[HN Gopher] Windows: The next killer application on the internet...
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Windows: The next killer application on the internet (1994) [pdf]
Author : tosh
Score : 51 points
Date : 2021-12-18 22:52 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (sriramk.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (sriramk.com)
| aaronharnly wrote:
| I love that the Internet was once so innocent that a Microsoft
| exec was citing this as a notable new site on the web:
|
| * The University of Georgia offers a graphical tour of their
| greenhouses on a Botany department server
| wongarsu wrote:
| Windows 95 was in some ways ahead of its time, with the melding
| between Explorer and Internet Explorer giving us Active Desktop
| (HTML as Desktop Background), the sidebars in the Explorer made
| from HTML and the seamless combination of local and remote files
| (with both SMB and FTP being first-class citizens in the
| Explorer).
|
| The concepts had great potential, but they were either too early
| and removed (not enough resources to spare back then to put HTML
| everywhere), or kept in much the same state and never really
| expanded on
| hulitu wrote:
| Active desktop appeared in windows 98. I would not say that
| windows was ahead of its times. It was an OS which was
| agresively pushed to people.
| kevingadd wrote:
| Windows definitely shipped a universal WebView long before
| anyone else would. For a long time software like Steam would
| still shove an embedded IE component into dialog boxes and
| windows to show formatted and/or dynamic content. Being able
| to rely on having access to a consistent HTML renderer with
| scripting was huge for frontend software dev.
|
| These days people just ship 50+mb worth of chromium goo with
| every application instead, but Windows definitely lead the
| way there and did so very early.
| iso1210 wrote:
| Did the original Windows 95 even have a TCP/IP stack? I think
| the first copy came with MSN, but it wasn't until the Plus pack
| that it came with a browser. IE4 was the active desktop and
| wasn't out until September 1997.
| monocasa wrote:
| I thought that was the USB stack that didn't come until the
| plus pack.
| tomjoro wrote:
| Windows 95 had a native TCP/IP stack. Lan Manager had it from
| 1990 (a bunch of that expertise came from hires from
| Finland). And Windows NT had it in 1994. In '95 everyone was
| using TCP/IP and pretty much was standard at M$. I was there.
| It's true the browser didn't kick into high gear until '97
| after Microsoft decide set-top boxes might not be information
| access solution of the near future. Microsoft was a little
| slow to admit that the Internet might win but eventually they
| came 'round and put some effort into it. Interestingly, both
| Gopher and Mosaic came out of Midwest universities in early
| '90s - great stuff, fun times.
| wongarsu wrote:
| You are right, I might be attributing things to Windows 95
| that really only happened in updates or in Windows 98.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| My comment in another post about how there are really two
| versions of Windows 95, and most of the things you describe
| didn't exist until the later versions, not available until
| 96/97:
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29545152
|
| As an addition to this, it's worth remembering that the retail
| version of Windows 95 did not enable TCP/IP out of the box.
| While it was included, you had to separately install it
| yourself. The default protocol was originally NetBEUI:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NetBIOS#NetBEUI
| kingcharles wrote:
| Yeah, those features started showing up first in the regular
| builds of Windows Nashville. I was downloading them almost
| daily to see the (at the time) amazing new UI concepts that
| were being tested:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_96
| RachelF wrote:
| Yes, unfortunately most of them didn't make it.
|
| There was also talk of replacing most of the file system
| with a database, something which they played with for years
| and then discarded.
| kingcharles wrote:
| The beautiful Web 1.0 as I remember it. No background color tags,
| so your text was always on top of the default window control
| color: medium grey. It's all been downhill since then, right?
| RIGHT?
| blibble wrote:
| > The information and software has been free for 15 years, we
| need to be careful to embrace the current technologies and
| community before we attempt to reshape it.
|
| this all seems very familiar (IE, media players, and now
| Edge/WSL/VSCode)
| simonh wrote:
| This was at a time when there were still many different client
| applications for internet services such as FTP, Gopher, News,
| email of which a web browser was just one. It was only later with
| the emergence of web applications that it became clear the
| browser itself would become the universal client and actually be
| a platform in it's own right. Until then Windows being the
| dominant platform for internet apps looks like a straight forward
| extension of it's role as the dominant platform for desktop apps
| generally.
|
| Microsoft moved aggressively to integrate internet client
| capabilities, mainly web client capabilities, directly into the
| desktop. This is what lead to many of Microsoft's regulatory
| problems because doing so integrated Internet Explorer components
| deeply into the operating system, which was seen as
| anticompetitive bundling. That issue aside, it also lead to
| windows long running internet security issues because it meant
| core operating system services were directly exposed to external
| networks, with minimal security protections.
| anthk wrote:
| Windows 98SE is basically IE4 on top of a kernel.
| ChuckNorris89 wrote:
| Isn't that exactly what Cromebooks were when they were
| released many years later?
| Spooky23 wrote:
| Sort of. Microsoft's goal was to funnel you into a
| minimally viable browser and funnel you into grownup apps.
|
| Once they killed Netscape, they literally disbanded the IE
| team. They also did anti-competitive shit like buy and
| slow-roll Hotmail to protect the golden goose. (enterprise
| EAs of windows and office + oem licensing.)
|
| They are doing the same thing today with identity and
| security for enterprises.
|
| Chrome is Google's attempt at a first party solution stack.
| It's weird though as chrome is owned by different teams in
| Google than other user facing products.
| kevingadd wrote:
| I don't know that I buy that being the strategy, at least
| all the time. HTAs were a very early swing at what
| 'Progressive Web Apps' are today and back when you had
| access to activex components, etc those apps could do
| tons of stuff. Of course, the security attack surface was
| a nightmare so that all got slowly murdered, but I think
| at one point there probably was a serious attempt to let
| people build real apps using web technologies.
| mrkramer wrote:
| And this is where Internet Explorer idea was born and IE was
| deemed to dominate internet for decades to come until Google and
| Chrome came. Idk why Microsoft didn't make proper internet search
| engine because Archie and WAIS were bad and if Microsoft did it
| Google wouldn't probably even exist meaning bigger revenue and
| market cap for Microsoft.
| kreeben wrote:
| >> A phased approach:
|
| >> Embrace
|
| >> Extend
|
| >> Innovate
|
| Hah!
| EGreg wrote:
| That's probably where the good folks M$ took it from originally
| EGreg wrote:
| I love seeing those "What is Internet?" videos from the 90s and
| realizing that today people are asking "what is Intercoin" in the
| exact same way. It looks so quaint looking back.
|
| Back then the Internet was around for decades already but the
| only really successful app and protocol was EMail
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=95-yZ-31j9A
| junon wrote:
| Please don't advertise here, not like this...
| iso1210 wrote:
| I had a look on google trends, and the product he was
| flogging seems about as popular on a global scale over the
| last year as the person who came 3rd in the recent byelection
| in the UK.
| EGreg wrote:
| What is a byelection?
| grzm wrote:
| https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/by-election
|
| > _" a special election held between regular elections in
| order to fill a vacancy"_
| _dain_ wrote:
| local election held outside the regularly scheduled
| cadence, usually because the incumbent resigned or died
| [deleted]
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(page generated 2021-12-19 23:00 UTC)