The likelihood of any legal restriction was probably close to zero - it’s only from today’s era of hyper-regulation that we might even imagine something like that.
Most likely it was a deliberate technical limitation. After all, dialog windows themselves were already overlapped. I remember well what a headache it was to program and render graphical elements on those old machines (PC AT 80286 with 256 KB of RAM).
> The likelihood of any legal restriction was probably close to zero - it’s only from today’s era of hyper-regulation that we might even imagine something like that.
While it's demonstrated to be likely incorrect here, it's not a wild theory. Apple and Microsoft spent a lot of time in court over the "Look and Feel" cases regarding the windowing UI Apple felt Microsoft had stolen. The lawsuit was first filed in '88 and was widely reported on in tech and mainstream press etc, dragging on throughout the 90s.
> The likelihood of any legal restriction was probably close to zero - it’s only from today’s era of hyper-regulation that we might even imagine something like that.
Normally I'd agree with a statement like this. Except this is a very specific case.
That lawsuit happened in response to Window 2.0, and the fact that they adopted overlapping windows in 2.0 strongly suggests that Microsoft did not think that the change would lead to legal action and was taken by surprise.
> Most likely it was a deliberate technical limitation
At the time I remember reading that was kind of the issue. I thought the article said something like "when Gates saw the Xerox machine, the display had no overlapping windows". So M/S cloned it as he saw it.
Once M/S W1.0 was developed he saw the demo again and was surprised the windows overlapped. So they rushed 2.0 to fix it.
But funny, with all people on Linux using tiling window managers these days, it seems Windows 1.0 was ahead of its time :)
Yeah, it’s interesting how the desktop metaphor evolved over time but increasing display size and the ability to have multiple workspaces surely is a huge part of what makes tiling almost work.
And tiling still largely doesn't work with small windows.
As far as I've figured out the answer is that some people involved (the ex-PARC Scott McGregor and Charles Simonyi iirc) genuinely thought tiling was better, while others (Bill Gates?) disagreed but went along with it to avoid lawsuits.
I think stacking windows looks better, makes for a cool screenshot when trying to sell the thing. But tiling windows are more ergonomic for actually using the infernal machine.
For me the revelation was that I have never said "Oh boy I sure am glad this window partially overlaps this other window" I either want one full screen windows or a few windows side by side. Why do I have to handle this myself? and went to the dark side, a tiling window manager. To the point that it really chafes now when I use stacking windows, It feels like I spend most of the time shuffling windows around.
To ease the overlapping window pain many linux window managers have a feature where the focused window does not have to be the top window and this makes things a lot better, you can be looking at the top window and typing/clicking on the partially obscured bottom window.
Perhaps aesthetic - both Windows 1.0 and 2.0 were (to me at least) very ugly. Things got a bit better with Windows 3.0 and 3.1 (and easier to program) but it wasn't really until Windows 95 that the whole thing came together. One thing you have to give Microsoft (at least back then) is that they did keep trying. And, speaking as a Windows developer, their documentation was very good.
The likelihood of any legal restriction was probably close to zero - it’s only from today’s era of hyper-regulation that we might even imagine something like that.
Most likely it was a deliberate technical limitation. After all, dialog windows themselves were already overlapped. I remember well what a headache it was to program and render graphical elements on those old machines (PC AT 80286 with 256 KB of RAM).
> The likelihood of any legal restriction was probably close to zero - it’s only from today’s era of hyper-regulation that we might even imagine something like that.
While it's demonstrated to be likely incorrect here, it's not a wild theory. Apple and Microsoft spent a lot of time in court over the "Look and Feel" cases regarding the windowing UI Apple felt Microsoft had stolen. The lawsuit was first filed in '88 and was widely reported on in tech and mainstream press etc, dragging on throughout the 90s.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apple_Computer,_Inc._v._Micros....
Yeah.
> The likelihood of any legal restriction was probably close to zero - it’s only from today’s era of hyper-regulation that we might even imagine something like that.
Normally I'd agree with a statement like this. Except this is a very specific case.
That lawsuit happened in response to Window 2.0, and the fact that they adopted overlapping windows in 2.0 strongly suggests that Microsoft did not think that the change would lead to legal action and was taken by surprise.
> Most likely it was a deliberate technical limitation
At the time I remember reading that was kind of the issue. I thought the article said something like "when Gates saw the Xerox machine, the display had no overlapping windows". So M/S cloned it as he saw it.
Once M/S W1.0 was developed he saw the demo again and was surprised the windows overlapped. So they rushed 2.0 to fix it.
But funny, with all people on Linux using tiling window managers these days, it seems Windows 1.0 was ahead of its time :)
You can tile windows in Windows as well with the windows key+ arrow buttons.
The default is just left, right, and top, bottom but if you install Power Toys and use Fancy Zones you can customize the zones https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/fancyzon....
There’s also Crop and Lock which can help you cut out extraneous parts of certain windows
https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/powertoys/crop-and...
Yeah, it’s interesting how the desktop metaphor evolved over time but increasing display size and the ability to have multiple workspaces surely is a huge part of what makes tiling almost work.
And tiling still largely doesn't work with small windows.
But hey, for 320x200 (8b) / 640x400 (4b) you had a linear framebuffer early on, before VESA&Co came along :-D
(this was around IRQ13, IIRC,right?)
As far as I've figured out the answer is that some people involved (the ex-PARC Scott McGregor and Charles Simonyi iirc) genuinely thought tiling was better, while others (Bill Gates?) disagreed but went along with it to avoid lawsuits.
I think stacking windows looks better, makes for a cool screenshot when trying to sell the thing. But tiling windows are more ergonomic for actually using the infernal machine.
For me the revelation was that I have never said "Oh boy I sure am glad this window partially overlaps this other window" I either want one full screen windows or a few windows side by side. Why do I have to handle this myself? and went to the dark side, a tiling window manager. To the point that it really chafes now when I use stacking windows, It feels like I spend most of the time shuffling windows around.
To ease the overlapping window pain many linux window managers have a feature where the focused window does not have to be the top window and this makes things a lot better, you can be looking at the top window and typing/clicking on the partially obscured bottom window.
To be fair, in the era when resolutions like 512x342 or 640x480 were common overlapped windows were quite useful.
As a tiling window manager user, I think I agree! :D
Perhaps aesthetic - both Windows 1.0 and 2.0 were (to me at least) very ugly. Things got a bit better with Windows 3.0 and 3.1 (and easier to program) but it wasn't really until Windows 95 that the whole thing came together. One thing you have to give Microsoft (at least back then) is that they did keep trying. And, speaking as a Windows developer, their documentation was very good.
“Barbarians Led by Bill Gates” is required reading on the matter.