Re: is Vax addressing sane today

On Sat, 05 Oct 2024 17:10:47 GMT, Anton Ertl wrote:

The virtual 8086 mode of the 386 was used by Windows/386 (starting
already in 1987).  Was virtual 8086 mode designed into the 386
specifically for Windows?  I doubt it ...

Nevertheless, I think this was the “killer app” that made Windows actually
useful to the masses: instead of having to wait for developers to create
apps written for Windows (which they were reluctant to do, as long as the
users didn’t want to buy Windows because there weren’t apps available for
it ...), here was a feature they could use “out of the box”, to multitask
their existing DOS apps, without any need for changes to application code.

And this led to a nice growth in the number of Windows installations,
which in turn created a market for actual Windows-specific apps.