Slashdot Log In
Microsoft Discontinues Windows 3.x
Posted by
kdawson
on Wed Nov 05, 2008 12:49 AM
from the an-application-has-expectedly-quit dept.
from the an-application-has-expectedly-quit dept.
rugatero writes "The BBC reports that, as of last Saturday, Microsoft is no longer issuing licenses for the 18-year-old Windows 3.x. Many here may well be surprised to learn that anyone still has use for the antiquated software, but it seems to have found a home in a number of embedded systems — including cash registers and the in-flight entertainment systems on some long-haul passenger jets (Virgin and Qantas are cited). Considering Linux's credentials as an embedded OS, this news could very well indicate the possibility of more migrations in the pipeline."
Related Stories
[+]
Linux: Linux Supports More Devices Than Any Other OS 272 comments
Linux Blog recommends an interview up on the O'Reilly site with Greg Kroah-Hartman, long-time Linux kernel hacker and the current Linux kernel maintainer for the USB driver core. He updates the free Linux driver program announced almost two years ago, which has really caught traction now with more than 300 developers volunteering. The interviewer begins by asking about Kroah-Hartman's claim that the Linux kernel now supports more devices than any other operating system ever has. "[One factor is] the ease of writing drivers; Linux drivers are at normally one-third smaller than Windows drivers or other operating system drivers. We have all the examples there, so it's trivial to write a new one if you have new hardware, usually because you can copy the code and go. We maintain them... forever, so the old ones don't disappear and we run on every single processor out there. I mean Linux is 80% of the world's top 500 super computers right now and we're also the number one embedded operating system today. We've got both sides of the market because it's — yeah it's pretty amazing. I don't know why, but we're doing something right."
This discussion has been archived.
No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
Full
Abbreviated
Hidden
Loading... please wait.
How dare they! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:How dare they! (Score:5, Funny)
Surprised? Surprised to learn that Win3.1 is still in use? I think the descriptor they're after is totally fucking gobsmacked so hard my gob flew across the room and bit me in the ass when I passed out and fell on it.
Parent
Re:How dare they! (Score:4, Interesting)
Surprised to learn that Win3.1 is still in use?
I've got an old Compaq Portable II, which has Windows 3.0 installed on it. It's got an 8MHz 286 CPU, and a whopping 1.5M of RAM.
Now, surprisingly enough, it doesn't feel slow. Complex windows take a noticeable amount of time to draw, but it does have unaccelerated graphics (I don't mean 3D, I mean even graphics primitives in hardware - it's just an EGA card, which is a plain vanilla framebuffer). I can only imagine how responsive it would be on a more modern CPU...
Parent
Re:How dare they! (Score:5, Funny)
I guess it would be like one of my first game I made in assembly (on a C64). It was a "snake" kind of game and as soon as I typed run the game was displaying the "game over" screen. The reason is the game was so fast I didn't even had time to see both "snakes" going straight into the wall.
So I guess on a modern hardware, Win3.1 will be so fast the only thing you will see is a blue screen of death.
Parent
Re:How dare they! (Score:4, Funny)
I wonder if Qantas is using 3.1 for its navigation system as well? It would go a long way to explaining their recent issues...
Parent
That explains it (Score:5, Funny)
in-flight entertainment systems on some long-haul passenger jets
Ahh, so that's what they ment by "Every seat is a window seat".
Re:That explains it (Score:5, Funny)
That's not the sky, that's a BSOD.
Parent
Re:That explains it (Score:5, Funny)
My flight didn't offer on-seat TV, but overhead TV only displayed information such as course and weather. Sometime the information pages would switch to camera view displaying what looked like real-time images from a camera shooting below the airplane.
It was good to look at, until it suddenly crashed, accompanyed by a loud sound that was probably caused by normal turbulence. Some passengers didn't know what was going on and started to scream uncontrollably.
I recognized they familiar screen, and attempted to conform the coward by saying that "Don't worry, it's just WINDOWS crashing."
More panic broke out, and the cockpit was in total chaos.
BTW, talking about the scary part, I almost got arrested for causing terror in the air. Had I not repeated what it looks like a WINDOWS crashing in my laptop I'd still be in Taiwan prison.
Parent
Re:Those kids these days! (Score:5, Insightful)
And the three-finger salute realy restarted the machine by that time. No soft restart (learn that Linux!), no set of options (learn that XP!), and was never ignored (learn that crashing Vista!), just a restart, managed by the BIOS, the way IBM meant it to be!
Now, all you kids get out of my lawn!
Parent
Re:That explains it (Score:5, Funny)
I'm trying to find something funny to say about crashing, Windows and Qantas' recent in-flight incidents. I'm sure there's a joke in there somewhere...
Parent
Entertainment? Win3.1? (Score:5, Funny)
How would an in-flight entertainment system even run on Windows 3.1? What kind of entertainment would you be viewing?
Playing Cinepak-compressed video at 15 frames per second in 8 bit color? Maybe playing Minesweeper?
Parent
Re:Entertainment? Win3.1? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:Me too! (Score:4, Funny)
Parent
China Airlines uses Linux on their in-flight (Score:5, Interesting)
Just in case you were interested China Airlines uses Linux on their in-flight.
I flew another airline that also used Linux but I don't recall which one. It's not very often you get to see the boot up but in one case they rebooted the system after they landed and in the other my partners crashed when we were trying to change the default language.
Re:China Airlines uses Linux on their in-flight (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:China Airlines uses Linux on their in-flight (Score:5, Funny)
It's not very often you get to see the boot up but in one case they rebooted the system after they landed and in the other my partners crashed when we were trying to change the default language.
Oh my God, that's terrible! My condolences for your loss, and I will never use Linux again.
Parent
Re:China Airlines uses Linux on their in-flight (Score:5, Interesting)
Parent
Re:China Airlines uses Linux on their in-flight (Score:5, Interesting)
Probably because it's powered from the cabin bus, which is the dirtiest and least reliable power supply on the aircraft. It will also glitch by design when switched between external and internal power.
Parent
False glitches (Score:5, Funny)
I flew across the US with my daughter, and I immediately turned off the in flight "entertainment" system on our seats. Well, I turned the brightness and volume all the way down - you couldn't actually turn the dang things off. The attendants kept walking by, seeing our screens dark, and without talking to me, rushing to the front of the cabin to announce, "Please be patient, we need to reboot the in-flight movie system." This happened about 6 times before they finally figured out that I was turning them off on purpose.
Parent
Performance boost. (Score:5, Funny)
Upgrading from Windows 3.x to Vista Ultimate should provide a significant performance boost for any application.
Oh yeah (Score:5, Funny)
They are all nice to you when you retire. "Have fun on the beach," they say. Then one day, when you are relaxing in your hammock enjoying your time off maybe sipping a gin and tonic, the phone rings. "It's Linus and the Mac fag," they say, "They're back." "No way, I'm out of the game," you say. Then Windows ME bangs on your door, his back riddled with bullet holes, you know now and then that the computing world needs you. Up in the attic, you grab a handful of floppies and your trusty 2400 baud modem. "Fuck it," you mutter.
I still have it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Somewhere in our basement there is still an old machine which dual-boots windows 3.1 and windows 95A.
It probably doesn't boot anymore, as it was having motherboard problems late in life, but a year or so ago I converted it to a virtual machine image under qemu. I can, within 5 minutes, boot a virtual machine into a legal copy of windows 3.1 that runs and contains useful applications that we don't have equivalents for.
It's amazing that all this software still exists and is used by people, even after 18 years. Old tech is not as dead as you might think.
Re:I still have it. (Score:5, Insightful)
On a funny level, I'm curious what you think is a useful application on windows 3.1 that we magically somehow don't have an equivalent of. What do you have in mind?
Parent
Re:I still have it. (Score:5, Interesting)
we have lumber cut optimizer which is not available for new platforms. it optimizes the number of boards the lumber cutting saw can slice for a given varying shape of wooden log.
Parent
Re:I still have it. (Score:5, Interesting)
On a funny level, I'm curious what you think is a useful application on windows 3.1 that we magically somehow don't have an equivalent of. What do you have in mind?
One word (well, two words really, but only one when smashed together like marketing people like to do): SkiFree [ihoc.net].
Sure you can get a 32-bit version that runs under XP and even Vista, but come on! That's nothing like playing it the way it was meant to be played - 16 bits, 100% CPU usage, and Windows 3.1. Everything else is just a poor copy.
Parent
Re:I still have it. (Score:5, Interesting)
PCI slots? Don't you mean ISA?
On the other hand, you spent $200,000 on a piece of proprietary equipment that depends on a single piece of proprietary software? Being forced to keep win3.1 (you'l never be able to get a new copy legitimately) and a stockpile of antiquated hardware to run it on is the price you pay... Perhaps you should press for open specs and open code next time you buy a $200,000 piece of hardware, if your spending that much the company should bend over backwards to provide what you need...
Or was it just a lack of forward thinking? Never thought about long term support for the equipment you bought?
Parent
Incredible (Score:5, Insightful)
Ok, I'm genuinely surprised at this. Considering how unstable 3X was, I'm shocked that anyone is using it for anything. I wouldn't be surprised at all to see DOS used in embedded systems, but 3X? Lots of people should have been fired a long time ago for going there in the first place.
Re:Incredible (Score:4, Informative)
Unstable? Maybe to your average Joe Luser who, ignorant of computers, let programs install all kinds of crap in CONFIG.SYS, AUTOEXEC.BAT and WIN.INI... Or didn't know how to properly set paths, or any one of dozens of other ways to tune his machine. But to those who did know how to tune, and how to clean up after crappy installs, Win 3.X was very stable.
I think Windows 3.X got a bad rep because, unlike vanilla DOS systems, you actually had to know what you were doing to set everything up properly. Few people bothered.
Parent
ATM machines (Score:5, Interesting)
OS/2 1.3 lived on for many years in ATM machines. Unlike Windows 3.1x, it was considered the most rock solid 16 bit OS out there. What did a majority of the machines get replaced with?... oh Windows.
And as I've said in earlier stories, that's a bummer.
Here in California we still have two types of Bank of America ATM machines. The older models, with the amber monochrome screens, I am told still run OS/2. The newer ones, with the color LCD screens, run Windows, and they are MUCH slower than the old ones and their interface is much less streamlined and intuitive.
Now I ask you: It's an ATM machine. What was gained by the transition? The new ones allow you to do some fancy things -- such as setting preferences, so you can hit a "Quick Cash" button and get a predetermined amount with one keypress -- but most folks are just trying to get money out of the things and never spend the time to configure their own preferences. Really the only benefit of the new machines was the ability to show color ads during the transaction, but otherwise the OS/2 software was perfectly capable of handling the required operation (and even more so).
Sometimes I wish more applications developers had experience with the embedded systems world. Know what I mean?
Parent
Re:ATM machines (Score:5, Interesting)
They also use the windows default sounds... Incorrectly! The ATM's use the "Error Beep" to confirm proper operation. After years of conditioning, it drives me nuts.
At least do a little legwork [pdsounds.org].
Parent
Re:ATM machines (Score:4, Interesting)
If they are like the color BofA ATMs I've seen in Northern California, they play full motion video ads, which are maybe not what customers want, but presumably very significant to banks.
Parent
Re:ATM machines (Score:5, Insightful)
Ever notice that the part that is slower involves you looking at an advertisement?
Me thinks that is not a coincidence.
Parent
Damn it! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Damn it! (Score:4, Funny)
Dude! I finally broke the 640k conventional memory barrier with QEMM386. You should try it!
Parent
Re:Damn it! (Score:5, Funny)
I suppose I could try putting Vista on my 33 MHz 486
Yep, just be sure that the turbo button is pressed on if you want to be able to move the mouse around.
Parent
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Ah, the memories... (Score:5, Funny)
XP (Score:5, Insightful)
Wait, I thought Microsoft had been trying for the past year to bury Windows XP - and now we find out they were still selling 3.x all along?
Does this make sense to anyone?
It lives on! (Score:5, Informative)
Even in Vista, the spirit of Win3.1 still lives on in the Add Font dialog box!
(Anyone know if they've updated that yet in Windows 7?)
Re:Slashdot, where's the Obama story? (Score:4, Funny)
Well, it's news that matters, right now, so....
Two weeks.
Parent
Re:Slashdot, where's the Obama story? (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, and all nerds by now know that when it comes to governmental issues, the president no longer matters. A new CEO for General Electric however...
Parent
Re:Slashdot, where's the Obama story? (Score:5, Funny)
Wait... what obama story? Did something happen?
Parent
Re:Slashdot, where's the Obama story? (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, they finally caught him.
Parent
Re:Slashdot, where's the Obama story? (Score:5, Funny)
Wait... what obama story? Did something happen?
Yeah, it was quite unexpected: after his highly successful second term, during which he finally managed to get rid of the national debt and negotiated some pretty decent peace terms with Australia, everybody thought he would take the position of ambassador to the Chino-Russian Mars colony. Instead he is opening a chocolate shop in Belgium, together with his wife.
Gee, were you in a coma the last 8 years?
Parent
Re:Slashdot, where's the Obama story? (Score:5, Funny)
And nerds everywhere rejoiced. Finally people on /. are getting laid.
Parent
Re:Slashdot, where's the Obama story? (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
And that's the crux of the matter, specific use (Score:4, Insightful)
WfWG 3.11 with specific, well-engineered apps? Great.
Any MS OS with bloaty, ill-conceived apps from a multitude of vendors, many of which don't play nicely with each other? (I'm looking at you, Netscape and Hewlett-Packard!). Not so much.
I've little doubt that even though there will be no new licences issued by MS, there will continue to be pockets of it in production systems for another decade or two.
Parent
Re:Foolish Linux idealogues (Score:5, Insightful)
Either spend a whole lot of time and money getting it ported over to an operating system that doesn't cost any money to license, or spend a whole lot of time and money getting it ported over to an operating system that doesn't scale with your existing hardware base, costs money, and can be end-of-lifed like the operating system it is replacing. In that view, Linux looks pretty good.
I think the part that you're missing is that windows 3.x is no longer aquirable for these applications, and as such new hardware will need to be re-engineered for a newer operating system. In this case, a free and unencumbered OS might be the right way to go... either Linux, BSD, or FreeDOS.
Parent
Re:Darn (Score:5, Funny)
The bootup was significantly faster than my vista today (am downgrading to XP today;
you misspelled upgrading.
Parent
Re:why does it automaticly mean linux? (Score:4, Funny)
Can you imagine Vista, running on the back of every seat in a A380?
Super computers are heavy you know, and have you seen Vista's power usage?
The jet needs the engines for flight you know.
Parent