The retro community and computer historians generally seem to be interested in the legendary origins of the system (how it all began) or in its turnabout Windows 3.0 release (what did they do right?).
This story instead will be about the underdog of Windows, version 2. To understand where it all went wrong, we must start looking at events that happened even before Microsoft was founded
MS windows wasn’t taken seriously by the industry untill ver 3.x. Win2/386 even runs on a 286 system It is just a mare footnote in computing history…Win 3 could address 16 megs of ram.
“>” Win 3 could address 16 megs of ram.
The 386 can be considered a real 32 bit cpu regardless of bus width.
Windows took advantage of better cpu, leaving DOS for 16 bit apps.
It took a while for apps to use the better cpu, but I guessing it still was
16 bit world till win95 for most people, upgrading from a 286 to something better then.
The 386SX took 2 clock cycles to process Win 3.x 16-bit Standard mode codecode so slower than thne 286 in Standard mode which my Zenith 286/12 wqitrh 8megs of ram runs just fine inclidng using tcp/ip applicatiions such as IRC clients, FTP and more…The 386DX only took 1 clock cycle to prcess 16-bit Enhance Standard Mode code nas well which is quicker than poroceessing the same code in 386Ehanced mode. You just didn’t have vutual memory available which was slower any way.
There’s now a reaction/follow-up article to “Windows 2: Final Fantasy of operating systems” at The Register by Liam Proven (who had just been writing an article adjacent to this part of computer history, “How the OS/2 flop went on to shape modern software”, also at The Register):
