+ - Recalling Windows 1.0 at 25 years->
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alphadogg
alphadogg writes "When Microsoft released the very first version of Windows nearly 25 years ago, on Nov. 20, 1985, it was late to the game and little used. Apple had already brought graphical user interfaces to computers with Macintosh more than a year earlier, while DOS systems dominated the market for IBM and IBM-compatible PCs. No one who used this first version was likely to have predicted that Windows would completely dominate the PC market 25 years later.
"What's interesting in retrospect was we laughed, just laughed them out of the place," said Nathaniel Borenstein, who was working at the Carnegie Mellon University IT Center when Microsoft representatives stopped by to demonstrate their new operating system. "Because we had a vastly superior window manager of our own, and these guys came in with this pathetic and naïve system. We just knew they were never going to accomplish anything."
Borenstein went on to create MIME, the Internet standard for sending and receiving multimedia data. The lesson here is that even the most accomplished technology experts can be wrong. "Never underestimate the value of persistence," Borenstein says.
Today, 25 years later, more than nine out of 10 desktop computers run some version of Windows. Windows XP, released nearly a decade ago, is still the most widely used."
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"What's interesting in retrospect was we laughed, just laughed them out of the place," said Nathaniel Borenstein, who was working at the Carnegie Mellon University IT Center when Microsoft representatives stopped by to demonstrate their new operating system. "Because we had a vastly superior window manager of our own, and these guys came in with this pathetic and naïve system. We just knew they were never going to accomplish anything."
Borenstein went on to create MIME, the Internet standard for sending and receiving multimedia data. The lesson here is that even the most accomplished technology experts can be wrong. "Never underestimate the value of persistence," Borenstein says.
Today, 25 years later, more than nine out of 10 desktop computers run some version of Windows. Windows XP, released nearly a decade ago, is still the most widely used."
Link to Original Source
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Recalling Windows 1.0 at 25 years