Microsoft built a software empire on the back of its Windows operating system. Here’s how we got to Windows 98—and where the Microsoft OS is going.
October 1981
PC-DOS 1.0 ships with the new IBM PC. Microsoft ships MS-DOS shortly afterwards and licenses MS-DOS to all comers.
January 1983
Lisa
Apple releases the Lisa, one of the first microcomputers with a graphical user interface. With unreliable hardware and an average price tag of $10,000, the Lisa is a failure, but it spawns the more affordable Macintosh a year later. The Lisa and the Mac offer what DOS devotees derisively call the WIMP (windows, icons, mice, pointers) interface, as well as folders and long filenames—features that begin to come to Windows with Version 2.0. Some are not fully implemented until Windows 95.
March 1983
MS-DOS 2.0, a substantial rewrite, introduced support for hard disks, larger programs, installable device drivers, and a new, Unix-like hierarchical file system. Still has cryptic eight-character filenames and a text-mode interface.
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October 1983
VisiCorp., an offshoot from the company that created the groundbreaking DOS spreadsheet VisiCalc, releases VisiOn, an “integrated environment” that’s the first GUI for the PC. It requires 512K of RAM and a hard disk–still a cutting-edge setup at this point.
November 10, 1983
Microsoft announces Windows, an environment that extends the features of DOS with a graphical interface.
September 1984
GEM (Graphics Environment Manager) is announced by Digital Research. Released early in 1985, it can’t run DOS apps, which hampers its viability. Both GEM and VisiOn beat Windows to market, but both suffer from same problem as the original Windows: Few applications are available for these new platforms.
February 1985
IBM releases TopView, a text-based DOS multitasker. Only a few DOS commands can be used with TopView. DOS batch files cannot be run by TopView, which intercepts nearly all DOS interrupts. IBM promises to add a GUI to TopView but ultimately never does.
July 1985
Quarterdeck Office Systems releases DESQview, another text-based multitasker for DOS. It succeeds for a time with a limited audience. Quarterdeck makes many attempts to rally developers rally around DESQview as a platform, only to see them fail. Quarterdeck finally gives up after Windows 3.0 becomes the standard.
November 20, 1985
Windows 1.0
Windows 1.0 ships. Version 1.0 enables users to work with several programs at the same time, switching easily between them without having to quit and restart individual applications. But windows on Windows cannot overlap, crippling usability. Not enough software is written for Windows 1.0, and it fails to take hold in the marketplace.
December 9, 1987
Windows 386– a version of 2.0 optimized for Intel’s latest chip–is released. It has some market impact, but mostly, by letting users multitask DOS programs in the 386 chip’s “virtual machines,” it lays the foundation for much of what emerges in Windows 3.0.
June 1988
Digital Research launches DR-DOS, which the press considers superior to MS-DOS because of its powerful utilities. But DR is distracted from further development by the need to patch its OS to work with Windows, and DR-DOS never garners much market share.
October 31, 1988
IBM’s OS/2 1.1 with Presentation Manager ships. The first OS/2 with a GUI, 1.1 is a major upgrade to OS/2 1.0, but it still has insufficient support for popular DOS applications and existing hardware. OS/2’s problems encourage Microsoft to continue Windows development and IBM continues to develop OS/2. Sometime later, IBM complains that Microsoft is focusing on Windows, and the two part ways for good.
December 1988
Samna Ami, the first Windows word processor, ships. Users can edit using fonts that resemble print fonts and view margins as they actually appear. WordPerfect remains the dominant word processor, but Ami has much influence, if little impact, on the market. Microsoft Word for Windows will follow soon.
May 22, 1990
Windows 3.0
Windows 3.0 ships; has significant usability improvements. Program Manager and the icon setup work much better than the old Windows 2 MS-DOS Executive. File Manager is new. Developer enhancements kick-start the Windows software boom. Stability is less than ideal, but Windows 3.0 immediately dominates the market thanks to widespread third-party hardware and software support and preloading by PC vendors. Microsoft’s commitment to making Windows work finally pays off.
November 1990
GEOS 1.0, another GUI for DOS, is introduced but never emerges as a true Windows competitor. Although PC Magazine and some other publications laud GEOS’s technical merit, no software is available for it. Developer software doesn’t ship until six months after the OS.