Jo22 wrote on 2025-06-03, 10:23:

Looking back, Windows 3.1 felt like a very different "era" compared to Windows 3.0. When Windows 3.1 was around, my friends and […]
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Looking back, Windows 3.1 felt like a very different "era" compared to Windows 3.0.
When Windows 3.1 was around, my friends and me had 16-Bit game consoles and Gameboys.

Everything was colourful, computing had just entered multimedia era.
The world wide web was going to be open to everyone. CD-ROMs were sold.
CompuServe had released WinCIM software for Windows (CIM also available on DOS, OS/2 Mac).

And screensavers! Flying Windows, Mystify, Starfield Simulation..
I saw them running on PC monitors in the showcase of computer shops! 😁
Thanks to Windows 3.1!

I saw After Dark on a Macintosh Classic at school, and then when our family got Windows 3.0, we bought After Dark for Windows (I probably begged for it). Maybe it wasn't great value for money, but then again, you didn't want your monitor to burn in! We had a colour monitor though, and I think burn-in might have been more of a monochrome thing, but I'm not sure that was well-known at the time.

But yes, all those other things were missing 😁

Here is someone from Microsoft demonstrating how easy it was to copy data from a spreadsheet into a document in Windows, which looks like it was actually version 1.x since it tiles the windows:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4KRrZxwX78&t=651s

I just ran across this recently, and I think it's worth mentioning because it really was a benefit of Windows. Before Windows (I started with 3.0), I literally did this type of copy and paste with scissors and glue, although I suppose I could have gotten Lotus 1-2-3 to export to text and then imported that into WordPerfect (graphs would have been harder - what image format can 1-2-3 export as that WordPerfect can import?). DESQview could do copy-and-paste but it wasn't always quite so clean, and was no good if you had more than a screen's worth of data to copy if I recall correctly.

The description of Notepad as "a typical word processor" is funny though! I was happy enough with Write when it came along.

Zelya wrote on 2025-06-03, 19:27:

Prepared some environment for writing code for Windows 2 in a more suitable form.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_xYtwCnomw4

Nice!

I have a 20MB drive with Windows 3.0 with a bunch of files deleted from it, Borland C++ 2.0 with a bunch of files deleted from it and without any IDE, JOVE (a small Emacs-like editor), DESQview, and I can do some Windows 3 development on that, and enjoy it from a retro perspective but certainly understand why most people don't consider that "suitable", e.g. I miss having an undo feature 😁

doshea wrote on 2025-06-04, 11:35:

I saw After Dark on a Macintosh Classic at school, and then when our family got Windows 3.0, we bought After Dark for Windows (I probably begged for it). Maybe it wasn't great value for money, but then again, you didn't want your monitor to burn in! We had a colour monitor though, and I think burn-in might have been more of a monochrome thing, but I'm not sure that was well-known at the time.

Ah, right! After Dark, such a classic! ^^
It had a predecessor, I think, Magic ScreenSaver on Windows 2.x.
I've taken a video of it years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCV8OPVY-uE

I've also seen a DOS version of After Dark. That's so cool! Never knew it existed! :D
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvouwI2PjEg

Jo22 wrote on 2025-06-04, 12:52:

It had a predecessor, I think, Magic ScreenSaver on Windows 2.x.
I've taken a video of it years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gCV8OPVY-uE

I think it's too late, that monitor already looks burned in? 😁 That's a nice setup though!

I've also seen a DOS version of After Dark. That's so cool! Never knew it existed! 😁
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HvouwI2PjEg

Nice, I think at least one of the versions of After Dark for Windows included a DOS component, but I think it might have just been a simple blanker - I don't remember anything like that, which looks very similar to the Windows version! I wonder how compatible it was with DOS software or - worse - games?