Old PC Technology

[a9127]

This was in my Twitter feed this morning. Party like it's 1985! Fuck yeah. Riiight. More like "gag me with a spoon."

This is "Windows 1.01." If you used a PC back then, you either ran "DOS" by itself or "Windows" that acted as a shell providing a "user friendly" interface.

That "game" is called "Reversi" and appeared on several later versions of windows well into the 90's. I used to be really good at it. How many remember playing it?

I actually sort of like the colors. I think to get this color scheme you had to have an "EGA" card or else it would appear in B/W. Both at an "amazing" 640X480 pixel resolution. My current "desktop" back home uses a "4K" display.

My first real interaction with Windows would not come until 1990 with the "much improved" Windows 3.0. By then, it was posible to get a "VGA" display and have resolutions up to 1024X768, still OK for some applications today. But most monitors of the time were only 14" or 15".

NEC offered a 17" Multisync that I (with money earned from doing computer projects for other people) paid over $1,500 USD for in 1995. Think of what you could get today for that. When we moved out of our old offices last year our university's "IT" department had to call a "recycling" service to dispose of it safely. All monitors back then were "CRT" design. Think "Die Hard" where Bruce Willis uses a monitor strapped to a chair to detonate the explosive in the elevator scene. I'm sure my university would not have appreciated me tossing it down one of our elevators. Although the thought did cross my mind.

Finally, my "favorite" Windows 3.0 theme. This was called "Flourescent" and what I used most of the time. There is also a bright red and yellow theme called "Hot Dog Stand" that still has fans today. I've seen versions for "Windows 10" even. Buy really, why would you want that?