by fuzzfactor | 2025-05-31 16:26:36+00:00
Yup, "Windows Computers" always did sound contrived. Quite often lots of people didn't even know it was Windows they were using, just "the computer". OTOH lots of excitement was encouraged in anticipation of a user's first "Windows Computer" so they would buy more.

This really did start a long time ago when office people spent years taking their time deciding if they wanted to spring for an Apple Computer, which was its proper name from the beginning, or wait for an IBM PC once they appeared, which PC's quickly became more affordable from other companies besides IBM. Up until Windows 3, and even after 3.1, many PC's never shipped with Windows. Once Windows started shipping with new PC's to the mainstream most affordably, lots of salespeople referred to them as "Windows Computers" because that's what some people were asking for. To distinguish them from everything else that was still selling which only had DOS. If they weren't actually made by IBM they were tired of calling them IBM "compatible" PC's anyway.

Windows 95 took over the world of office machines because it was purchased in a similar way to traditional office machines, transparently included with new hardware when you were replacing your old typewriters with word processors and printers. A lot of people didn't want Apple because it was both expensive and beyond that, over-priced, whereas PC's were merely expensive, but DOS was confusing and they didn't want that either. So they waited. For a business just starting out, the initial purchase of office machines was normally supposed to last you until you are expected to be in better financial shape in the far future, when you will traditionally be able to better afford even more robust electronics which last an even longer time and are worth the money for that reason if nothing else.

Once Windows 95 came along some people were even trying it as a bit of a filing cabinet using the very same PC back when a HDD cost more than a physical filing cabinet, then replacing good old fax machines once scanners got within reach, woo hoo!

Only the most advanced users had made massive progress filing in DOS, where they still called "folders" by their original name "directories".

At that time there was still never any reason in history to believe that your purchase would become less useful or even useless as long as the electronics were still operational, just like office machines had always been since the beginning of time. Some of these could be expensive for good office PC's and if you bought from a top company like IBM or Compaq they would tell you details about how they were built to last.

Exactly the kind of thing you would want in a place like a research institution or a factory, where the stakes are at least an order of magnitude greater than the average office by far. You think.

When or where you may have much more uncommon needs for computation like never before, more so than maybe office work at all. And the most cost-effective computing choice is to use the most mainstream commodity to plug into your specialized factory hardware, which has been Windows PC's for a while.

One problem is that you're not supposed to actually ever need revised software and/or OS to operate your specialized factory, railway or whatever, whether it's Windows or anything else. As long as it only needs to do what it did at first. But you do need to be able to put your proven OS/software combination onto fresh new computing hardware at least, if not that having the latest OS, without any breaking changes over the decades, also whether it is Windows or not. The next problem is that those breaking changes sell more office machines which are so popular, that it gets too late for the factories sooner than ever by surprise when their well-maintained mission-critical production line finally just needs a brand new regular ordinary mission-critical PC and it won't do the job.

Something that few people I guess remember is that way back in the '90's there were plenty of offices that had incorporated DOS and/or added Windows 3 after they proved useful in the early-adopting institutions, while still remaining primarily typewriter-centric on most physical desktops. It was nothing yet like the landslide of Windows 95 which really sent typewriters to the landfills. All kinds of versions of Microsoft products existed side-by-side within the same offices on hardware of all vintages with no "upgrades" ever needed except if you wanted new features. Until people got the internet en masse, then after a while "Windows Update" appeared and was sold as a convenient source of wonderful new features, while downplaying a truly desperate need to hotfix rare defects to an even greater degree. Unfortunately by the time Windows 98 came out, the widespread adoption of Windows Update by users had encouraged Microsoft to allow defects to ship which never would have passed muster beforehand. And it's only gotten worse in this respect ever since, in spite of so many brilliant programmers who built the company and have always worked there. Regardless of ongoing brilliance, defects be rare no more, and grow at the rate of the company :\

Except now when they shrink the company by kicking people out, I think the defects may be getting worse. So how are you supposed to win unless you can recover something like the integrity of old? It wasn't perfect back then either, but any lack of integrity should be way behind the company by now, so what gives?

Back in the mid '90's there had never yet been any reason to "upgrade" your OS in order to keep your functional electronics as useful as the day you bought it, and it had not come near making sense for an artificial need to purchase new hardware just because the OS became obsolete according to some arbitrary deadline. When tonnes of electronics involved is perfectly operational in every other way. Pure anti-recycling behavior.

Not something a real engineer would do if they were any good.