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From: Lawrence D'Oliveiro <ldo@nz.invalid>
Newsgroups: comp.arch
Subject: Re: is Vax addressing sane today
Date: Sun, 6 Oct 2024 00:47:04 -0000 (UTC)
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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.