As Windows 3.x turns 20... Workbench is slapped in the face like a wet fish

[Photon]

I never knew wet fish often get slapped in the face. What a strange expression.





btw, even in 1992, Windows 3.1 was unstable, slow even on expensive PCs, and had a pretty limited set of third-party applications available. I'd say about as few as the Amiga had. But it did have (kind of) WYSIWYG printing, even if Macs were lightyears ahead (and Amiga, light years behind so it (very slowly) got the job done and a few years later it exploded as "the" platform for devs to get their software sold on.

With devs with PC experience since the DOS game days, I'd say the advent of 3D graphics cards is what made the PC go beyond 'office clunk' just in time for Windows 95 (still DOS based). That, and of course sneaking in a web browser into the OS illegally.

[DisposableHero]

I had 1.2 (bit of a pain, but better than PCs of the same era) and then 3.0 (beautiful, versatile, intuitive, far superior to any PC OS before Windows 95 which came nearly 3 years later (and with much higher system requirements)). PCs were losing the perception as pure office machines before Windows 95 though (and certainly before 3D accelerators, which weren't really essential until about 1998) - Doom was probably the first PC game to be a mainstream hit over here, in the US it was Wing Commander. Neither of those exactly played to the Amiga's strengths.

[Arnie]

Funny you should resurrect this old thread. I just saw a wet fish and gave it a right good slap!

[Photon]

What good is a retro community if it doesn't resurrect old threads? Let's face it, forum threads were much better in the old days.

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by Arnie

Funny you should resurrect this old thread. I just saw a wet fish and gave it a right good slap!

In the face? Otherwise you're doing it wrong!

[ma693541]

My first real GUI on a Peezee was Windows 3.x, but it couldn't multitask as the Workbench 1.3 and to call Windows 3.x a real 32-bit Windows was a piece of bullsh.t when you had to run it on 8086 or 8088, not even 286 could use the so called 32-bit Windows to its full advantage.

[Arnie]

My first PC was a 486DX running Windows 3.11. My god it was like going back in time using it.
Compared to the A1200/030 I was using before, this was a piece of crap. I sold it after a month and bought a Win95 machine, much better but, I still missed the old Amiga.

@gimbal

Yeah, in the face, right across the chops.

[gimbal]

Originally Posted by Arnie

My first PC was a 486DX running Windows 3.11. My god it was like going back in time using it.

Same here; I just hardly used Win 3.11, only when really necessary. Dos was good enough for most things - and that was still true under Windows 95 and Windows 98.

But you know, we're talking about a time period where PC's were archaic user-unfriendly monsters which yelled BOO way more than they actually did something productive. Windows 3.x was a must for the large group of people who were afraid to learn anything about them. As much as Dos was a complete mystery, Win 3.x was picked up very easily. As such, I do think Microsoft did something good there, within the capabilities of the platform at the time.

That still doesn't make the linked article a reasonable one, its just trash talk.

[Predseda]

Did Windows 3 have a multitasking? No. Debate closed, stupid article.

[Arnie]

It might have if you consider multitasking as typing with one hand and drinking tea with the other.