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Windows 1983 Comdex Demo
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Another feature that is neither in the Byte demo nor later versions
is a session bar at the top of the screen. This is similar to Xerox Star/Globablview
and some DOS applications. It shows errors messages, warnings, and information
in the designated area at the top of the screen. In the above image it
displays the time and date.
In the 1984 Windows beta, each window has its own message bar. In Windows
1.0 these use popup dialogs instead.
The window icon in the upper right of the screen is called the "session
control" icon.
Clicking the session control icon displays this menu.
"Time and Date" displays the time and date in the session bar.
"Save Session" saves window positions and restores them when Windows
is restarted.
"End Session" should exit Windows.
A persistent bar with the time and a popup menu used to shut down? That
came back in Windows 95!
If you look closely, you will notice that there are scroll bars and
they are located on the LEFT side of windows.
The Byte demo did not show any scroll bars, and later versions have
the scroll bar on the right.
There is also a simple calendar application.
It is unclear if there are any other included applications, as they
do not show any others.
There is an icon on the desktop for the MS-DOS Executive, however they
never open that during the demo so we do not get to see what that looks
like.
This display briefly appears earlier in the video at what seems to
be another vendor's booth. Presumably this is running on a Wang computer.
Microsoft emphasized that Windows would run on many different IBM PC
compatible computers, so other vendors probably had copies to show off
on their systems.
This also shows a command prompt running in a window. (It is hard to
tell, but this may actually be an early command line version of the MS-DOS
Executive and not the DOS command.com)
During the demo they mention Windows can run DOS programs either in
a window or a full screen.
Among other features at the 1983 Comdex, Apple was showing off Mousepaint
running on an Apple IIe. It has a Macintosh like interface, but they were
keeping the Macintosh a secret.
There were many applications that demonstrated office system integration,
many IBM PC compatibles, Appleworks, a brief shot of an AT&T 5620 graphical
machine, Bill Gates discussing Microsoft Xenix, and plenty of vintage computers
to drool over.
During the video, there is only one brief mention of VisiCorp and no
mention of Visi On.
Although Dan Bricklin worked on VisiCalc for VisiCorp, he was in no
way involved with Visi On.
You think touch screens are magically new, right? Here is a touch screen
operating in 1983. And it scrolls too! (This is at the beginning of Part
3 of the full video)
Shutting down!
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