Happy Birthday, Windows!

German computer magazine CHIP has a story on Windows' 20th anniversary. Windows 1.0 was scheduled to be released in June 1984 but didn't make it into the stores until November 1985. The story is available in German only, but if you feel like getting sentimental, here's a screenshot tour.

The funny thing is that many of the Web 2.0 folks won't get teary-eyed here because they're too young to remember things like 20 MB hard drives, acoustic couplers and monochrome monitors. Ian Sefferman of Openomy (about which I wrote a few days ago) is just 21, for example, and Omar Al Zabir, my ingenious partner at Pagefla...ooops, I almost revealed the name of my new startup!...is just 23 years old, too. ("Revealed" in a "Ray Ozzie memo leaked" kind of way.)

OK, folks of the generation Web 2.0, at least have a look at this:


Guess what these funny black squares are? No, no gramophone records. Your dad or elder brother used to call them "floppy disks". These 5 1/4 inch floppies here stored 360-1200 KB, but if that sounds a little small for your MP3 and DivX collection, remember that your dad and your elder brother were exceedingly proud when they finally got a floppy drive, as that allowed them to throw away their datasette recorder.

The PC revolution of the past 20 years never fails to excite me. And as many others, I keep wondering if Moore's Law will still work in the next 20 years to come.