Category Archives: Microsoft

Microsoft’s 1987 OS/2 Videos

Posted on November 4, 2012 by Michal Necasek

The site has been finally expanded to include videos of presentations given at Microsoft OS/2 developer conferences held in 1987, a quarter of a century ago. These videos are of historical interest as they show Microsoft’s product plans as they … Continue reading →

Posted in Microsoft, OS/2 | Leave a comment

OS/2 1.0 Availability Announced 25 Years Ago

Posted on November 3, 2012 by Michal Necasek

On November 3, 1987 IBM announced a few new products and provided more information on several previously announced packages. One of those was OS/2 1.0 Standard Edition. First announced on April 2, 1987, OS/2 1.0 SE ($325) had been completed … Continue reading →

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IBM PC XENIX

Posted on October 26, 2012 by Michal Necasek

In 1984, IBM briefly flirted with XENIX, Microsoft’s variant of UNIX licensed from AT&T.  Around 1983-1984, Microsoft and Intel worked on porting XENIX to the 286 processor; Intel shipped XENIX with a number of its development systems in the mid-1980s. … Continue reading →

Posted in IBM, Microsoft, Xenix | 28 Comments

Windows Update Fail

Posted on October 6, 2012 by Michal Necasek

The other day I needed to update a server blade with Windows Server 2008 R2 installed on it. The system hadn’t been running for a while and now had about 100 updates available. I wasn’t looking forward to this as … Continue reading →

Posted in Microsoft, Windows | 7 Comments

Book Review: DOS Internals

Posted on September 21, 2012 by Michal Necasek

A Few Decades Late Book Reviews DOS Internals, by Geoff Chappell Addison-Wesley, March 1994; 768 pages, ISBN 0-201-60835-9; $39.95 DOS Internals is a very unusual book. Written by an academic whose field isn’t computer science, it is a in-depth and … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Development, DOS, Microsoft | 15 Comments

86-DOS Was an Original

Posted on August 10, 2012 by Michal Necasek

In case it wasn’t sufficiently obvious already: A forensic expert now confirmed that 86-DOS, née QDOS, and (by extension) MS-DOS were not copies of CP/M, either on source or binary level. This comes hardly as a surprise, despite years (nay, … Continue reading →

Posted in DOS, Microsoft, PC history | 6 Comments

Book Review: Inside OS/2

Posted on July 23, 2012 by Michal Necasek

A Few Decades Late Book Reviews Inside OS/2, by Gordon Letwin Microsoft Press, February 1988; 302 pages, ISBN 1-55615-117-9; $19.95 Letwin’s Inside OS/2 was one of the first books devoted to OS/2. What sets Inside OS/2 apart from other OS/2 books published … Continue reading →

Posted in Books, Microsoft, OS/2 | 17 Comments

On a dark, rainy night in April 1985…

Posted on July 7, 2012 by Michal Necasek

Update: Since the original document disappeared, a local copy is now provided. When researching the history of computing, from time to time an unexpected gem turns up. The copy of Ray Ozzie’s notes from a 1985 meeting with Microsoft is one … Continue reading →

Posted in DOS, Microsoft, Windows | 39 Comments

MS-DOS OAKs

Posted on May 25, 2012 by Michal Necasek

Prior to 1991, Microsoft did not sell MS-DOS to end users directly. Although MS-DOS 3.2 (1986) and later was available to system builders as a “packaged product”, most PC users would get an OEM version of MS-DOS with a new … Continue reading →

Posted in Development, DOS, Microsoft | 11 Comments

Early Microsoft Networks

Posted on May 18, 2012 by Michal Necasek

Microsoft networking technologies, often referred to as SMB and/or CIFS, have a very long history, longer than one might realize. While Microsoft’s networking products only became somewhat widespread around 1993-1994 with Windows for Workgroups, their history goes back to 1984-1985. … Continue reading →

Posted in DOS, Microsoft, Networking | 17 Comments