20th Anniversary of Windows

UltimaGuy writes "When Windows first shipped, 20 years ago this month, it was considered nothing more than a slow operating environment that had arrived late to the party, well behind the industry leaders, Apple and Xerox PARC. Now, it's the operating system used on nearly 95 percent of all the desktops and notebooks sold worldwide. Take a look at Window's past and present, and what lies ahead in the future, including an interview with Mr. Bill Gates himself."

Windows

[murdie]

Plus que ca change, plus que c'est la meme chose.

Redmond security

[ardor]

In Redmond, all windows are wide open.

20th post

[Anonymous Coward]

20th post

Huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

Huh? A /. post about Microsoft Windows WITHOUT bashing?

A whole lot of effort

[Timberwolf0122]

When Windows first shipped, 20 years ago this month, it was considered nothing more than a slow operating environment

20 years and billions in R&D and the only change is in Longhorn we have RSOD aswell as BSOD. 20 years well spent I think./

Re:Windows

[BarryNorton]

"Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose"

Re:What's changed?

[maxwell demon]

20 years ago, you could safely ignore it.

Re:age

[meringuoid]

Age does not beget quality. By that virture octogenarians should be the best quality people around, and they aren't! Someone insert some witty windows-creaks-like-an-old-person comment.

We use UNIX. We shouldn't be making cracks about using an ancient OS.

Mistake in stub.

[Walterk]

Take a look at Window's past and present, and what lies are in the future

I believe this to be more accurate

Yeah, right

[Dunkirk]

Man, if there were EVER an article that Slashdotters weren't going to RTFA...

Re:age

[Anonymous Coward]

Some of us use Plan 9 =p

To Windows!

[Anonymous Coward]

The cause of, and solution to, all of lifes problems!

Re:Good for them.....

[FidelCatsro]

There is a problem when you get barrels near Balmer , He starts throwing them at short Italians wearing plumber outfits

Re:age

[gowen]

Plan 9 has a web browser? Who knew?

Re:Windows

[BarryNorton]

Oh, the irony...

It's 'French', 'damn', you're missing two commas, your comma should be an semi-colon and my quote is correct (not that yours isn't - English is your weakness).

Re:Windows

[Anonymous Coward]

Clippy says: You look like you typing a letter in French. Would you like help with that?

Industry leaders

[dogStarSirius]

"...was considered nothing more than a slow operating environment that had arrived late to the party, well behind the industry leaders" - how times change?

foo

[dajobi]

When Windows first shipped, 20 years ago this month, it was considered nothing more than a slow operating environment that had arrived late to the party, well behind the industry leaders, Apple and Xerox PARC. Today, not much has changed.

Grammar/Spelling nazis

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish I had mod point to mod you all down to hell.

Re:Windows

[Professor_UNIX]

All I could make out of that was something about surrendering.

Re:age

[Anonymous Coward]

Most 20 year olds are annoying, eh?

Just because you have trouble making friends doesn't mean there's something wrong with the rest of us.

You see? There you went and proved his point for him. The prosecution rests.

And yes, most 20-year olds are annoying. Kinda stupid, too ;-)

Re:Grammar/Spelling nazis

[Anonymous Coward]

"I wish I had mod point to mod you all down to hell."

I don't think one mod point would suffice.

Oh, and it should be "Hell" :)

Breaking news!

[weavermatic]

(AP) Associated Press Hordes of rabid, self-described "elite open-source programmers" unable to properly keep their Windows-based PC's free of spyware, viruses. Experts attribute this to the fact that they spend all day downloading random .iso files from Russian serial/crack sites hoping to find a new Linux build that they haven't installed/reformated over on their ancient Pentium Pro machine.

20 years?

[keyrat rafa]

Or about as long as the Serenity poll has been up.

Re:What's changed?

[Delphiki]

No, the vast improvements made to the code make it faster and more secure.

Let's drink to it

[ader]

This is one of those celebrations that starts with raising a glass and ends when one passes out holding the empty, tear-stained bottle.

Ade_
    /

Re:Why don't they ask...

[10Ghz]

Man's unfailing capacity to believe what he prefers to be true rather than what the evidence shows to be likely and possible has always astounded me. We long for a caring Universe which will save us from our childish mistakes, and in the face of mountains of evidence to the contrary we will pin all our hopes on the slimmest of doubts. God has not been proven not to exist, therefore he must exist.

Academician Prokhor Zakharov
"For I Have Tasted The Fruit"

Re:Windows

[weekendgeek]

Actually, Clippy would say, "It looks like you're typing a letter in French. Would you like me to apply some formating that you'll never be able to modify, making you delete the file and start over from scratch?

Re:What's changed?

[Anonymous Coward]

Boy I wish I had mod points to mod this funny...

Re:What's changed?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the vast improvements made to the code make it faster and more secure.

Faster? I'd like to see you try to run the latest version of Windows on an 8MHz 80286.

More secure? Unlike the current version, the original version of Windows was totally immune from network-based attacks.

Re:age

[flatass]

Windows is not old. UNIX is old, and behaves as many older people do, working calmly and quietly in the background, running everything.

That is until they (kernel) panic ans shit the bed....

Re:Why don't they ask...

[10Ghz]

Well, my text was a quote from SMAC [firaxis.com] :)

Re:Windows

[Evil Grinn]

The non-obscure Rush songs are:

Working Man
Fly By Night
Closer to the Heart
Spirit of Radio
Freewill
Tom Sawyer
Limelight
Red Barchetta
Subdivisions
Dreamline
Roll the Bones
Ghost of a Chance

That is the complete list that I have ever heard on the radio, in nearly 20 years of listention almost exclusively to "classic rock" radio. Anything else would only be known to people who own the CD, which is by definition, Rush fans.