creepingnet wrote on 2023-07-14, 21:14:

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).

there should be a few more , we just need to search , first try softpedia then archive site then old cd's

I don't know what to do about upgrade of 286 toshiba to win 3.1 .....

BTW PC jr (IBM) have some nice working os's uploaded into the vm / in the link
Ps. I can post floppy versions of 2.03
or a manual for 3.0-3.1 or something , I have it download-ed
Usually I just use VC or NC under pc-dos , is it pc dos the problem? (should load 3.1 but it just run's out of memory after finishing the copying files part in dos-mode , never lauching gui install part)
my toshiba read's 1 mb at launch/boot-up , and I can use extra 4 meg sticks if I have HIMEM-HMA/EMS/EMM286 or something that sees the ram
(it's a pain sorting it all out , I read a few books on the subject).

Hi again, I've just read a manual for an HP Vectra computer and found out that there was an "HP AdvanceLink" software for Windows /386 and Windows 3.
It was some sort of corporate terminal emulator software, if I understand correctly.
It's from circa 1989, I think.

Edit: Picture attached.
Edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NewWave

Quick update. I did some tests with a clone of the Lo-Tech 2MB EMS card..
To what I can say, Windows 2.03 runs as expected. It correctly mentions EMS size in About dialog.
Word for Windows will also run fine and, err, "succesfully" consume 1MB of EMS RAM straight away when opening a sample document.. 😉

Windows 3.0 in Real-Mode is.. different.
It detects small page frame EMS (64KB window), but refuses to use it unless it has to be (conventional memory down to about 100KB).
And even here, mainly for storing data (available EMS reduced by 200KB in my case). Large programs can't be run, an out-of-memory warning appears.
That's different to using EMM386/MemMaker on a 386 and up.
Here, we get large page frame EMS (256KB window) and Windows will happily swap out programs.

For sake of completeness, I've also tried GeoWorks 2.0.
EMS was enabled, but I noticed no difference in performance.
Probably because it can swap to disk, already (virtual memory), not sure.

creepingnet wrote on 2023-07-14, 21:14:

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 .

Hi, you mean something like MicroWeb 2?
In principle it's possible, because Windows 2.x is fully real-mode.
Packet drivers like ne2000.com or mTCP should be callable.

In essence, even Windows/386 is just Win2+EMM386+taskmanager.
The Windows part is separate from the virtual machine monitor an can be run on any PC - merely display drivers are special.
The /386 drivers won't work on other two versions and vice versa, I believe.

Also, it's possible to use Turbo Pascal for Windows 1.0 (and 1.5?) to compile Windows 2.x applications.
Maybe easier than fiddling with ancient Win1/Win2 SDK on DOS..
They require patching, though. There's an utility on the web.
Some information here: Re: Will program written in Microsoft Visual Basic 1.0 work in Real-Mode on Windows 3.0?

That being said, there are probably limitations. The Windows 3 resource format is different from Windows 2.
So icons on bitmaps meant for Windows 3 can't be used.

However, Windows 3 can partially handle Windows 2 resources (bitmaps will be monochrome).
So Turbo Pascal for Windows can be used with Windows 2 resources, maybe - when running the compiler/IDE from Windows 3.x.

Setting the Windows 3.0 "clean" NE header flags with Mark utility (or mark30 freeware) will make it run on Windows 3.x without complaints, too.