keenmaster486 wrote on 2023-07-03, 17:19:

I do wonder whether we could build some cool programs for Win1/Win2 that would give it some more usefulness, but what would you gain over writing those programs for MS-DOS?

You'd probably gain more with Win2 than with Win1, given Win1 is little better than DOSSHELL.

I think it will be a waste of time since 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 versions of Windows make any sense only for XT machines and those machines were slow machines limited to 1 MB of RAM so Windows itself was too heavy for them. And on the later machines those versions make no sense at all. So ...

ThinkpadIL wrote on 2023-07-03, 17:57:

I think it will be a waste of time since 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 versions of Windows make any sense only for XT machines and those mach […]
Show full quote

keenmaster486 wrote on 2023-07-03, 17:19:

I do wonder whether we could build some cool programs for Win1/Win2 that would give it some more usefulness,
but what would you gain over writing those programs for MS-DOS?

You'd probably gain more with Win2 than with Win1, given Win1 is little better than DOSSHELL.

I think it will be a waste of time since 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 versions of Windows make any sense only for XT machines
and those machines were slow machines limited to 1 MB of RAM so Windows itself was too heavy for them.
And on the later machines those versions make no sense at all. So ...

Hm, yes, makes sense from a rational point of view.
Back in the 90s, when my father and me upgraded that poor 286, the XT class PCs seemed quite dated already.
It seemed hard to believe that they could run anything meaningful, at all.

Ironically, people later on thought the same about my 286.
So I'm not exactly sure anymore what to think. 🤷

I mean, the MS document supports the statement that XTs were very slow and cumbersome - on Windows (except when running small programs):
The mentioning of the FAR pointers, the better memory managements of protected-mode (use of pointers/selectors) and so on.

On the other hand, EMS uses mapping (quick) while XMS requires copying (slow).. So they're even ?
Windows 3.x Real-Mode kernal supports two kinds of EMS, after all.

If Windows 3.x in Standard-Mode had EMS support (256KB version/Large-Frame EMS), it would be a rocket.
I mean, if both Protected-Mode addressing scheme and the EMS mapping feature could be used simultaneously somehow.

As an extra MMU (memory managment unit), so to say. The results wouldn't be normal EMS, anymore, maybe.
But EMS is merely a software specification, it could have been modified. The result would have been closer to 386 Enhanced Mode.

Anyway, I'm just thinking out loud. I hope you guys don't mind and that Zup is okay with that.
Because, I'd really love to tinker with Real-Mode on Windows 3.x from times to times.

Porting an CP/M emulator to Windows 2 or 3 would be interesting.
Could it make use of the 8080 emulation mode of a NEC V20/V30 ? While Windows is loaded ? I always wondered about this possibility.

If so, other 8080-based emulators could be modified to run on an XT class PC w/ NEC CPU running Windows 3.x.
Depending on the complexity, they might run very well on an 10 MHz or 16 MHz XT..

Edit: This bit is interesting:
"Applications that are written to support only protected mode should be marked with the
Resource Compiler's -T switch to prevent the application from loading in real mode."

So it's possible to ccreate Windows 3.1 applications that do not ask for Standard-Mode or Enhanced-Mode?
And if so, could existing binaries be modified to not ask for them? By using hex editor or Resource Editor?

I mean, Minesweeper from Windows 3.1 RTM didn't ask for it. It ran fine in the 3.1 Beta in Real-Mode.
In Windows 3.0, it wouldn't run in either mode, by comparison.

Myself, I wouldn't bother with any version on stock speed PC or XT, turbo XTs with EMS board I might try 2.0 or 3.0, but they're really better on 286. The kind of machine that will really confuse you what version of Windows to run 3.0 /s or 3.10 or even WFWG 3.11 in enhanced mode, would be an earlier 386 laptop, 386sx16 maybe, capped, or uneconomically expandable beyond 2MB of RAM... Then you have some things running better on the lower resource standard mode with about a meg and a half of physical RAM free, or some things that won't run at all unless you are in 386 enhanced mode, but then you've got less than 1MB physical and are thrashing swap file. Sometimes you're just better pretending a 2MB sx16 is a 286.

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-07-03, 23:05:

Myself, I wouldn't bother with any version on stock speed PC or XT, turbo XTs with EMS board I might try 2.0 or 3.0, but they're […]
Show full quote

Myself, I wouldn't bother with any version on stock speed PC or XT, turbo XTs with EMS board I might try 2.0 or 3.0, but they're really better on 286.
The kind of machine that will really confuse you what version of Windows to run 3.0 /s or 3.10 or even WFWG 3.11 in enhanced mode,
would be an earlier 386 laptop, 386sx16 maybe, capped, or uneconomically expandable beyond 2MB of RAM...
Then you have some things running better on the lower resource standard mode with about a meg and a half of physical RAM free,
or some things that won't run at all unless you are in 386 enhanced mode, but then you've got less than 1MB physical and are thrashing swap file.
Sometimes you're just better pretending a 2MB sx16 is a 286.

Hm. I mean, that seems not wrong, either.. Back in the 90s, a 286 with 4 MB was about the lowest baseline configuration I ever saw in working order.
Simply because most motherboards had four SIMM slots minimum and because 1 MB SIMMs were standard by then (4 MB SIMMs were still pricey).
By contrast, my father had both a 386DX-40 w/ 16 MB of RAM and a very modern 486 laptop with 4 MB of RAM. It was the fastest "PC" in the house, I remember.

Okay, I mean, technically, there once was that 286 laptop (portable) that shipped with a very low memory configuration..
It was a Compaq SLT 286 that I got as second hand. It had a bit over 1 MB, which I couldn't accept back in the 90s. It was barely enough for the DOS environment I was used to.
So I got another SLT 286, which was broken (and yellowed, afaik). I disassembled it carefully, removed the proprietary SIMM modules and installed them into my SLT 286.

The result was a healthy SLT 286 with a bit of over 4 MB of RAM. It ran Windows 3.1 as nicely as my main PC, if not better.
The funny part about the SLT 286 was that it had a real 640x480 plasma screen with VGA graphics.
So all my applications ran without any issues.

The other 4 MB machine I had was a Siemens-Nixdorf portable PC with a 386DX-16 and a Phoenix BIOS..
It was an industrial portable PC with a 5,25" and 3,5" combo floppy drive and a tiny CRT colour monitor (TTL) on the left.
If memory serves, it had a weird EGA/VGA hybrid graphics card that got VGA video modes working over EGA connection.
Very weird. It's been so long ago.. Anyway, Jill of Jungle ran nicely on that PC. In full colour (certainly not CGA).

Edit: I forgot to mention.. There was Windows/386, a version of Windows 2.x that was aimed at 386 PCs.
It was very useful at the time. It could multitask a lot of DOS applications and had a clipboard that worked with both DOS/Windows programs.
I'm not entirely sure how that worked, though. I know that some Microsoft applications on DOS had special clipboard support.
They could exchange data on real DOS, if being multi-tasked via MS-DOS Shell or DESQView.

Speaking of, the classic DESQView can multitask MS Windows (in Real-Mode), while DESQView/X has Windows 3.1 support.
It can run Windows 3.1 in a window. In Standard-Mode, at least, if memory serves.

Edit: Found some videos about that! ^^
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sf0GDQsvOEQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOYcY6oeBhY

Here are some Windows/386 and Windows 3.0 related videos. I hope that's not off-topic.
The title asks if Windows 2/3 are useful. These old ads did try to prove that.

Windows/386 promo video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=swFlU-FKg30

Windows 3.0 "The Wheel" promo video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VgcTlZFUAqA

Jo22 wrote on 2023-07-03, 22:27:

Porting an CP/M emulator to Windows 2 or 3 would be interesting. Could it make use of the 8080 emulation mode of a NEC V20/V30 ? […]
Show full quote

Porting an CP/M emulator to Windows 2 or 3 would be interesting.
Could it make use of the 8080 emulation mode of a NEC V20/V30 ? While Windows is loaded ? I always wondered about this possibility.

If so, other 8080-based emulators could be modified to run on an XT class PC w/ NEC CPU running Windows 3.x.
Depending on the complexity, they might run very well on an 10 MHz or 16 MHz XT..

What about installing CP/M-86 on HP 200LX or even HP 95LX (kind of pocket size Epson PX-4 on double AA batteries)?

keenmaster486 wrote on 2023-07-03, 17:19:

I do wonder whether we could build some cool programs for Win1/Win2 that would give it some more usefulness, but what would you gain over writing those programs for MS-DOS?

You'd probably gain more with Win2 than with Win1, given Win1 is little better than DOSSHELL.

I only used Windows prior to version 3.0 to the extent that the runtime version of 1.0 was used by Balance of Power, so I don't know that much about it. Wikipedia says that there were versions of Word and Excel for Windows 2, so maybe with some work, it could become someone's daily driver? 😁 Certainly one of the early killer features of Windows 3.0 for me was that I could run Write and something else at the same time and paste stuff into my document, so I probably would have liked Windows 2 at the time. I don't think I would now though!

Jo22 wrote on 2023-07-03, 22:27:

Edit: This bit is interesting: "Applications that are written to support only protected mode should be marked with the Resource […]
Show full quote

Edit: This bit is interesting:
"Applications that are written to support only protected mode should be marked with the
Resource Compiler's -T switch to prevent the application from loading in real mode."

So it's possible to ccreate Windows 3.1 applications that do not ask for Standard-Mode or Enhanced-Mode?
And if so, could existing binaries be modified to not ask for them? By using hex editor or Resource Editor?

I mean, Minesweeper from Windows 3.1 RTM didn't ask for it. It ran fine in the 3.1 Beta in Real-Mode.
In Windows 3.0, it wouldn't run in either mode, by comparison.

Maybe! Petzold's Programming Windows 3.1 suggests that it just sets a bit in the .EXE file header. It also mentions the -31 switch which reminds me that you might need to change the required version (subsystem version?) in the header too in some cases if it was marked as requiring Windows 3.1.

I accidentally stumbled across Knowledge Base article Q88107 which talks about MFC not supporting real mode, and it made me think that if the above editing worked, and the application happened to not use any APIs added in Windows 3.1, perhaps the problem you'd hit next is that because it wasn't designed to run in real mode, it fixes/locks all its memory, so Windows can't move it to EMS, swap it, etc., so you might find that you can't run other applications at the same time despite having enough available memory. That's just based on my vague understanding of how those things work though, I could be quite wrong.

Thanks for browsing by doshea!! ^^

Personally, I have a soft spot for Windows 2.03, because that's what I had access to in my childhood, along with Windows 3.1.
I played many games of Klotz, a Tetris style game by a fellow citizen.
It's also interesting, because it's from the 1980s, a great decade.

Personally, I believe that there used to be a lot of early Windows software written for Windows 2 and Windows/386 in particular.
To my knowledge, these early applications were written using the original MS Windows SDK and Windows.h file.

I draw this conclusion, because Windows 1 and 2 were both very insignificant still when they were new.
Only a few users knew of Windows and applications were rare.
The programs shipped were worth the buy alone already.

And interested developers were already satisfied if they got their hands on the Windows SDK.
They didn't really differentiate between the few versions available because
a) they probably didn't know about their existence
b) only found a programming book about Windows 1.0 in their local library
c) saw the biggest feature of Windows 2.x in the overlapping windows.

Which as such didn't cause a major change, as far as the SDK was being concerned.
Most Windows 1.x programs can be resized on Windows 2.x, afaik.
The resource files of 1.x and 2.x were quite similar, still, as well.
The upcoming Windows 3.0 was another beast, by contrast.

Which brings me to the next point, which I can barely prove, though.
To what I've found evidences for, many Windows 3.0 programs were derivatives of Windows 2 or Windows/386 programs.
And after Windows 3.0 was out, they had been eradicated by Windows 3.0 compatible successors:

When Hobbes and other places started out, it was already too late.
My best bet are companion diskettes, book ware, that shipped with old magazines and books released before 1990.
They might be the last witnesses of the early days of Windows.

That replacement took place because the resource format and API in Windows 3.0 was so drastically different.
Applications not ported to Windows 3.0 did trigger a compatibility warning often.
Unless they were manually modified using MARK utility (or MARK30, a freeware utility).

Windows 2.x programs that are "clean", ie don't do segment arithmetics and support scalable fonts,
can run stable under both Windows 2.x and Windows 3.0+. There's a provision in the NE header for that.

However, quite a few developers seemed to go another route instead
and did create native Windows 3.0 applications instead, never looking back.
Those application did nolonger need Windows 3.x to load its compatibility module
(winoldap.mod, Windows Old Application Support Module).

And that's why it's so hard finding evidences about Windows 2.x applications, I believe.
The copyright dates in many programs are one of those, though.
They date back to before 199o, when Windows 3.0 was released.
In addition, some 1980s computer magazines did contain screenshots of early Windows applications.

Attached below is one screenshot of a special terminal program once required
to access the German equivalent to French Minitel/Telétel online service.

Edit: I forget to mention. You can find a few shareware programs for Windows 1.x and 2.x at Toasty Tech page.
It also has a gallery with lots of information about old GUIs in general.

I use Windows 3.0 on my 286/386SX systems because it just feels "right", ie. it was what I used at the time of those PCs' heyday.

appiah4 wrote on 2023-07-05, 06:55:

I use Windows 3.0 on my 286/386SX systems because it just feels "right", ie. it was what I used at the time of those PCs' heyday.

Hi, you may lile to try out Windows 3.0 MME then. 😃
It looks the same as Windows 3.0, but does the 286/386SX more justice.
It has soundcard support, screensavers etc. But it's still a true Windows 3.0.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-07-05, 14:42:

Hi, you may lile to try out Windows 3.0 MME then. 😃 It looks the same as Windows 3.0, but does the 286/386SX more justice. It ha […]
Show full quote

appiah4 wrote on 2023-07-05, 06:55:

I use Windows 3.0 on my 286/386SX systems because it just feels "right", ie. it was what I used at the time of those PCs' heyday.

Hi, you may lile to try out Windows 3.0 MME then. 😃
It looks the same as Windows 3.0, but does the 286/386SX more justice.
It has soundcard support, screensavers etc. But it's still a true Windows 3.0.

That is exactly what I install, actually 😁

appiah4 wrote on 2023-07-05, 14:47:

Jo22 wrote on 2023-07-05, 14:42:

Hi, you may lile to try out Windows 3.0 MME then. 😃 It looks the same as Windows 3.0, but does the 286/386SX more justice. It ha […]
Show full quote

appiah4 wrote on 2023-07-05, 06:55:

I use Windows 3.0 on my 286/386SX systems because it just feels "right", ie. it was what I used at the time of those PCs' heyday.

Hi, you may lile to try out Windows 3.0 MME then. 😃
It looks the same as Windows 3.0, but does the 286/386SX more justice.
It has soundcard support, screensavers etc. But it's still a true Windows 3.0.

That is exactly what I install, actually 😁

That's cool! 😎 I once got my hands on the Tandy version of Windows 3.0 MME (OEM version).
It shipped with a pre-installed Paradise/WD SVGA graphics driver and a SB16 driver (!).
The cool thing was that both were fully Standard-Mode compatible.
- So if you've got a cheap SB16 ViBRA laying around, you're set on a 286 and ready to go. ^^

Oh, and thanks to Unisound utility you can init later Plug&Play soundcards without needing CTCM/CTCU. 😁
But even if you prefer using them, EMU386 is your friend. It can run quite a bit of over-optimized Real-Mode utilities (those with 386 opcodes).
SVGA drivers contrast aren't that of an issue. They're just tricky to find online.
Many Windows 3.0 drivers still support the 286/Standard Mode by comparison.

Like those older ones from OAK, for example. I've got an OAK OTI-67 working on Windows 2.03 and 3.1 in a 286.
The VGA driver can support OAK OTI-37c and OTI-77, too, I believe.
There's also a Trident 9000 driver for Windows 3.1 and OS/2 1.3 (I use them on another 286).
Anyway, just saying. Tseng and ATI had drivers, too, maybe. I just didn't use these so often, so I don't know. 🤷

But even if you don't have an SB16 or compatible (ALS100/ALS120, some CMI models etc), there are alternatives.
There used to be a sound card add-on by Creative, I vaguely remember - which had plain SB and SB Pro drivers included.
It also shipped with an early version of MCI/WinMM, I believe, for early Windows 3.0 users.
These drivers could be manually installed in Windows 3.0 MME's SYSTEM.INI, perhaps.

Hm. Maybe the PAS16 also had Windows 3.0 MME compatible drivers.
Media Vision had good drivers support, even on OS/2.
The Windows 3.1 drivers did work on my 286 in Standard-Mode, at least.

Edit: Hm. What's also worth a try are the SVGA drivers from Beta versions. The 3.1 Beta version is Real-Mode compatible, for example.
Maybe there's something similar for Windows 3.0, as well. Some sort of generic driver with a mode list for known chipsets.
The MME version was very experimental already, after all. It had a palettized VGA driver included, which can be used by picture viewers, or WinFract for colour-cycling.

Edit: Sorry for being so chatty again. I got carried away. 😅

doshea wrote on 2023-07-04, 23:46:

I only used Windows prior to version 3.0 to the extent that the runtime version of 1.0 was used by Balance of Power, so I don't […]
Show full quote

keenmaster486 wrote on 2023-07-03, 17:19:

I do wonder whether we could build some cool programs for Win1/Win2 that would give it some more usefulness, but what would you gain over writing those programs for MS-DOS?

You'd probably gain more with Win2 than with Win1, given Win1 is little better than DOSSHELL.

I only used Windows prior to version 3.0 to the extent that the runtime version of 1.0 was used by Balance of Power, so I don't know that much about it.
Wikipedia says that there were versions of Word and Excel for Windows 2, so maybe with some work, it could become someone's daily driver? 😁
Certainly one of the early killer features of Windows 3.0 for me was that I could run Write and something else at the same time and paste stuff into my document,
so I probably would have liked Windows 2 at the time. I don't think I would now though!

Hi there. Please excuse my response, I know that you asked this keenmaster486, but I just happen to know about this.
Both MS Word and MS Excel were indeed available on Windows 2.x. The latter had EMS support, at least.
Along with Microsoft Mail for PC Networks, MS Project, MS Pageview, Ami Pro, Corel Draw, Page Maker, Gupta SQLWindows, etc.

There's a "Promotional Edition" (aka Working Model aka Demo Version) of MS Excel 2.1, as well..
Going by its name, I suppose it's free to share. It was bundled with a copy of Windows 2.11..
Unfortunately, I can't post a direct link to places like the internet archive here.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-07-10, 06:43:

There's a "Promotional Edition" (aka Working Model aka Demo Version) of MS Excel 2.1, as well..
Going by its name, I suppose it's free to share. It was bundled with a copy of Windows 2.11..
Unfortunately, I can't post a direct link to places like the internet archive here.

For this content you can. It's not like any link to Internet Archive is not allowed.

Jo22 wrote on 2023-07-10, 06:43:

Hi there. Please excuse my response, I know that you asked this keenmaster486, but I just happen to know about this.
Both MS Word and MS Excel were indeed available on Windows 2.x. The latter had EMS support, at least.
Along with Microsoft Mail for PC Networks, MS Project, MS Pageview, Ami Pro, Corel Draw, Page Maker, Gupta SQLWindows, etc.

No need to apologise! That's interesting regarding Microsoft Mail - I was wondering if there was any such thing. I wonder how usable it is today - can it somehow be made to interface to Internet mail (i.e. SMTP), perhaps some version of Microsoft Exchange can do that?

I still could not upgrade my toshiba over 3.0....

doshea wrote on 2023-07-11, 09:14:

Jo22 wrote on 2023-07-10, 06:43:

Hi there. Please excuse my response, I know that you asked this keenmaster486, but I just happen to know about this.
Both MS Word and MS Excel were indeed available on Windows 2.x. The latter had EMS support, at least.
Along with Microsoft Mail for PC Networks, MS Project, MS Pageview, Ami Pro, Corel Draw, Page Maker, Gupta SQLWindows, etc.

No need to apologise! That's interesting regarding Microsoft Mail - I was wondering if there was any such thing. I wonder how usable it is today - can it somehow be made to interface to Internet mail (i.e. SMTP), perhaps some version of Microsoft Exchange can do that?

I am just spitballing, but could it be possible doing that through remote acces into another , newer and more modern pc ?

Yah I think the security is too high for pre~2005 mail programs to raw dog internet mail servers, probably need to rig a linux box as a gateway.

BitWrangler wrote on 2023-07-13, 17:28:

Yah I think the security is too high for pre~2005 mail programs to raw dog internet mail servers, probably need to rig a linux box as a gateway.

so sad . a few years back I tested mail excange from IE on win98 and worked perfectly.... "we are heading down the drain."

Windows 1/2/3.0 are pretty useless IMHO for my intents and purposes, only by which that I can do everything they can do in DOS on the same systems a whole heck of a lot faster.

It would be kind of neat to make some new applications for those APIs though and see maybe what could have been but never was - ie a basic web browser that's B&W that runs in Windows 2.x .

I'm not 100% convinced security is a total reason for the kibbosh on e-mail clients for legacy systems - I have a program called FLMAIL for DOS that actually seems to work okay with my Google Account on a 486 Dx2-50 with the security settings slightly reduced. The only thing going against it is SVGAlib - if someone made a text mode version, it probably could work on an 8088 or 286. More of the problem with legacy internet stuff is either the software pre-dated it, nobody who programs is interested in making a client and nobody who is interested in programming knows how to program their own, and what does exist is getting passed over by less capable more well known things (ie Arachne vs. LYNX vs. Links).

I know there's versions of Mosaic prior to 1.0 and Cello that run in 3.0 standard mode, so would not surprise me if they ran on 2.0 also.

edit: btw in 1992/93/94 you didn't really need a "mono" specific browser the text colors were set to system defaults, the background could be turned off, and the old gif format rendered in monochrome if necessary, though dog slow, probably better just to turn images off. So yah, those will work just as good as they always did on mono, but the web got more heavyweight. If you wanna do the modern web on mono i.e. grayscaled image maps etc you really need a few hundred mhz behind it, not like 20.