So how does Windows 3.0 shape up? Microsoft is due to announce the thing on Tuesday but there are so many copies of the thing flying around that all the enthusiasts have got their own copies to play with: word is that it’s an apples and oranges comparison with Windows 2 and is not good news for Apple Computer Inc, undercutting the Macintosh II on price, performance and functionality – but you’ve got to have a big enough machine, an 80386 preferably with a 20MHz clock and a minumum of 4Mb of memory, because the thing sets up the first 16Mb of main memory and disk space as main memory, and anything smaller, it spends its whole time swapping; a cache is also a big help; one of the best features over Windows 2 is that it’s far easier to install – people are said to be loading it and running intuitively without help of manual – there are far more copies of the software than manuals out there; bad news for Lotus Development Corp is that Windows 3 makes the Microsoft Excel spreadsheet already well regarded – look a whole lot prettier; one or two bugs appear to have carried over from Windows 2, such as the fact that it sometimes gets its buffers mixed up, so that when you create a bit of text, you find it’s added it to your spreadsheet; but the consensus seems to be that it’s the future, and it almost works.
