Microsoft Delays Windows to Mid-1985

MICROBYTES

BYTE Magazine

December 1984

Microsoft announced in October that its Windows multitasking graphics operating environment would be delayed until at least June 1985. Windows was originally announced in November 1983 (see the December 1983 BYTE, page 48) and had been scheduled for release last month to manufacturers, who were to customize it for their machines.

Since Windows was announced, both IBM and Digital Research have introduced multitasking, windowing graphics environments. IBM announced TopView, which was released to software developers in September and is scheduled for general release in early 1985 with a price tag of $149. In October, Digital Research began shipping its $295 Concurrent PC-DOS (earlier called Concurrent CP/M-86 version 3.1 with PC-DOS emulation), which runs several MS-DOS programs simultaneously. Also in October, Digital Research announced its Macintosh-like Graphics Environment Manager for the IBM PC (see page 39), also planned for early 1985 release.