• The FidoGazette Vol 18 Issue 09 Page 2

    From Sean Dennis@1:18/200 to All on Sun Apr 10 22:46:03 2022
    FGAZ 18-09 Page 2 11 Apr 2022


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    Happy birthday, Windows 3.1!

    From: https://www.theregister.com/2022/04/07/windows_3_1_30/?td=rt-3a

    Happy birthday Windows 3.1, aka 'the one that Visual Basic kept
    crashing on'

    30-year-old software that first introduced Windows Registry and killed
    Real Mode

    Richard Speed Thu 7 Apr 2022 // 12:00 UTC

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    Time flies whether you're having fun or simply trying to work out
    which Registry change left your system hopelessly borked, and before
    you know it, Windows 3.1 is turning 30.

    Windows 3.1 was more than a user interface refresh of the preceding
    Windows 3.0. Arriving on April 6, 1992, and still on MS-DOS, the
    operating environment brought forth support for TrueType fonts,
    introduced the Windows Registry and dropped support for older silicon.
    Windows 3.1 insisted on 80286 or above, finally sticking a knife in
    the heart of the Real Mode that was still supported in Windows 3.0.

    As well as a visual update (although nothing compared to what was
    coming a few short years later with Windows 95) multimedia support was
    improved and Microsoft introduced a concept called The Registry.

    The Windows Registry was (and remains) a database of settings hidden
    within the environment, ostensibly intended to replace or complement
    the .INI configuration files scattered throughout the environment both
    by Windows and applications targeting the platform. It is a handy
    database, but one that has become considerably more complex in the
    intervening 30 years.

    Windows 3.1 also increased the maximum memory available: when running
    in 386 enhanced mode, the limit was a mighty 256MB, up from the weedy
    16MB of Windows 3.0 (although care needed to be take with the version
    of the HIMEM.SYS driver.

    The requirement to run in Standard or 386 Enhanced Mode also made
    things a good deal more stable, although the elephant-on-a-traffic
    cone nature of Windows perching on DOS meant there remained plenty of
    opportunities for sudden crashes.

    Windows 3.1 sold very well, with an appealing user interface and
    consumer-friendly multimedia features. It did, however, have a
    relatively short life. Networking shortcomings would be at least
    partially addressed by a quick-fire succession of Windows for
    Workgroups releases, taking the version number to 3.11 by 1993 and
    also dropping Standard Mode. Windows 95 turned up shortly after,


    --- MBSE BBS v1.0.8 (GNU/Linux-x86_64)
    * Origin: Outpost BBS * Johnson City, TN (1:18/200)