The Rise of Microsoft Windows Part 2: Windows 2x

Extended thoughts Substack post anotherboringtopic.substack.com/p/the-rise-of-micr… Topics covered: Did Microsoft copy the Macintosh with Windows 2x? IBM and the 386 Windows 2x bundle deals with OEM’s When did Compaq start working with Microsoft on Windows/386? Windows/386 Preemptive Multitasking Who All Worked on Windows 2x? Why was the 286 considered crippled?

My dude not only do you have a PRIMARY source, you're correcting some of the secondary sources. You put so much work into this. Thank you.

I’m going to be honest, I thought this part 2 was never going to come out. I should have never doubted you. This is awesome

I know these are a chore to put together, but it is worth it. You put together the best tech documentaries period. Your research, and production are appreciated beyond what I can express here. Thank you for your work!

another boring topic uploaded so my day is not boring anymore

Great coverage. As a graduate in 1986, working in PC graphics device driver development, I lived through these developments. Without knowing the back story!

Oh man I've been waiting ages for this

As someone who has been reading Infoworld for fun over the past few years (i'm at July 1988 right now) and who has seen each episode of The Computer Chronicles multiple times, I was happy to come across this well-written and edited video. I will make one comment about the "shrink wrapped Windows/386" situation: I worked in a video store through college for five years in the mid-90s, spending my days unwrapping new tapes, shrink wrapping the covers with a cardboard stuffer put inside so that the cover could be put on the shelf for display, and re-shrink wrapping used tapes to be put out for sale. Because of this, I don't trust the validity of shrink wrapped items being new/unused at all (especially ones where you can see the melt line along the edges of the item, as you see in the photo). In this case I think it is best to stick with the contemporary date of Jan. 1988 as the real release date. I'm now looking forward to going back and watching your OS/2 and PC clone videos. Keep up the good work!

I remember my friend's dad being a 'windows programmer' back in the late 80s. He saw it as a huge opportunity and used to tell us about it every chance he could.

This is a proper documentary. Wow. This was worth the wait. Please do not be discouraged by the views! This is amazing!

Excellent video and a big THANK YOU. I remember being told "a year in the computer field is like dog years, aka 7 years anywhere else." My career rode the wave of developments of Win 3.1/3.11 (networking), Win 9x (Internet), Win XP/7/8/10/11 (IT security). Keep up the great work!!

Windows 1 video = 2023 Windows 2 video = 2024 Windows 95 video - I'll be dead and decomposed.

1:59:32 GEOS is the most underrated PC gui of all time. It was everything Windows should have been. It was MUCH, MUCH faster and used less RAM. One of the most common applications of the early-mid 90s used the geos runtime, AOL for DOS. My cousin actually a bought a PC in 1993 or 94 that came with GEOS as the main windows like OS.

I think this is the best channel for computer (science) history. Keep up the good work!

In 1991 I taught an Intro to Desktop Publishing class at the University of Maryland. The classroom was in an auditorium-sized room with 35 low-end PS/2 machines running Windows 2x and PageMaker. I was an expert on PageMaker for the Mac and found that PageMaker for Windows was from the Stone Age. The OS couldn’t handle the wide variety of fonts the Mac could. The only variance for fonts on PM for Winows 2x were single generic versions for serif and sans-serif fonts. You had to print out the page in order to see how things worked out. I doubt if there were any serious commercial publishers using PM on Windows 2x.

Excellent presentation. And, unlike so many YouTube presenters, you are an excellent speaker. A pleasure to listen to. Thank you.

HMA gave you 64K - 16 bytes of extra memory. The 8086/8088 architecture used 16 bit segment registers, shifted by 4 bits, added to 16 bit pointers to give 20 bit addresses allowing 1M access. The trick was that segment FFFF with any pointer above 000F would wrap-around to 00000 on systems that had 20 address lines, like the 86/88, but would continue on to 100000 for those that had 21+ address lines, like the 286+ processors. There was one caveat though in that IBM was aware that this issue could cause bugs for 86/88 code that relied on the wrap-around and added circuitry that could enable/disable this called the A20 gate. HIMEM.SYS was the driver you loaded in DOS to disable the wrap-around.

Unbelievable to amount of research you did for this and your ability to present the information in a coherent interesting manner. This is awesome. Clearly a labour of love.

I'm more excited about the next part of this than I am for Deadpool 3!

If part one was 30 minutes and part two was 2 hours, then if current trends continue then part three should be EIGHT HOURS LONG!!! And I would watch every minute of it.