Microsoft Windows 1.0 (PCGH-Retro, November 10)

…1983: The computing world is on the verge of a revolution: the introduction of the Apple Macintosh. After the flopped Lisa system, it is supposed to be the first affordable computer with a modern graphical user interface and enable anyone to operate a computer. Microsoft knows about the system, which is not officially presented until January 1984 – after all, Microsoft supplies software for the Mac. And Gates quickly realises: soon all computers will be controlled in this way, the future belongs to the graphical user interface including mouse operation.

Microsoft, the leading provider of operating systems thanks to DOS, must ensure that the old-fashioned command line is not supplanted by Apple’s window system and the main source of income dries up. So, on November 10, 1983, Bill Gates announced his own graphical user interface for DOS: Windows. There is still hardly any program code, the software is only ready for the market two years later – and lags far behind the long-established Mac OS. In addition, Microsoft will soon be confronted with a lawsuit from Apple; Windows, it says, is nothing more than a copy of Mac OS. Nevertheless, Gates’ strategy has proven to be the right one in the long term, with version 3.1 of Windows prevailing.

In the gallery you will find screenshots from Windows 1.0x, including the integrated file manager and the control panel. The pictures are from Winhistory.

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