🚀 go-pugleaf

I just got back from the Windows 3.1 release show.  A brief summary:

- c. 175,000 Win 3.1's were shipped via FedEx,  i.e. that's an indication of
  the number of advance upgrades.
- c. 925,000 were shipped to dealers, etc. (copies they hope to sell)
- they have made the Bomb-program look better (with animation and sound)
- Gates talked about the WOSA and how that meant close relationships with
  other software vendors.. (see "comments" later; DRDOS)
- Someone (forgot the name) advertised how easy it is to port 16-bit apps
  to 32-bit. ("just a few weeks of coding")
- Every reference to Windows included "Operating System".
- the TV ads you see set Bill back by $9 mil.

Windows NT stuff:

- NT was demoed on a NCR with 8x486 (eight times a 486, parallel?), 512 MB
  RAM.
- Gates said,  that NT has been with 50 software developers for the past 6 mos,
  and that wide-scale beta testing will begin in July (along with a conference
  in San Francisco).

Comments:
- No-one ever mentioned: DRDOS, UNIX, Alpha, etc. (only exception IBM 3090)
- No mention of when NT is going to be available
- "Borland" Kahn promised full 3.1 support for his stuff
- A demo of a received fax showed still a shortcoming of Windows (although
  _very_ minor):  To give the fax to an OCR,  it had to be saved as a PCX
  file first.  Why does Windows not include calls for an OCR software to
  request this to be done,  so the user doesn't have to worry about it.
  Example:  to OCR a received fax,  you drop an icon of the fax onto an
  OCR icon. Instant inter-application co-operation... OCR'd text done in
  a sec.
- I had the feeling that NT is supposed to be the base for a mainframe-killer
  a couple of years down the road... comments?

Anyway,  am I running to get my Win 3.1?? No,  'cause I got it for free.
Am I going to use it? Hell, yes.  I don't think Microsoft should cash in
on this upgrade,  but it does finally make Win a bit more bearable.

BTW,  what has Microsoft said about Win 4.0 so far?  These guys seem to be
very serious about "NT is for _very_ big boxes only",  so is Win 4.0 going
to be the "regular" version of it?

Aki.

Note:  This message was based on quick notes  taken during the show.  Some
items may be inaccurate or even entirely false.  I will go over my tapes
later and append as needed.
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