I think this really puts into perspective why Windows was initially so unsuccessful. When you run Windows 1.0 on a modern emulator with unlimited storage, a mouse, and a full color display, you tend to forget that in the mid 80s when Windows released, most PCs looked more like what Michael showed. They typically had no hard drive, a monochrome display, and were much slower than we'd expect from today's computers. Microsoft was clearly trying to compete with Apple's Macintosh and its operating system when they released Windows, but they didn't take into consideration the limitations of IBM PC compatibles of the time. By the time Windows 3.1 released, the entire computer industry was completely different. The mouse, color displays, hard drives, and faster CPUs were much more commonplace by 1992, so it was much easier for it to gain a large userbase.

@stepheneickhoff4953

18w↑44

Maybe if they'd had better programmers, because the Mac OS ran smoother and was more functional on a 128K 8 Mhz 68000 classic than on this 640K 8088 8 MHz PC. I am far from an Apple fanboy, but in the 1980s only Apple knew how to make a GUI on a personal computer. Okay, maybe Commodore.

@mjdxp5688

18w

@@stepheneickhoff4953 I mean, don't forget that Microsoft had to develop their operating environment to work on potentially dozens of PCs, meaning it's unlikely that Windows could take advantage of any tricks or specialized hardware to run faster. Meanwhile, with the Macintosh, the engineers would have known every little thing about the Macintosh while developing its operating system, including the specifications and all the hardware and software tricks that can make programs run more efficiently.

@cubedmelons876

18w↑62

@@stepheneickhoff4953I mean, it's pretty cringe to be an Apple fanboy now, but back in the 80s? I would've been drooling over those Macintoshes.

@dovahkiin2108

18w↑1

Genius

@MattExzy

18w↑18

@@destructodisk9074 Success also came with 3.11. As a kid of the 90s, I was always intrigued by my friend's parents whose family PC ran Windows 3.11 right up to the year 2002 before being replaced. It had IE 3 and connected to the 'net on a 14K modem. I believe it was a 16MHz 386. They definitely weren't poor; just extreme misers.

38 More Replies...

@Sevenigma777

18w↑280

I really love the fact he treated this whole vid like a tutorial as if there is another person on this planet doing this exact thing lol

@duelistlegend2217

18w↑12

I’m seriously considering it

@BilisNegra

18w↑13

@@nR-kv7xo Still, the few nerds who might be doing this will probably at least install this onto a hard drive (or flash card device acting as such) instead of inflicting self torture using floppies only!

@Sevenigma777

18w

@@BilisNegra that's kind of the point I was trying to make. Yes sure, there is always going to be a few people dabbling in the most obscure types of tech. However, it is very unlikely those same people would find joy in actively making their experiences needlessly complicated and monotonous.....

... but then again with the sickos this world creates it wouldn't be surprising.

@HrLBolle

17w↑2

Clint and Retrospector78 being two of them

@BilisNegra

16w

@@HrLBolle I miss Retrospector78. Does anybody know why he doesn't make any videos anympre? I really enjoyed that channel.

8 More Replies...

@tiberiud

18w↑76

5:53 There's something so odd and charming in seeing "West Germany" displayed as a keyboard setting

@LCdrDerrick

12w↑4

Speaking as a kid from W-Germany, we've been really proud of the quality standards our industrial products had back then, cars included or better put, above all. East Germany was no competitor at all and US, British and especially French or Italian products didn't reach the finese and sturdiness, they lacked the precision and stability. A Mercedes-Benz, a Porsche or a BMW had no competition back then. The only competitor qualitywise was Japan, who had in some places even better products, like consumer electronics e.g., but beside their even higher quality standards they also lacked the finish, the look and feel experience of W-Germany manufacturing.

Today we're done as a leading industrial nation, done as a culture nation, done as a scientific nation and so is the rest of the West. Two world wars, unlimited economical growth, competition in all the places and neoliberalism as well as a fractional reserve money system left us completely burnt out and broken. China will have its try as the leading cultural era for the future. The US elites want that not to happen, but their people are even more corrupted, are fat and/or addicted and are stupified to the bone like in Idiocracy. They don't find soldiers anymore to stop China. They've got a president, who does not even know which day it is!

@tetraxis3011

11w↑1

@@LCdrDerrickThe second half of the Cold War, roughly 1970-1990, sounds like a surprisingly good time to be alive(unless you lived in the communist bloc).

@rolfmoren6682

11w↑1

Well, at that time, they were pointing at families of languages. The Germanic family included English. Then, there were Celtic, Italic, and Heleic language families as of stating examples. Chinese belong to the Sino-Tibetan family, and I sometimes wondered if Microsoft translated into those languages. I never saw a Chinese keyboard, but a few different European Germanic keyboards.

@LCdrDerrick

11w

A chinese keyboard wouldn't be that easy. The Arab alphabet has just about two dozen letters and sign. There are only ten numbers. Of course there are mutated vowels like Ä or Ü in German, the French have their accents like é and the Turks have theirs. There are punctuation marks, of course, but that fits very easy onto a keyboard.

But with Chinese you are reaching a territory, where it gets complicated. They've got about 6000 signs, which a usual Chinese knows and uses. Have you ever seen a Chinese typewriter? There are however means to construct these 6000 signs, which share common patterns, with sort of a keyboard, but that is a different cup of coffee. You cannot transfer a degenerated dialect of German (English), which is Romanic and can as well be considered as Indo-Germanic and so on and so forth into a completely foreign means of communication. @@rolfmoren6682

@g-reaper2955

10w

@@LCdrDerrickI don't know what all that spiel about what seems like an old man pining for a past that will never return has to do with a guy who's just showing off old Windows. I don't know, you say...
🤔

@GiuseppeGaetanoSabatelli

18w↑179

Fun story!
Once upon a time on my dad's old IBM machine back in like 1991ish, he was full screen in an application and didn't know how to close out of it.
He came back to one of us babies standing at the desk and the Restore Menu was open and he was able to close/unmaximize (restore) the window.
He asked himself "What keys are on the bottom of the keyboard that a baby could reach on their tippy toes?" 😂 That's how he discovered Alt+Space.

Which, BTW still works on every version of Windows, including Windows 11 and Universal Windows Apps. Double clocking the "Restore" button (the app icon on the top left) is also a shortcut for closing the application, which works even on applications that don't have an icon there at all. (idk if this one works on UWP Apps).

Alt Space is important because you can always bring up the menu if you have focus on the application, so if it's off screen or inaccessible somehow, you can open the Restore menu, and then the "Move" command will snap the Window to your cursor. Useful for bringing lost apps back to reality. Has never failed me from Windows 3.1 to Windows 11.

@jarnailbrar6732

18w↑7

thank you, this is useful.

@FeritYrdsv

18w↑2

Thanks for the tip!!! New information every day.

@AaronOfMpls

18w↑4

Works in the XFCE desktop environment on Linux, too! And I wouldn't be surprised if it was in others like KDE or Gnome or Cinnamon.

@justingoers

18w↑3

Whoa. Thanks for this.

@andrei.c.c.

@user-lt2rw5nr9s

18w↑2

I think my family had a talking VCR from them.

12 More Replies...

@firenyth

18w↑52

First time I've actually seen real use of floppy drives, crazy that you can just plug and play them as you like

@MetalTrabant

18w↑14

Not as you like, you have to wait for the usage indicator to go out before pulling it out.

@brian7897

14w

@@MetalTrabant lol... yep you can't even get the disk back out with out ripping it to shreds...

@bernardtaylor7768

11w

When a programme needs to use a diskette it’s easy to use but to run a programme or save your work it required you to tell the computer where the diskette is and then what you want to do on the disk
The storage on the disk was only a few hundred kb of space .

@KoopaKid660

18w↑48

I've never seen Windows 1.0 installed on era-accurate hardware before!

@diegotr1903

12w↑1

That must be the only Microsoft product with no bugs.

@kebab_hill

11w

@@diegotr1903 i doubt it had no bugs, the product was a failure, it wasn't really popular yet at that time.

@edb1913

11w

Windows is a bug.

@rymu74

18w↑13

i've been waiting so long for a video like this including windows 1.0. great video mjd !

@vwestlife

18w↑44

The Z-138 was the portable version of the Zenith Z-148 desktop PC that I did a video about a while ago. The motherboard and I/O board are identical. It's nice that you have the daughterboard for the ISA slot because those are hard to find.

@RadikAlice

18w↑1

I was just thinking of that when I saw this in my recommended, glad to see you here!

@etherlords88

18w↑3

I lived in Pittsburgh and drove through that 3482 William penn hwy and that entire area/place is truly relic! That building along with surrounding ones are empty for decades and I wouldn’t surprise it was only used to sell the computers back in 90s and still the related papers can be found inside!

@DailyCorvid

18w↑24

OHH MY GOOD GOD IT IS PRISTINE INSIDE AND OUT :) Well impressed.
Dude this is the best video you've ever done, and that is high praise.

Literally this blows the usual top 10 OUT of the water. Well played Micheal!

@DingleRingle7

18w↑8

AWWW YUSS I LOVE WHEN MICHAEL MJD UPLOADSSS best vintage computer historian in my opinion i always find your vids interesting no matter how many of ur vids i watch keep up the good work pal!

@exaltedb

18w↑8

I love your videos like this, as they’re a great way to look back at technology (and its unique processes) that have existed before my time

@golf-n-guns

18w↑16

Brought back a lot of memories. The key to using computers in the 80s was patience! Imagine today's generation trying to use an 80s-00s computer.

@odysseythekidd

18w↑13

Awesome video idea! Also, I love that amber CRT display!

@DailyCorvid

18w

The Zen is one of THE coolest OG's you will ever see, I am amazed he has one in such great condition and the screen is still bright as new. Amazing.

@pillowmcfluffins

14w↑5

We still used floppy disks in middle school back in the early to mid 90's. This takes me back. In keyboarding class, if we finished early our teacher would let us play Oregon Trail or Prince of Persia. The OLD original versions. lol. It was all so incredibly intiquated and obtuse by todays metrics with pixels like Legos, but felt lightspeed technological to us then.

@GianmarioScotti

18w↑1

I appreciate it very much you did the system overview at the beginning. It makes this video ten times better.

@bramvandenbroeck5060

18w↑1

Man this takes me WAY back! I had a 286 with an amber display like that, and i love that color! It so soft on the eyes, you could work for days on a monitor like that!

@panopolis8051

18w↑69

Whenever you test out a calculator program on an old system, I think it would be interesting to see how it reacts to a divide by zero.

@MichaelMJD

18w↑23

Haha I should’ve tried that!

@HedgClan

18w↑7

The house explodes by it trying to process 0 divided by 0

@MrWarlock616

17w

A black hole opens up obviously

@ballyastrocade5672

17w↑6

I think just about all calculator programs test for that condition, really. Even the fairly primitive Level I BASIC on the TRS-80 Model I (1977-78) would return an error message of HOW? if you tried to divide by zero. (Level I had only three error messages: WHAT? was any kind of syntax error, HOW? was a mathematically-impossible operation, and SORRY was when you ran out of memory.)

@ZetecinsideMotorsport

14w

I had one of those at work, the field engineers used to take them out on trials. Thanks for the video, brings back so many memories.

@giedmich

18w↑12

This was a triumph
I'm making a note here
Huge success
It's hard to overstate my satisfaction

@oliverjade6998

18w↑2

Aperture Science. We do what we must because we can.

@greenknight9000

18w

For the good of all of us
Except the ones who are dead

@oliverjade6998

18w

But there's no sense crying over every mistake. You just keep on trying till' you run out of cake!

@Frostnaut50_official

13w

And the science is done
And you make a neat gun
For the people who are still alive!

@oliverjade6998

13w

I'm not even angry
I'm being so sincere right now

@richshealer3755

18w↑5

I am a fan of the split Microsoft logo that slides together. They also used it with the first few Microsoft Word (for DOS) versions.

@ddc163264

11w

This brought back so many memories, I worked at a store that sold these units. I sold quite a few of them. Along with many other systems like the QX-10. Nice video.

@brian_voll

18w

My dad has an old Zenith computer that looks very similar to this one, even with that orange screen. I used to play DOS games on it growing up.

I never even considered it could have run Windows 1.0. Thanks for the video! It’s cool seeing it in action on one of these systems. And brings back a lot of memories.

@voldem0rt

18w↑3

My neighbor had a similar system made by Compaq. His dad worked as a coder over there. Great memories.

@Stiky_Piston

18w

Here within 24mins!
Didn’t expect this video, and i’m excited to watch it!

@ashtonsretrocomputerroom

18w↑4

Absolutely beautiful machine 👌

@Lampe2020

18w↑6

Today I first heard the word "luggable". And I first heard it a few hours ago in an LTT video about a luggable PC chassis and now, a little later, in this video right here XD

@AaronOfMpls

18w↑1

Yah, "luggable" was kind of a retronym applied to this kind of portable computer, after laptops started to be a thing.

@Lampe2020

18w↑1

@@AaronOfMpls
Funny thing is, I've never heard that word before. But the day I hear it, I hear it in two almost unrelated places just a few hours after one another XD

@EWARS_2

18w

OooOOooohh... That's a fancy machine! Beautiful amber display with Windows 1.0.
Great video.

@ballyastrocade5672

17w↑2

Heh -- talk about nostalgia; I had one of these Zenith Z-130s back in the day! In fact, it was pretty much my "daily driver" PC up 'til about 1991 or '92, IIRC. Unfortunately, mine was just the "base" model, where the I/O daughterboard only had a floppy controller on it, and no ISA slot. (There were three different daughterboard options, again IIRC -- the base floppy-only model, the floppy + ISA-slot model, and then the "top-end" model that had an ST506 hard-drive interface as well as the floppy and ISA cardslot.) So the 8087 math coprocessor socket was about the only upgrade I could do to it.

Still, I used it for years, until the monitor finally failed -- and even then, I stretched its life out a bit longer by putting a green-screen monitor on top of it, until I finally picked up enough bits and bobs at the local swapmeets to actually build a proper PC. (Since the 486s were hitting the market and becoming the "hot" item, there was a lot of surplus and secondhand 386 stuff hitting the swapmeets at the time.)

@administrator8203

19w↑106

Upgrade windows 1.0 to windows 3.1 on the 80s Zenith portable pc (But everything goes wrong)

@andresbravo2003

18w↑4

Request confirmed!

@axpuser671

18w↑4

Can you tho, Windows 3.1 is from 1992 and this PC is from the 80s

@cooperhanke

18w

Yeeeeees!!!

@aaaalex1994

18w↑15

Windows 3.1 requires a 286 CPU and this computer only has an 8088.

@ozzie_goat

18w↑3

@@aaaalex1994You can't use logic on these types of people, they won't take it

I have been binge watching Michael's videos. I'm pretty sure I'll hear "Hello everybody and welcome back to another video." in my dreams.

@rickkaylor8554

11w↑1

Amusing video. This video brought back memories from earlier in my career when I worked at Corvus Systems and and Iomega in technical and field support. All of us in technical support despised Windows 1.0. DOS was much easier, reliable and quicker. Windows wasn't really worth using until 3.1. I can remember often spending an hour or more trying to help customers set up their disk drives and networks. Back then you not only had DOS and Windows but a host of competing operating systems like CP/M. Things have come a long way.

@AckAlliance

This is exactly how I started my computing adventures back in the 80's. I was lucky to have a grandfather who worked for IBM for 30 years, so we got all sorts of computers for free. The system I used cost 15,000 new so I was SUPER LUCKY.

@stepheneickhoff4953

18w↑2

You could probably also squeeze the MOUSE for your amazing WINDOWS OPERATING ENVIRONMENT inside that cubby.

@ryangavigan2049

18w

Man that's the pc I had in the late 80s and early 90s and have been looking for that model again since...

@windowsxp3790

18w

Love your videos
Been watching since under 100k subs

@jameysummers1577

16w

Ha ha ha.....That Monroeville 3482 WmPenn Hwy ad that you displayed really brought back memories for me. I am from Pennhills, right outside Monroeville.

@gambaskeputih3027

13w

Once I had a PC with a hinged cover, so easy to open. very nostalgic 😊

@gamingcrusader8631

18w↑1

Bro got the "This was a trupmth. Im making a note here, huge success".

@karlos1060

13w

We came a long way from Windows 1.0...and glad we did. It's nostalgic but in the same time i don't miss that time anymore.

@kWYQ1337

15w↑1

What I find interesting is that older PCs require users to be more programmatic with workflow like swapping floppy discs, cmd interface nav and changing drives. It's a given since old OSes aren't streamlined, but still fascinating that everything is user friendly now.

@dps6198

14w

Dad had a Compaq computer nearly identical. It was a beast. It was heavy and unruly and took forever to boot up.

@allthenamesiwantedweretaken

14w

I love that you had to clarify 1986 wasn't our current year. I dunno why, but that little line is just so funny to me.

@MichaelKingsfordGray

10w

I forgot how painful it was.
Now you reminded me.

@baxus

18w

Thank you for telling me about the ALT+Spacebar hotkey. I couldn't figure it out for Windows 1.01.

@DrBagPhD

17w

Absolutely adore this

@MetalTrabant

18w↑3

It's quite incredible how ancient these look (both software and hardware) from today's world... and they're only about 40 years old. Development in the IT industry in these last few decades were pretty amazing.

Anyway, imagine having to spend a thousand bucks + software to have this user experience... some shitty clock, a basic calculator, and a program to write in plain text. And a game I could never understand the rules of... I had Reversi on my Siemens C35 phone, and couldn't really figure it out. And you had to constantly juggle these giant disks to do all this...

@tttdssdff2267

18w↑4

I love how cool this computer is!!! It's like a tower with a display and a handle. The insides look really cool and the upgradability is probably record breaking. I wonder how efficiently could someone modernize it. To make a real sleeper pc, by stuffing the latest and greatest internals in a beige box. Would love to see that. Great video

@ballyastrocade5672

17w↑1

Heh -- the actual upgradeability of the machine really wasn't that great. It was an 8088-based system, and that one ISA slot was actually an extra-cost *option*; if you just bought the "base" machine, it didn't have the ISA slot, or even a place on the PC board where you could solder the right connector in later on. The CGA video was integrated into the board as well, so the only possible upgrade on a base system was to max out the memory at 640K, and add the 8087 math coprocessor.

That being said, you probably could do some really interesting upgrades to it today by swapping out the hardware for modern equivalents. The biggest barriers (other than physical mounting) would be the monitor -- it's a CGA-only monochrome, so you'd pretty much have to replace it with some kind of equivalently-sized LCD flatpanel, and good luck finding one that's the right size nowadays! -- and the keyboard. Being an 8088-based system, the keyboard uses the XT signaling protocol for the various keystrokes, whereas everything nowadays uses AT signaling or USB. So the existing keyboard won't work with a modern motherboard. So all in all, you'd be in for some serious mechanical customization work!

@homeforobsoletetechnology

18w

I have a Compaq Portable III Clone, wich is one of the coolest things in my collection. Those portable PCs are just awesome!

@r.kellycoker9387

14w

Always loved the amber screen.

@stephanieiwaniuk6088

19w↑18

Thanks for the awesome video! Out of curiosity, what is the oldest computer you own? Have a great weekend!

@MichaelMJD

19w↑27

I do have a microcomputer from the '70s that needs some work on it, but I believe that's the oldest!

@stephanieiwaniuk6088

18w↑7

That's super cool!@@MichaelMJD

@bobcarn

14w

I used to run Windows 1.0 on my Z160 luggable. My first real computer. I LOVED that 8088!

@thecoffeez

18w

Liked the Compaq "luggable" better at the time, and they both blew my orginal Osborne 1 away (And CP/M was going the way of the Dodo at the time). Zenith made a couple cool desktops too. Don't really miss 5 1/4 inch disks much. Sigh, the good old days. Great video!

@santo1563

Love ur style! ❤😂

@philtkaswahl2124

18w

There's always something about those amber monochrome screens that I find oddly soothing.

@chaoscontrolsok

13w

Monochrome screen, floppy's... Awesome! :) Thanks for the video! :)

@litebkt

18w

I built a Zenith system sold by Heathkit not long after the computer in this video was released. It was an all in one with a larger CRT and two five inch floppies. I really liked my amber display.

18w↑4

I'd definitely recommend you a Monotech XT-CF-Mini adapter. This machine should run DOS 5.0 and Windows 3.0 without any problems.

@loz9324

18w

fantastic keyboards on these with Alps SKCM Green switches!

@ChristmasEve777

That's so interesting that they called it Windows back then when you couldn't actually have windows (multiple, overlapping boxes with application content inside them). Windows 1 is really just a file manager that brings up a bunch of compatible miniature full-screen applications.

@roccoholcomb

19w↑1

wow thank for the vid ❤❤❤❤

@MistressIsabelle

15w

I can remember a colleague who sit next to me at work showing me how to use all of this on an Zenith luggable just like this one. He had 640K of ram, the max that could be addressed by DOS or windows. He only used DOS. Firstly, exe stands for executable, meaning a file that you can run. Secondly, you should 'write protect' the master discs by covering the notch in one of the corners with some tape, copy the master discs to blank discs and then write protect them. It is these write protected copies that you use thereafter as they get worn through use. I have never seen Windows 1, but have seen Windows 2, which was really basic. IBM's O/S 2 was always much better than windows but like many things (think betamax versus VHS) it lost out to microsoft. IBM's O/S 2 was based on the MVS code used in IBM's mainframes so it was rock solid code with something like thirty years of extensive use behind it. It also featured drag and drop and a few other things that dud not appear in windows. Much, much better, but microsoft won out.

@ocsrc

18w

I remember when Macy's sold this.
Macy's had a computer section with small home computers
This was one of the portable ones they sold.

@EUPThatsMe

14w

Worked on one of these in late 80's - It was only moved once or twice due to the weight but it was still easier to move than the TRS 80's

@jottinger

14w

I worked in a print shop aboard a navy ship many years ago, right around the time Pentium processors were coming out. Our only computer in that shop was an 8086 system running Windows 1.0 that we used for creating forms. One day I decided to open up the machine to clean it and discovered a layer of dust about 1/2 inch thick over every part of the motherboard. Pretty sure it had never been cleaned. I unplugged the machine and used some compressed air to blow out the dust, which ended up destroying the system. Apparently the dust was required for the machine to work. My CPO was furious.