computer history

Windows 3.0’s arrival in 1990 was less a single product launch than a change in the way millions of people thought about personal computing — and yes, the tiny game of Solitaire bundled with it played a surprisingly large role in that cultural shift. Background / Overview Windows 3.0 launched...

Dave Plummer’s confession that his port of 3D Pinball for Windows — the Space Cadet table so many of us grew up with — once drew frames “as fast as it could” and reportedly hit roughly 5,000 FPS on newer hardware has resurfaced a powerful, funny and instructive moment in Windows engineering...

The release of Windows XP in 2001 marked a seismic shift in the evolution of personal computing, bridging the awkward past of flaky home operating systems with the robust, business-grade technology that would become ubiquitous across both living rooms and office parks around the world...

From its earliest days as a revolutionary graphical shell for MS-DOS to its current incarnation in the sleek, AI-augmented interface of Windows 11, Microsoft Windows has evolved on nearly every front—yet, remarkably, certain core elements have endured across every era of its existence. While the...

Few elements in the history of personal computing evoke as much nostalgia as the simple blue collage that greeted users during the iconic Windows 95 setup process. Despite being nearly three decades old, Windows 95's influence persists—not only as the operating system that transformed Microsoft...

The story of Windows is etched not just in its codebase but in the digital relics it drags into every new epoch—none quite as emblematic as the quietly persistent 12 KB moricons.dll. Nestled deep within the arteries of every modern Windows installation—even on the sleekest 64-bit machines—this...

With a barely audible whirr and a memory footprint that would fit easily on a supermarket loyalty card, FreeDOS boots to life—ready to spirit us all back to the days when computing wasn’t just a lifestyle but a daring adventure. For anyone haunted by the clangy OPL2 soundtrack of Commander Keen...

A Cultural Symphony: Windows 95 and Minecraft in the National Sound Recording Registry Few sounds in modern tech culture have the nostalgic pull of the Windows 95 startup chime or the ambient magic of Minecraft’s sonic landscapes. Recently enshrined in the National Recording Registry, these two...

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Hi everybody New forum member today (Sept1st); been working with computers since early '60s. Have just upgraded from Windows 8.1 to 10 - although my question is not about Windows 10 (or should I say - not yet!). I would like to know where to post a query about the command prompt; is this the...

This is sad news one of the pioneers of personal computing has died at 56 from cancer

:razz:

A master of all things Windows 98 has shown how it was done back in the old days! Forgot your Windows 98 password? No problem. - Imgur

When I got my first PC it was a Hewlett Packard 486DX-66 running Windows 3.11. I have no recollection of ever having used Windows 1.0-3.0 as the computers we used at school were BBC Micros, so my home PC was my first Windows experience. This video is therefore both informative and a visual...

Hi all I just love this one.:razz: It's just about as far removed from "Cloud Computing" as you can get. A real mix here of Old and New. Using the Hercules emulator you can run your very own IBM MVS 370 Mainframe system on W7 with no probs at all -- the power of even a humble laptop is vastly...