Share via

The Microsoft Archives

  • Article

One of the cool things about working at Microsoft is having access to the Microsoft Archives. It turns out that Microsoft has been quite fastidious about keep record of all product and press releases since the beginning of time. And all of this information is available through an easy web search (for me ;-)).

A couple of cool / odd facts that I have been able to drag up are:

  • Windows 1.0 was demonstrated at the 1983 Comdex, but was never released. Windows 1.03 was the first version of Windows to be made publicly available in 1985
  • Soon after releasing Microsoft BOB, we then released the 'Microsoft BOB Plus Pack'. Hmmm... Don't know what to say about that :-)
  • In 1980 Microsoft actually released their own PASCAL compiler - this was something that I never knew. This compiler was maintained through to 1988.

Trawling through the archives is a fun way to see how far we have come. I just finished reading over the original press releases for the launch of Microsoft OS/2 1.0!

Cheers,
Ben

Comments

  • Anonymous
    December 08, 2004
    Great! so can you locate the source code for the Microsoft Cordless phone? I have one; still works but no drivers or support after WIn98 for it. I'd love to port the code to XP.


    also I had Microsoft QuickC 1.0 back in the day. it was not "Windows" nor "Visual" but it made C for DOS a lot more fun to work with...

  • Anonymous
    December 12, 2004
    Will we see you with screen shots of Microsoft OS2 1.0 running in VPC?
  • Anonymous
    December 12, 2004
    I have heard of Microsoft Pascal, and the rumor that Microsoft make a deal with Borland: Microsoft leave Pascal and Borland leave BASIC as development tools... Um.... Still remember Turbo BASIC... Just wonder how far does MS Pascal go? Tried Visual BASIC for DOS?
  • Anonymous
    December 13, 2004
    Denny - The archives do not include source - that is stored somewhere else (and much harder to get access to)

    Steve - I have not been able to get OS/2 1.0 to run under VPC - and do not beleive it is possible.

    Cheers,
    Ben
  • Anonymous
    December 23, 2004
    The comment has been removed
  • Anonymous
    January 04, 2005
    Does the archive include binaries of software, like MS-DOS versions throughout the years?
  • Anonymous
    July 21, 2016
    The comment has been removed