken
in Microsoft (Windows)

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Grand Master

Atomic Wanderer Chicken

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Alot of the features in the first Windows NT 3.1 are still in the Windows we use today, it is really amazing. Windows NT was ahead of its of time back then and so much that many computers could not run it (like Vista)!
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Grand Master

Quillz

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Only thing that bothered me about Computer Chronicles was how fast the subject changed. Five minutes of Windows NT, segue to a short bit on Mac OS and OS/2, go back to NT applications, etc. The better episodes where the ones that only focused on a single OS or product.

Cool video, though. Seen it before but it's a nice trip down memory lane.

Grand Master

Quillz

Posted
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I had no idea that NTFS was so old.

Might even be older than 1993. OS/2 was originally designed to be the powerful, multi-tasking OS that NT would eventually become. It wasn't until the success of Windows 3 in 1990 that Microsoft decided to cease OS/2 development, at which point IBM took over it solely.

Grand Master

Joshie

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Might even be older than 1993. OS/2 was originally designed to be the powerful, multi-tasking OS that NT would eventually become. It wasn't until the success of Windows 3 in 1990 that Microsoft decided to cease OS/2 development, at which point IBM took over it solely.

Amusingly, IBM back then was considered a slow, lumbering, committee-driven conglomerate of suits, yet there's no escaping people who deluded themselves into thinking we would've been better off with OS/2 than Windows.

Grand Master

Quillz

Posted
Posted

Amusingly, IBM back then was considered a slow, lumbering, committee-driven conglomerate of suits, yet there's no escaping people who deluded themselves into thinking we would've been better off with OS/2 than Windows.

From what I've read, IBM and Microsoft were opposites, especially in code design. IBM wrote long, bloated code and paid by lines of code. Microsoft went for small, faster code. The documentary "Triumph of the Nerds" had an interview with Steve Ballmer about how IBM didn't seem to follow the mentality of paying a developer more if they were able to write a program in fewer lines, making it smaller and faster.

That, among other technical differences, was a big reason why OS/2 eventually become IBM only. I've never actually played with the Warp releases, but they sure look interesting, from what I've seen demoed.

Grand Master

+Frank B. Subscriber²

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Windows NT could run OS/2 1.0 applications all the way up to NT 4.0 I believe, as well as supporting the OS/2 HPFS file system.

The OS/2 1.x sub-system was part of NT until version 5.0, better known as Windows 2000. Additionally there was an add-on for NT up to 4.0 IIRC which allowed you to use OS/2 1.x Presentation Manager applications, as shown below.

1265456138.or.105738.PNG

Grand Master

PGHammer

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Posted

Amusingly, IBM back then was considered a slow, lumbering, committee-driven conglomerate of suits, yet there's no escaping people who deluded themselves into thinking we would've been better off with OS/2 than Windows.

IBM's problem wasn't OS/2, but letting OS/2 flounder while Windows 95 was in development (after the OS/2-NT split).

OS/2 in general, and OS/2 2.x in particular, had an opportunity, even after Microsoft started replacing Windows 3.1 with Windows for Workgroups in shipments to OEMs (starting with Gateway, then followed quickly by Dell and HP) - IBM's OS/2 business had even admitted as such, and released OS/2 for Windows, which let customers add an existing Windows 3.x - even Windows for Workgroups - to OS/2. However, IBM's Systems Group - primarily their mainframe and nascent services business - wanted no part of ordinary consumers, or even SMBs, and starved the OS/2 unit of marketing funds. OS/2 required no more, in terms of hardware than Windows 95 - which itself required little more than Windows for Workgroups. (I would know - I dual-booted the two while Windows 95 was in beta.) True - Windows 95 had an ace in the hole that would not become evident until after it launched; it could run not merely Win32s applications, but even full-fledged Win32 (as in normally targeting NT) applications. That was something OS/2 could NOT counter without hefty royalty payments to Microsoft - and heaping helpings of crow. IBM under Trammel, and then Gerstner, was very prideful - could you see them going back to Microsoft, hat in hand and with a fat royalty check?

Grand Master

PGHammer

Posted
Posted

From what I've read, IBM and Microsoft were opposites, especially in code design. IBM wrote long, bloated code and paid by lines of code. Microsoft went for small, faster code. The documentary "Triumph of the Nerds" had an interview with Steve Ballmer about how IBM didn't seem to follow the mentality of paying a developer more if they were able to write a program in fewer lines, making it smaller and faster.

That, among other technical differences, was a big reason why OS/2 eventually become IBM only. I've never actually played with the Warp releases, but they sure look interesting, from what I've seen demoed.

IBM was (and still is) heavily enterprise-oriented - a legacy of their mainframe business. They didn't even market LAN Server (the server side of OS/2) very hard. Ordinary consumers and SMBs? They willingly - practically gleefully - steered those to Microsoft and LAN Manager (and eventually NT) before, during, and after the split - they wanted no part of such a plebian customer base. (I had, in fact, personally told IBM Mid-Atlantic's marketing mavens that if they didn't get their act together, Microsoft and Windows 95 would eat their lunch - in June of 1995.) OS/2 - as far back as 2.1 - was a squandered opportunity; OS/2 3.x - and even Warp (OS/2 4.x) were simply more obvious. (Look at eComStation - it is, in fact, OS/2 4.52 at the core. It's as least as viable as any Linux distribution, and supports more hardware than quite a few of them. However, even Ubuntu has a bigger word-of-mouth push then eCS does.)

Grand Master

+Frank B. Subscriber²

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  • Subscriber²
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IBM's problem wasn't OS/2, but letting OS/2 flounder while Windows 95 was in development (after the OS/2-NT split).

OS/2 in general, and OS/2 2.x in particular, had an opportunity, even after Microsoft started replacing Windows 3.1 with Windows for Workgroups in shipments to OEMs (starting with Gateway, then followed quickly by Dell and HP) - IBM's OS/2 business had even admitted as such, and released OS/2 for Windows, which let customers add an existing Windows 3.x - even Windows for Workgroups - to OS/2. However, IBM's Systems Group - primarily their mainframe and nascent services business - wanted no part of ordinary consumers, or even SMBs, and starved the OS/2 unit of marketing funds. OS/2 required no more, in terms of hardware than Windows 95 - which itself required little more than Windows for Workgroups. (I would know - I dual-booted the two while Windows 95 was in beta.) True - Windows 95 had an ace in the hole that would not become evident until after it launched; it could run not merely Win32s applications, but even full-fledged Win32 (as in normally targeting NT) applications. That was something OS/2 could NOT counter without hefty royalty payments to Microsoft - and heaping helpings of crow. IBM under Trammel, and then Gerstner, was very prideful - could you see them going back to Microsoft, hat in hand and with a fat royalty check?

IBM did try to market OS/2 to consumers. The older ones of us will remember the Warp 3-era commercials. Here in .de two of the biggest OEMs at the time - Vobis and Escom - even pre-installed OS/2 Warp 3 instead of DOS/Windows for a while in 1994/early 1995.

One reason which killed OS/2 was the lack of good native applications for it. Ironically you could say Win-OS2 (the Windows 3.x sub-system built in to OS/2 from version 2.0 on) was one cause for this - why would 3rd party developers port applications to OS/2 when you can simply run the Windows version on it?

Grand Master

PGHammer

Posted
Posted

IBM did try to market OS/2 to consumers. The older ones of us will remember the Warp 3-era commercials. Here in .de two of the biggest OEMs at the time - Vobis and Escom - even pre-installed OS/2 Warp 3 instead of DOS/Windows for a while in 1994/early 1995.

One reason which killed OS/2 was the lack of good native applications for it. Ironically you could say Win-OS2 (the Windows 3.x sub-system built in to OS/2 from version 2.0 on) was one cause for this - why would 3rd party developers port applications to OS/2 when you can simply run the Windows version on it?

Europe in general, and Germany/the Low Countries in particular, were the exceptions that, unfortunately, proved the rule. IBM didn't have a big Systems Group business in Europe - however, they DID have a solid relationship with NIXDORF (a major wheel in the PC business in Europe) which was responsible for a major part of the German OS/2 push.

There was no mirror to NIXDORF in North America, however.

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