The Computer Chronicles - Windows 3.0 (1990)

you windows 3.0 as quickly emerging as the standard user interface for the PC and while Microsoft and Apple may be arguing in court over who owns the rights to the graphical user interface or GUI it's generally acknowledged that it really all began here at Xerox PARC we're back in the 1970s they started working with concepts like icons windows and WYSIWYG indeed Xerox may be finally getting its revenge as it comes out with its own network GUI product for desktop pcs called global view today we'll take a look at the graphical user interface windows 3.0 in particular on this edition of the computer chronicles the computer chronicles is made possible in part by the software publishers Association which reminds you that software piracy is a federal offense when a few people steal software everyone loses additional funding is provided by PC connection and Mac connection and by byte magazine and Bix the byte information exchange welcome to the computer Chronicles I'm Stuart Schiff a and this is gary kildall Gary I thought this was a show about Windows that's not Windows you know I see a well see what this is a digital research dr dot yeah this is the front end for it it's called view max and it's a graphical interface as you can see it replaces basically the C greater than prompt yeah okay now basically is drop-down menus and of course you select it with the mouse and you have things like the calculator that you'd expect and on the screen you can resize move around and so we'll pull up a calculator on a clock for example and then we can also go in here and access say the C Drive by double clicking on that will say the icons come up for the the various folders that are sub directories in your in your C Drive in this case let's say we want to take a look at something like well let's take a look at autoexec.bat and so we select it and then show the contents and what you'd expect is an ASCII file then we use a standard closed box there and let's say if we access something like command comm which is a machine code file then of course take a look at that moment just when we expect we would see the machine code for it you have a slider bar here that you can reposition take a look and see various parts of not very interesting but it shows you the the idea there it will close this out now if you want to run our program let's say for example well bring the calculator back up here let's say you want to run say products you can okay so i'll double click on that and bring that up to the top here with a command line and we'll say ok and will not save the desktop and we're Prodigy okay so of course we exit 10 prodigy and we would be back into view max again I guess the point here is Gary that this is not just about Windows I mean the graphic user interface whether it's it's view Max and others have really taken over yeah and I see an analogy here is like the Cold War capitalism is defeated communism pretty good it seems like in the war of interfaces it's clear the graphic interface has defeated the old command line execs interface why why is the war over well either why they went yeah there's a couple reasons but the most important one is that we can now assume that really anybody that has an IBM computer system has something like VGA on it as a graphical a display device now we couldn't assume that a few years ago the worst case is a monochrome MD my own display and of course with that we can only use text and we don't have the capability of using graphical interfaces but nowadays we expect graphics we can have it on as a friend for the operating system get away from the old command lines and expect all programs that are really up to date are going to have graphical interfaces on them okay today we'll take a look at the product that is leading the way toward this new world order in computing windows 3.0 we'll also get to see the new windows development system tool book from ASA metrics and we'll find out about a new windows like interface that runs on an XT with only 512 K of memory first of all there is a little legal matter to dispose of Apple is suing Microsoft claiming that it stole the graphic and icon interface idea from the Macintosh Monica Jane reports on the status of the lawsuit while Microsoft is basking in rave reviews of windows 3.0 it's also battling with Apple over ownership of the graphical user interface or GUI the case is being fought at the San Francisco federal courthouse in it apple claims it license the Mac GUI to Microsoft only for the original version of Windows 1.0 apple claims the second version of windows infringe Don that agreement in over 180 ways after two years of wrangling those claims have now been whittled down to 10 unresolved issues include the concept of moving an icon anywhere on the screen having windows overlap and being able to move a window on and off the screen these concerns are legitimate the issue is whether they're copyrightable concerns Apple believes that these features are something distinctive of the Apple Macintosh and that they are unique and original expressions of an idea embodied in the Apple Macintosh the idea of protecting the look and feel of a product has spawned similar cases in Silicon Valley Apple has also sued hewlett-packard and Lotus recently won a major battle when a judge ruled at paper bag software infringed on Lotus 1-2-3 freedom but Raj says the flurry of lawsuits will have a positive effect on the computer industry I think it encourages people to think originally and from that standpoint it may actually help us to have more and better and and truly innovative softwares it will encourage people to do something new and something creative rather than rewarding them for doing simple copying for the computer chronicles I'm Monica Jane it's time to take a look at windows 3.0 and to do that we have with us the windows systems engineer for Microsoft Margaret Johnson and also we're going to find out why windows seems to be such a hit we have with us Gustav and Adel executive editor of PC Magazine Gary guess windows 1 windows 2 has had some problems in terms of acceptance some of those problems been solved windows 3 and just what's going on with well the acceptance is definitely increased with Windows three right now windows is really hot it's the top-selling program for PCs is when it was released in May it went to the top of the charts and it stayed there so the problems with Windows 1 and 2 or more a matter of perfecting it and right now people seem to love Windows 3 ok now Margaret you obviously know a lot about Windows 3 can you tell us a little bit about it sure I'd like to do that by giving a little visual display on the monitor there's been a lot of enhancements both visually and technically to Windows 3 that includes proportional fonts in both the menuing and in the dialog boxes and the use of 3d buttons the other nice thing that people are really excited about is we got away with the ms-dos executive and replaced it with the three applications the program manager for the logical grouping of applications we also have the file manager down here so that we can directly manipulate files and then the third is the task list to go between the tasks the other great feature is in the setup before we had a windows/286 and a Windows 386 that caused a lot of convert confusion now we have one version you pop disk one and two you're a drive you type in setup the setup determines your configuration goes into a Windows application now you can once you go into Windows you have this Windows application which you can then reinstall drivers say for example you change your video display you can pick a new video display the next time you go into Windows it's all set for you now in terms of development tools what is provided with Windows 3 / something wants to write an application say under Windows with Windows 3 you need to get the software developer's kit the SDK for Windows 3 and that includes actually well this isn't my machine there are a lot of tools like a dialog editor and icon editor we assume Microsoft cs6 compilers but there's a lot of for GL's like asymmetric stool book which are very powerful development environment to get into getting back to the program manager which is installed when when you install Windows you actually get three groups installed for you an important group these three groups are the main accessory and the gains group and the main is for system configuration to give you an idea of how you would use it you can customize your desktop let's say for example we want to change the color we can do it from default colors and or we could get very bold and and just mess it up on it yeah really and considering that my lack of color taste is quite strong I'll I'll I'll do one that I feel safe with the ocean I don't want to get anybody sick and you can customize the desktop not even not just with colors but also with background bitmap say you have a company logo well we're in San Francisco so I'm a big Niner fan so I'll put back my Niner logo for the game tomorrow yeah you're gonna work against that background yeah so I'll Sunday I can just keep saying you know go Joe okay Margaret also what are the system requirements what are you Sam as far as graphics device for example oh good question right now Windows has three modes we have the real mode the standard mode and the enhanced mode in setup is determined what type from your machine requirements you would have the real mode is for downward compatibility with two point acts it will run applications that aren't Windows three ready it's also for machines with less than one megabytes of memory the standard mode runs uses the protected environment of the two and 386 with for one megabyte and greater machines and the enhanced mode the 386 enhanced mode will use the virtual memory management of the 386 to virtualize the memory for more memory and also for the standard dos applications can run in the virtual 86 mode so when you're talking about Windows 3 is the executive in this case you're not really running ms-dos underneath attempt huh I mean it runs as a as a special in a special area that's right executive right we're trying to make it more logical as you use your desktop with Windows three Margot briefly I want you to show me the dynamic data exchange feature this that's a good point Windows a very powerful feature of Windows three that we want to get across is the inter-process communications you saw it first with cut copy and paste it's followed with Windows in the Windows environment with the dynamic data exchanger dde in two point X you could use it but it wasn't all that easy and you couldn't use a lot of data now with Windows three memory restrictions going away you can connect the dots between the applications which is okay so if I change a number of Joe's the next month he has 10,000 units all documents associated that will automatically be updated um you can see this change being the start of an apparel executive information system Gus I want to turn to you for a second what do you see developer support for windows 3.0 is that changing to in terms of it you said user acceptance does change yeah there have been a lot of companies been working on Windows in the last year Windows has become a great forum for small companies to get a leg in the market what it's been a source of controversies that some of the large software publishers software publishing Lotus they were waiting for os/2 and there they've been passing up Windows but I think they're going to take a second look in they're kind of stepping back and getting their programmers of doing windows programming instead of the os/2 programming that had been the top priority do you see a quite a few applications then coming up under Windows at this point and there have been a flood of them coming out and that's partly why it's been so successful because in the earlier versions of Windows there was nothing able to run under Windows it took a long time page maker came out now with the Windows 3 Oh everybody's upgraded everybody is coming out with a lot of new utilities programs that were running under different platforms are coming to Windows mentor publisher is coming to Windows and next year we'll have WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3 and that's going to really solidify it as being a major it's really the center of the PC right now all right Gus Margaret thank you very much well there is one problem with Windows you do need at least a 286 machine and 640 K of RAM though a 386 and 2 Meg's is the ideal geoworks though and Berkeley has come up with an alternative that can run on your old pc/xt Hercules card and all Monica Jane reports for a small business like inquiry incorporated a new environment called Gio's offers the power of Microsoft Windows without requiring expensive or upgraded hardware Jesus from Geo works in Berkeley sits on top of DAWs but also has its own operating system it's also got many of the same features as Windows a graphic interface with colorful icons multitasking and multi-threading capabilities enabling users to cut and paste between different applications but one of the most attractive features of gos is that it can run in just 512k of RAM and that means windows like power for owners of low-end machines inquiry develops information systems for large corporate clients and it's a beta tester for Gio's the company's owner Hildy - Frisco says she's pleased with the performance of the test results what Geo so could be able to do for us I think is that we bring on our next employee we can buy them a low-end machine a dot matrix printer and set them up with the GS package and that'll be a big cost savings to us you know I really see that as a big value Jesus is already bundled with several software applications for small businesses that includes an electronic rolodex which keeps track of thousands of names and numbers and lets the user dial out with a click of the mouse de Frisco says the biggest advantage with Gio's is the high quality of its printing because it has outlined font technology users can get near laser printer quality with a dot matrix printer people from geoworks say their product is designed for a broad range of users where Windows is really targeting a corporate market we're targeting a mass mark that includes small businesses home offices and home productivity users in addition to which our product we put more productivity applications that have a lot of meat to them and put a lot more functionality in the base package than Windows which really is requiring you to go out and buy additional four to five hundred other applications on which to put Windows the computer chronicles I'm Monica Jane's so you don't necessarily need a Macintosh to get a nice friendly graphics interface but a Mac does come bundled with hyper card well windows 3.0 comes bundled with something called tool book and here to tell us about it is Glenn Marcy of asymmetric s-- also with this year from Microsoft is Kathy Harris who's going to show us a desktop presentation graphics program that uses Windows Gary granite obvious that the acceptance of any kind of a user interface is really depend on how many by on the application programs are out there when we're talking to Margot earlier she mentioned a tool book as one of those construction sets for programmers tell us a little bit about the approach tool that takes well tool book is a software construction set for the Windows platform and we like to say that it's as easy as using a draw package to create a Windows 3 application you know when you're talking about creating an application are you talking about the front end of the application you're talking about generating machine or a face source code for the application well what tool book is is a blank sheet when you first open it up and what you can generate is a front-end to a database you can generate its own application that we come with flat file database capabilities you can create your own full-featured database with tool books so it can be used as front-end but it still ready so the programmer goes in there and fills out the code right that's right we have our own scripting language called open script I can draw a piece of the program this is a button that you could use format navigation I can give this button a script and that is a program in tool book now I could draw the entire application that would take quite a few minutes in there we don't have time right now let me show you what I've done to give you a quick overview of running a tool book application how you would create such as such a thing as a front-end to what I'm going to do here is I can import some ascii texas grey this is being imported into tool book tool book is automatically creating record fields which are database fields here they are in the default format here and what i will do is pull out some clipart and some intelligent objects these objects have scripts and they have been pre created to aid in this demonstration i will paste them onto the background here and here we have the objects what I have here is the layout page that's a button that I have pre-scripted to layout what I would do and maybe about an hour and a half I will click the button and tool book will perform these activities it's laying out the background colors the size shape of fields angled lines buttons for navigation in the upper right corner shadowing the text and here I have just finished the creation of a front-end to a database this could be used as both the front-end and as its own flat file database here's one page and I can show you that all the information in this page is Jonathan Morton it all flowed to where those objects were placed okay now we're going back to the original question would you expect at an application programmer could do the complete application in the scripting language or would you have to drop in to see or would well you can do both a beauty about tool book is it takes full advantage of the Windows 3 platform dde dll's which are dynamic link libraries you can if you'd like extend tool book by writing routines that aren't into a book but you'd like to have as part of your application ok now Glenn you have an application that you're going to show us here here's de book this is one of the applications this application is bundled with the runtime version of tool book with every version of a retail version of win 3 and this is a personal information manager it's very graphical it was created entirely in tool book tool book also comes with sample applications such as sample scripts so that people can start creating applications straight out of the box without having to learn the programming language now have you had any application programmers that actually come to market with products using we have several mainly what we're seeing right now is that corporations are picking the product up very fast we also have a lot of ISVs and fenced off software vendors that are creating applications one is the Heiser group they've created a converted program which converts hyper stack hyper card stacks into tool book applications all right Cathy I want to turn to you we see one thing that we used to sort of only do on the Mac and now we do in the Windows environment you have another which is really a program PowerPoint yes with introduction of Windows 3 Microsoft took the PowerPoint program that we had running on Macintosh and brought it to the windows 3 platform what you're seeing here on the screen before you get there only other differences is identical program does it work differently under Windows the programs work very very similarly the keystrokes are all the same the only difference between the Windows product and the Macintosh product is that the Windows product we've now added charting and outlining capabilities to the product what you didn't have before which we didn't have in the Macintosh product the products also we have a file translation capability so that people who are working in dual platform environments can share files back and forth and absolutely everything that was brought into the presentation translates regardless of where it was created okay so now show us what it looks like under enterprise the first thing you notice about PowerPoint when you open up a file is that a file is your entire presentation and that means that now for instance this is a black and white overhead presentation I've put together I can click through several slides and they're all in one file my entire presentation is in one file and that means that I can view my entire presentation by either the titles in the title sorter where I can drag and move slides around or I can go to the slide sorter and look at my slides visually and see them there and again I can move slides around very quickly and very easily now another thing that you can do that's easy to do in this mode is be able to copy and paste between presentations this is a product that's designed for business people and what we find in business is that they share presentations a lot you've maybe made some overheads that I want to use in my presentation so let's open up that file here and let's take these color overheads that we present it and just drag across them to select them go to the edit menu do a copy and go to our other window here and select an insertion point where we want those to show up and just go to the edit menu and do a paste and they'll come right in and you notice when these slides come in they're taking on the look and feel of the new presentation if we pull up the old presentation here you can sort of compare the way they look they have a different format here and they have a new format here well that's because of something called the slide master every presentation has one master slide where we control all the elements of the presentation so if you want to customize a presentation for a particular audience say you're you're giving a standard presentation that you usually give you can just make a change in one place let's just drag this logo and go back to your slides and you'll see that that change has been made in every slide in your presentation just that quickly let me ask you I mean there are other desktop presentation graphics that run on the PCB for Windows and didn't need windows what was it about Windows that made made it possible if you made you decide to move this PowerPoint over - well the whole graphical approach to PowerPoint is really unique now among among the PC presentation products those project products excuse me don't allow you to directly manipulate things on the fought on the screen and see what you're getting because of the graphical user interface of Windows now people can really control what they're doing better and they don't have this form you know fill in the form and then see what you get an approach also we have this multiple multiple images per file which allows you have the slide master capabilities and be able to see your whole presentation as opposed to file per file basis all right Kathy that's we're out of time sorry I know you want to tell us more and more about PowerPoint but we've added so Kathy Glen thank you very much that is our look at windows 3.0 and we'll be back in just a minute with this week's computer news you in the random-access file this week xerox has announced a new pc desktop operating environment called global view this is the first time the famed Xerox PARC group has introduced a product for the PC platform global view is a combination hardware and software product designed for PC networks it uses an icon based graphical interface an old name and typewriters wants to become a new name in personal computers smith-corona has announced plans to introduce a line of pcs aimed at the home and small business market the new machines will be developed jointly with the Acer corporation and will be marketed under a new smith-corona Acer brand name Apple has announced that the full version of hyper card 2.0 will be bundled with all new Macs however the scripting or programming mode of hypercar 2 will have to be turned on by the user by removing an opaque button over the scripting choices on the home stack apple says the protection scheme will prevent totally new users from destroying or altering stacks unintentionally NEC is preparing to release a new palmtop computer the system will measure 7 inches by 10 inches and weigh in at under 5 pounds it will be ms-dos compatible and come bundled with software the price under $1500 now with this week's software or in this case hardware review here's Paul Schindler what's missing from this picture controls those clever folks at hewlett-packard have done it again they've created the niftiest printer we've seen yet for the macintosh the HP desk writer the disc writer is an HP Deskjet plus modified to work with apple macintosh computers it has a chooser level interface a lovely piece of tech no gibberish which means you don't need to go to third parties for software to attach this printer to your Macintosh its Hewlett Packard's software that makes this hardware solution elegant the HP desk writer is just as easy to use as a laser writer and the output looks just as good to the average person and it's much better than image writer dot matrix printer output here is image writer draft mode and desk writer draft mode disc writer software also does faut sizing up to 127 point here's what that looks like on paper it comes with four fonts if you really want it to sing get the add-on pack of another six fonts for $400 the disc writer is simple but expensive since it's an utterly great printer it work the $1,200 that HP wants for it for the computer Chronicles I'm Paul Schindler taking a look at this week's top ten software titles for the PC according to PC connection windows 3.0 still in the number one slot followed by expanded memory manager 5.0 and central points PC Tools deluxe 6.0 in fourth place is WordPerfect 5.1 followed by the new Norton utilities rounding out the top ten are pro com+ excel 2.1 PC File 5.0 info select and quarrel draw Plus development has announced what it calls the world's fastest three and a half inch PC hard drive the hard card to excel 50 and the hard card to excel 105 are hard drives on a card the performance improvement is achieved through sustained transfer rates of as high as one point four megabytes per second well if your next hotel doesn't have a data jack on the phone two companies have come up with a solution for you using new variations on old technology com1 data communications is selling a package called la voyager that includes an acoustic coupler a tiny battery power 2400 baud modem and all necessary cables and information machines has recently redesigned their acoustic coupler to also handle 2400 baud transmission rates it works with your internal or external modem and cost less than $200 finally why does the FBI belong to more than 25 bulletin boards used by specific political organizations that's what the computer professionals group for social responsibility wants to know CP sr has filed a suit for release of information on whether the FBI operates a clandestine computer bulletin board system and routinely monitors other boards think about that the next time you sign on that's it for this week's computer Chronicles I'm Maria Gabriel the computer Chronicles is made possible in part by the software publishers Association which reminds you that software piracy is a federal offense when a few people steal software everyone loses additional funding is provided by PC connection and Mac connection and by byte magazine and Bix the byte information exchange for a transcript of this week's computer chronicles send four dollars to PTV publications post office box seven one Kent Ohio for four to four oh please indicate program date you

Channel: The Computer Chronicles

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Keywords: the, computer, chronicles, stewart, cheifet, gary, kildall, cp/m, vintage, computing, computers, old, ms-dos, dec, vax, mainframe, unix, tv, show, public, access, pbs, bill, gates, ms, dos, microsoft, amiga, commodore, 64, vic20, vic, 20, episodes, full, high, quality, hd, danooct1, tct

Id: YewNEAIkbG4

Length: 28min 42sec (1722 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 01 2013