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Windows 1.0 and 2.0 system requirements and capabilities?

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Floppies_only

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Gang,

Wikipedia says that Windows 2.0 (not Windows/286) can run on floppies w/o a hard drive. But I've seen in the 1983 press release that Windows cannot run applications such as Lotus 1-2-3 that are "not well behaved".

I know 1.04 can run on a two floppy system (5150), and suspect that the Wikipedia article is correct. I wonder if 2.0 can run on a 5150? Also what can you do with each version besides run its organic applications, like calculator and clock? Or more specifically, can I run Wordperfect 5.1 and/or Lotus 1-2-3 version 2.x on top of either of these GUIs? Failing that, are there other applications that can still be had in todays market (perhaps that really good shareware imitation 1-2-3) that are "well behaved?"

Thanks,
Sean
 
If you value your sanity, you will not try running Windows on a floppy system. The system will be slower than you can imagine as the floppy is continually accessed. I think Windows 2 will have problems if disks are switched and modules need to be reloaded but it has been a long time since I was crazy enough to try.

Well behaved applications include programs that do all screen display work through BIOS calls and Topview compliant applications like Procomm and some rewritten members of the PFS family; I think IBM called them the First Assistant series. Note that well behaved programs only refer to the ability to run in a window on top of the GUI; other programs can run but the PIF needs to be set to full screen and Windows will unload just about everything to launch Lotus or Wordperfect. Don't, don't, don't try to do that on a floppy only system. The load time will be many minutes long if by some miracle it works and no disk switching is required.

Want a well behaved spreadsheet that runs under Windows? Have you considered Excel? Otherwise, I would have to check whether the Turbo Pacal demo spreadsheet uses only BIOS calls for screen updates. Any DOS spreadsheet that incorporates or calls a chart module should not be run in a window on Windows 1 or Windows 2. Windows/386 being the obvious exception.
 
krebizfan said:
If you value your sanity, you will not try running Windows on a floppy system.

Want a well behaved spreadsheet that runs under Windows? Have you considered Excel?
Click to expand...

Perhaps I could use 1-2-3 to export commas and carriage returns and then import the file into Wordperfect instead. Still a lot of disk swapping, still slow, but it's the experience that counts. As in "having an experience". Kinda like that time I was in basic training and out of eight groups that fired the night defense range, mine was the first one to pass, and only two others did besides mine. It was hard, too: I had to continually remind the members of my squad that they had to resist the temptation to open their eyes and look when the flare went up. It would have ruined their night vision. But enough of us keep an eye closed (I told them to just keep their hand over their non-firing eye so they could use it when it was dark and there was no way to see the sights of the rifle, but you could see the barrel and point it at the target that you could see even though there was no moon or city lights) and we took out enough of the enemy to survive and consolodate.

I can purchase Office from the Apple store for less than I've paid for some of my tan computers ;)

Sean
 
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