Windows 1.0

Windows 1.0 is 16-bit graphical operating environment which is released on November 20, 1985.

The first attempt of Microsoft in creation of multitasking operating environment with the graphical interface for the personal computer. In 1987 it was replaced with Windows 2.0.

History

The first prototype of Windows was ready to a November exhibition of 1983 of COMDEX. At the presentation of the first Windows option it was promised that commercial sale will begin in May, 1984. In the spring of 1984 start date of sales was removed for November. In November this date was postponed for June, 1985. However boxes with the first Windows appeared in shops only on November 18, 1985.

Strangely enough, officially Windows 1.01 became the first version of Windows. Version 1.0 was not released because of a hard error.

The release of the next version – 1.02, took place in May, 1986. It was the international version which had localizations in several European languages.

In August, 1986 there was version 1.03 in which support of MS-DOS of version 3.2 appeared, new drivers for printers, expanded support of keyboards, etc. were added.

In version 1.04 which appeared in April, 1987 support of IBM PS/2 computers (Personal System/2) was added.

In November, 1987 Windows 1.0 succeeded Windows 2.0.

Support of Windows 1 was stopped only on December 31, 2001

Specific Features

Several special utilities, such as calendar, hours, calculator, graphics editor Microsoft Paint, simple Microsoft Notepad text editor and more perfect editor of texts of Microsoft Write were included in the delivery of Windows 1.0.

• The Windows 1.0 operating system had a clipboard which volume, however, was limited only to sixteen kilobytes. The system icons which were located in the lower part of a working space of Windows where all opened applications in the form of icons were displaced could not be moved outside the screen section which is taken away for them, open windows did not block this system area if only the application was not started in the full-screen mode. The color palette of the operating system gave in to flexible configuration from "control panel" ("Control Panel Box"), however all pop-up windows with error messages and hints of the operating system had standard color scheme: they were black-and-white.

• Windows 1.0 was not just a cover for MS-DOS, and supplemented and partially replaced the opportunities which are not provided to MS-DOS.

• The graphical interface of this program, on memoirs of contemporaries, significantly was inferior on convenience of use to a cover of Apple created at the same time for the Macintosh PC.

See Also

• Microsoft Windows
• Microsoft corporation
• Bill Gates
• Steve Ballmer

Links

• Anthology of operating systems. WINDOWS ERA
• Windows Version History