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ShareThe Making Of Windows 1.0
Posted by George Jones on November 18, 2005
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• 20 Years Of Windows • The Making Of Windows 1.0 • 20 Years Of Windows Releases • Windows Timeline • The Future Of Windows • Reader Poll: What's Your Favorite Version Of Windows? |
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Murky Beginnings
Not surprisingly, the record on who stole which ideas from whom is blurred beyond recognition. Did Microsoft leader Bill Gates steal such GUI concepts as drop-down menus, tiled windows, and mouse support from Apple's Steve Jobs? Or did both Jobs and Gates steal the ideas from someone else?
This much is clear: Both Jobs and Gates were influenced by Xerox' Palo Alto Research Center (PARC), which had developed a computer named the Alto that featured a crude graphical interface. Jobs saw the Alto firsthand on a tour of PARC in 1979, and was extremely impressed, so much so that Apple wound up hiring several PARC engineers. (The Alto wasn't the first GUI. See Wikipedia for a more detailed examination of the history of the graphical user interface.)
By 1979, CPU power and display technology had increased to the point where it was feasible to move a GUI to a small personal computer. Apple was already in the process of building a computer with a GUI. However, it is undeniable that PARC had, at the very least, a strong conceptual influence on the Lisa (the company's first GUI-based system, launched in January 1983) and the Macintosh, launched in January 1984.
It's highly likely that Bill Gates had also learned of PARC's GUI interface. He certainly knew of and had seen what Jobs and Apple were up to -- the two leaders had intermittent contact, enough so that when Microsoft released Windows in 1985, Apple execs immediately accused the company of stealing proprietary ideas.
Rumor has it that Jobs even showed a working prototype of the Mac OS to Gates in 1981, and that Apple and Microsoft were partnering together to produce applications like Word and Excel for this new Mac operating system.
apple-history.com) |
Amazingly, Windows almost began its life with the incredibly generic and unexciting moniker of Interface Manager. Rowland Hanson, a Microsoft marketer, convinced Bill Gates to switch to the more marketable and more descriptive Windows. "Windows," the early advertising explained, "will instantly deliver you a more productive present and a leap into the future."
Regardless of the product's name, Gates found it hard to drum up support. IBM executives were unimpressed -- mostly because they were working on a multitasking interface of their own known as Top View. (Top View lacked a GUI, however.) Other graphical interfaces were also on the market, including VisiCorp's Vision, which was released in late 1983 and is widely recognized as being the first PC-based GUI.
As announced at the Plaza Hotel in 1983, the target ship date for Windows was April 1984. However, the development process was much more complicated than anyone at Microsoft expected. The biggest holdup was compatibility. Programmers had to accommodate the seemingly infinite variety of hardware devices and settings in the burgeoning PC market. Legend has it that in the spring of 1985, Steve Ballmer, who had taken over the Windows group in 1984 and is now Microsoft's CEO, made a bet that the company would ship the product before snow fell that winter.
Windows got mixed reviews from critics. Most PC users were unimpressed. The OS felt slow and, despite its color graphics, looked crude next to the Macintosh. This first version of Windows had limited functionality and no real application support. It lacked several important features found in the Mac OS, like overlapping windows and a trash can for storing deleted files.
The first applications that shipped with the upstart operating system were MS-DOS Executive, Calendar, Cardfile, Notepad, Terminal (an online app), Calculator, Clock, Reversi (an Othello-like game), Control Panel, PIF (Program Information File) Editor, Print Spooler, Clipboard, RAMDrive, Windows Write, and Windows Paint.
Accusations And A Very Bad Deal
Apple was not thrilled with the new release and immediately threatened Microsoft with a lawsuit. The company believed that Gates had infringed upon numerous Apple copyrights, including drop-down menus and mouse support.
Rather than engaging in an extended legal battle, Microsoft made what, in retrospect, seems like a one-sided deal: Microsoft would pay Apple to license Mac OS features in Windows 1.0 and all future Microsoft software applications. This allowed Gates to legally implement any and all aspects of Apple's OS into current and future versions of Windows.
Why did Apple agree to such a bad deal? It's possible that Apple's legal counsel decided that since both Gates and Jobs had been influenced by Xerox, Apple didn't have much ground for a lawsuit.
Whatever the case, Microsoft was well on its way. Not surprisingly, Windows 2.0, released in 1987, incorporated numerous improvements lifted directly from the Mac OS. And while Windows still lacked the sophistication of the Macintosh, Microsoft had begun to leverage the ever-expanding PC and PC-compatible market -- flourishing because of the PC's non-proprietary nature -- to become the top software vendor in the world by the late 1980s.
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