Those Vobis/Highscreen WFW 3.11 CDs are only in German and/or Dutch, right?
Was there any other OEM that released Windows 3.1x on CD?

That MS Dev Network stuff, being from 1996/97, obviously doesn't count when searching for the earliest OS (or OS-like product) CD-ROM.

Grzyb wrote on 2020-07-27, 05:52:

Those Vobis/Highscreen WFW 3.11 CDs are only in German and/or Dutch, right?
Was there any other OEM that released Windows 3.1x on CD?

I believe Packard Bell's first 12-series Master CDs from 1994-1995 had Win3.1 installs. However these were more of a default system image than a regular installer.

Personally remember getting Win3.1 with my January 1995 P60 computer with CD-ROM drive. It was a big pile of floppies 😉

dionb wrote on 2020-07-27, 06:27:

Personally remember getting Win3.1 with my January 1995 P60 computer with CD-ROM drive. It was a big pile of floppies 😉

I think you're exaggerating...
It's only 6 diskettes (1.44 MB), or 8 - for the versions with Central European and Cyrillic fonts.

My upgrades were done on pocket money, I added a CDROM to my 386 in 1995. It ran the talkie adventure games well. The cost of upgrading CPU+mobo+ram to get to an early pentium was pretty tough.

Grzyb wrote on 2020-07-27, 06:51:

dionb wrote on 2020-07-27, 06:27:

Personally remember getting Win3.1 with my January 1995 P60 computer with CD-ROM drive. It was a big pile of floppies 😉

I think you're exaggerating...
It's only 6 diskettes (1.44 MB), or 8 - for the versions with Central European and Cyrillic fonts.

8, not because of CE fonts but because it was the "for Workgroups" version. Never actually used networking on it, despite running it until 1999...

p6889k wrote on 2020-07-24, 17:33:

Grzyb wrote on 2020-07-24, 17:20:

p6889k wrote on 2020-07-24, 17:01:

I remember being in a computer store selling HighScreen brand (I think) computers and them having a Win3.11 install CD.

Some OEM variant, right?
I think generic Windows 3.11 was only on diskettes.

Yeah, it was OEM - labeled HighScreen.

Edit: and it looks like here's a vogons.org user that actually has a copy: Re: Bought these (retro) hardware today

I'm actually still around 😁
Wow, been on Vogons for over 10 years now 😮 but I disgress.

I remember that CDROM package, but I don't remember where I got it from except that I probably got it somewhere locally seeing as this has "NL" stamped around the edges of the disk (NL standing for The NetherLands for anyone who might have been wondering 😜 ).
I never even knew that any Windows 3x came on CDROM and this was probably very uncommon, which is probably why I bought (and kept) it.

I never got to try it out though, if only because I didn't feel like tinkering with some probably none-bootable (if only because the hardware which this software was intended for) and possibly royalty OEM OS I was not interested enough in at the time. Seemed like a project in case I felt daring tinkering with 386/486 era hardware, but I ended up never actually building a full system after I had build my DX4-100 rig.

It seems legit though, it's not a burned disk or anything. Only thing I found questionable back then was the side of the paper thingy which had a music note printed on it, but perhaps that was just some Highscreen thingy or something. Highscreen was a brand that was actually quite common here in The Netherlands back in those days.

But to answer the question itself, my experience with taking apart old dumped sidecurbed PCs (and I have seen possibly hundreds of them back when I was still hardcore dumpsterdiving) is that 386 systems usually would come with a 5.25in floppy drive, a 3.5in floppy drive and perhaps a 5.25in 20MB HDD and something like 1MB or 4MB of RAM (though often these parts were usually the first removed by someone else if I wasn't the first one at the site).
CDROM would usually become much more common once PCs got into "Teh multimedia PC!!!11" territory, with the earliest of these drives being the (often non-IDE interface) 1x and 2x speed drives, often using a caddy, up to drives of around 8x speed iirc?
Some earlier machines did have CDROM, but those were rather uncommon.

So I would say no, CDROM was not common on 386 PCs, at all. Perhaps many CDROMs at the time were external ones, which is something I would probably not see for myself if a PC I found had been sidecurbed as people will usually put smaller junk parts into these black-colored garbage bags we use here in The Netherlands and having to tear those open based on a hunch was not something I wanted to do (imagine all the junk if everybody would start doing this though this is not a thing anymore in The Netherlands).

foil_fresh wrote on 2020-07-27, 04:14:

@Horun @Jo22 any sources for a copy of this win311/dos622 CD? I am interested in doing a win3.1 install but my gotek hasnt arrived yet 😎 cheers

Creating a Win3x CD is easy enough.
if you run winsetup /a off the first disk it will extract all the disk's contents into the specified folder which you can then copy to the CD

I think if you copy all the disks contents into the same folder manually it'll also work. Its been awhile

Although installing 3.11 off the gotek was fun, installation flys now that seek time and dodgy sectors are eliminated.

Back on topic
Our first PC (a 486 DX2/66) came with a 2x CD-ROM in 1995
Not long after my mate got a drive for their 386, lasted a week or 2 then ended up upgrading to a DX4 100 as the 386 was now to slow fro the drive

Tetrium wrote on 2020-07-27, 12:06:

386 systems usually would come with a 5.25in floppy drive, a 3.5in floppy drive and perhaps a 5.25in 20MB HDD

Seriously?
I've never seen a 386 with a 5.25" 20MB HDD.
Such disks were typical in XTs, sometimes also found in 286 machines - though in this case 40MB ones were more popular.
In a 386, however, I would expect a 3.5" low-profile ATA drive, 40MB at the very least, usually around 100MB.

Grzyb wrote on 2020-07-27, 13:03:

Seriously? I've never seen a 386 with a 5.25" 20MB HDD. Such disks were typical in XTs, sometimes also found in 286 machines - t […]
Show full quote

Tetrium wrote on 2020-07-27, 12:06:

386 systems usually would come with a 5.25in floppy drive, a 3.5in floppy drive and perhaps a 5.25in 20MB HDD

Seriously?
I've never seen a 386 with a 5.25" 20MB HDD.
Such disks were typical in XTs, sometimes also found in 286 machines - though in this case 40MB ones were more popular.
In a 386, however, I would expect a 3.5" low-profile ATA drive, 40MB at the very least, usually around 100MB.

I had the first run Compaq deskpro 386/16 from 1986

It had an original and giant full height 170mb MFM hard drive of some sort (Attached to a Winchester controller)
and an odd graphics card (not cga)

I learned Windows 9x can’t sys an MFM drive but dos 6.22 was fine

Grzyb wrote on 2020-07-27, 13:03:

Seriously? I've never seen a 386 with a 5.25" 20MB HDD. Such disks were typical in XTs, sometimes also found in 286 machines - t […]
Show full quote

Tetrium wrote on 2020-07-27, 12:06:

386 systems usually would come with a 5.25in floppy drive, a 3.5in floppy drive and perhaps a 5.25in 20MB HDD

Seriously?
I've never seen a 386 with a 5.25" 20MB HDD.
Such disks were typical in XTs, sometimes also found in 286 machines - though in this case 40MB ones were more popular.
In a 386, however, I would expect a 3.5" low-profile ATA drive, 40MB at the very least, usually around 100MB.

our 386 from '88 had a full height 5.25" 80MB seagate hard drive that was really expensive and I remember it was a high spec for back then... 3.5" wasn't really common yet.

rmay635703 wrote on 2020-07-27, 13:22:

It had an original and giant full height 170mb MFM hard drive of some sort (Attached to a Winchester controller)

170MB in 1986? owo

I just looked through the old price lists from our first PC and the 80MB HDD was like ~$1500 in 1987

I bought one of the SB16 Multimedia Bundles to upgrade my 486sx-33. My gut feels that cd-rom became more popular with slightly later cpu's - like the DX2-66.

Well... there was the FM Towns 😀

leileilol wrote on 2020-07-27, 15:18:

Well... there was the FM Towns 😀

I had to google these, looked pretty nice actually 😜
Never seen one of those here in NL iirc.

My 386 tower is fitted with a proprietary interface caddy-load CD drive but I believe that was a later addition. It is a somewhat late 386 system (386DX-33 with a 1991 date BIOS) but even that's before CD drives started to become commonplace in 1993 and 1994.

Grzyb wrote on 2020-07-27, 05:52:

Those Vobis/Highscreen WFW 3.11 CDs are only in German and/or Dutch, right?
Was there any other OEM that released Windows 3.1x on CD?

That MS Dev Network stuff, being from 1996/97, obviously doesn't count when searching for the earliest OS (or OS-like product) CD-ROM.

Pretty sure I have a Dell branded 3.1 CD somewhere.

chinny22 wrote on 2020-07-27, 12:22:

Creating a Win3x CD is easy enough. if you run winsetup /a off the first disk it will extract all the disk's contents into the s […]
Show full quote

foil_fresh wrote on 2020-07-27, 04:14:

@Horun @Jo22 any sources for a copy of this win311/dos622 CD? I am interested in doing a win3.1 install but my gotek hasnt arrived yet 😎 cheers

Creating a Win3x CD is easy enough.
if you run winsetup /a off the first disk it will extract all the disk's contents into the specified folder which you can then copy to the CD

I think if you copy all the disks contents into the same folder manually it'll also work. Its been awhile

Although installing 3.11 off the gotek was fun, installation flys now that seek time and dodgy sectors are eliminated.

Back on topic
Our first PC (a 486 DX2/66) came with a 2x CD-ROM in 1995
Not long after my mate got a drive for their 386, lasted a week or 2 then ended up upgrading to a DX4 100 as the 386 was now to slow fro the drive

alright cheers will have a go

Back in 1994 I had 386/Dx 40 with Aztec Soundcard that had and IDE port so a Creative 2X CDROM was attached. But it was a custom build PC so I believe that there is no chcance that 386 came out wth CDROM as a standard.

I saw a couple of english MS Dos 6.22/WfW 3.11 CDs. At the time the comp shop wanted too much for them so I gave it a miss.

Most every cdrom equiped AST computer from the early to mid 90’s came with a Windows 3.1 CD of sorts, you could either restore to factory defaults or generate Windows 3.1 setup disks off the cd utility