Win 3.11 has less than four months to live
Embedded applications of the Neolithic
SOME OF US thought 16-bit Windows was dead and buried. It turns out it wasn't quite dead, it was comatose, and the Redmond Juggernaut continued milking the old code for specialised embedded applications like cash registers and the like.
The news of the impending demise of 3.11 came from John Coyne, one of Microsoft's Embedded specialists on his bog. He said WfW - the product whose name once was mocked in 32-bit OS/2 circles as "Windows for Warehouses" and which was a graphical GUI and half-OS which ran on top of DOS, will be withdrawn from sale for device manufacturers on November the 1st.
Few of you might remember that due to the cooperation agreement that gave birth to OS/2, IBM also kept rights to the 16-bit Windows source code, allegedly up to and including WfW 3.11, and some versions of the win32s API that allowed running 32-bit applications on top of 16-bit Windows. But unlike the Kings of Redmondia, Big Blue never used its rights to actively market Win 3.11 for embedded applications, instead focusing on its "PC/DOS 2000", IBM's enhanced version of MS-DOS, the last release of which included Y2K fixes.
Windows 3.11 was the last version which used "cooperative" instead of pre-emptive multitasking. It included peer-to-peer file and print sharing over Netbios, and MSFT even offered a TCP/IP stack add-on.
Windows 3.xx's cooperative multitasking meant that it was up to each application to release the CPU and bring back control to the OS. A common problem then was that a poorly coded or buggy application could crash and take the whole OS hostage with it, never releasing control back to the user, which of course paved the way for a quick "three-finger-salute" (Ctrl-Alt-Del).
Caldera Systems once marketed "WABI" a 16-bit binary compatibility layer to run sixteen bit Windows applications on Linux. Of course nobody will miss this piece of ancient code, and even cash registers have been able to run open sauce Linux quite happily for several years.
But in case you need good old WfW 3.11 for your device, better hurry and head to Redmond's Forgotten Technologies office. µ
L'INQs
Microsoft's
embedded Windows blogger with the "sad news"
Linux on Cash Registers
Comments
Didn't Sun market Wabi?
I thought Wabi came from Sun and was used to run Windows 3.x code on top of Solaris. It emulated both the Windows system calls and the x86 processor, if I recall correctly.Stupid company...
OS/2 died because of IBM.I have worked with IBM several years.
And I can tell you it's the most stupid company I have ever seen.
They had the chance to make it with OS/2, but their colleagues INSIDE IBM, called PC-company, decided to push Windows instead of OS/2.
Not because customers wanted Windows, but because IBM has no management that dare to take good decissions.
I once got hold of Lou Gerstners phone and fax number, so we published it on the web to have the guy change his mind.
Nothing happened, he only changed the numbers and made them secret :-)
Would Lou have dared to take charge, OS/2 would have been the OS of today.
28July Microsofts Future Demonstrated.
Although DEEP Into Virtual Karona Clamp, I noticed Microsofts next O/S Mentioned for Display on 28July at: Microsoft parrellel developemnt conf.Microsoft’s next-generation operating-system, codenamed”Midori” just might be the many-core operating system that is part of the Tahiti charter. And I wouldn’t be surprised if “RedHawk,” the new managed-code execution environment under development at Microsoft, somehow fits into the Tahiti picture, as well.
At the end of this month, at its annual Research Faculty Summit, Microsoft researchers are on tap to share more....
This isn't your crummy 2,4,8 core4 stuff although it will take true 8 core minimum to get it humming. it scales to 64 cores, is theory. (completely skips 32 cores as hogwash)
MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS IN SCALE ARE EXPECTED.
drashek
Finally ...
Yes! Finally it is time to release the source code to this ancient wonder. WfW was truly a Wonder for the Ages as in it was a Wonder that it ran at all and it took ages to do any thing.Of course I realize I will have to update my box as I don't think it will run a newer OS. Perhaps a doubling of the RAM to 16 MB would be a start. Oh, yes and maybe one of those clock doubler thingies that people were talking about. I don't think I can ever fill the HDD though as 1200 MB ought to be enough for anyone.