Microsoft "Athens" PC Whitepaper

[Maza]

This is probably the most informative document regarding the Microsoft "Athens" PC, and I don't think it would reach a broad audience without being posted in a forum topic.

https://web.archive.org/web/20031002214 ... nsPCWP.doc

[Kelton2]

Thanks! Very informative . Also, how exactly did you find this?

[smokeone]

I love the article please keep the info coming

[T3hSimson]

Wow, awesome! Gee, I still remember how crazy I was about Longhorn related stuff back in 2005/06, good old times Wish they hadn't ditched all of the Longhorn stuff, even today I find all of these way more attractive than the Metro 'n Tablet revolution... *sigh*

[Derpington]

Wow, awesome! Gee, I still remember how crazy I was about Longhorn related stuff back in 2005/06, good old times Wish they hadn't ditched all of the Longhorn stuff, even today I find all of these way more attractive than the Metro 'n Tablet revolution... *sigh*

I definatley agree, longhorn should have been continued.

[The Distractor]

Wow, awesome! Gee, I still remember how crazy I was about Longhorn related stuff back in 2005/06, good old times Wish they hadn't ditched all of the Longhorn stuff, even today I find all of these way more attractive than the Metro 'n Tablet revolution... *sigh*

I definatley agree, longhorn should have been continued.

The reset happened for a reason...

[James]

Wow, awesome! Gee, I still remember how crazy I was about Longhorn related stuff back in 2005/06, good old times Wish they hadn't ditched all of the Longhorn stuff, even today I find all of these way more attractive than the Metro 'n Tablet revolution... *sigh*

I definatley agree, longhorn should have been continued.

Anybody who has seriously tested Longhorn can tell you that that is a horrible idea. Literally, Longhorn was riddled to death with bugs.

[WinPC]

Wow, awesome! Gee, I still remember how crazy I was about Longhorn related stuff back in 2005/06, good old times Wish they hadn't ditched all of the Longhorn stuff, even today I find all of these way more attractive than the Metro 'n Tablet revolution... *sigh*

I definatley agree, longhorn should have been continued.

Anybody who has seriously tested Longhorn can tell you that that is a horrible idea. Literally, Longhorn was riddled to death with bugs.

Except that "Longhorn" was the codename for Windows Vista. The "Longhorn" stage that this person is referring to is simply the earlier stages of development for that operating system; they were not different projects as some people claim (some people claim that "Longhorn Omega-13" was a new project that replaced Longhorn in the same way that Whistler replaced Neptune, but that is false).

[James]

Wow, awesome! Gee, I still remember how crazy I was about Longhorn related stuff back in 2005/06, good old times Wish they hadn't ditched all of the Longhorn stuff, even today I find all of these way more attractive than the Metro 'n Tablet revolution... *sigh*

I definatley agree, longhorn should have been continued.

Anybody who has seriously tested Longhorn can tell you that that is a horrible idea. Literally, Longhorn was riddled to death with bugs.

Except that "Longhorn" was the codename for Windows Vista. The "Longhorn" stage that this person is referring to is simply the earlier stages of development for that operating system; they were not different projects as some people claim (some people claim that "Longhorn Omega-13" was a new project that replaced Longhorn in the same way that Whistler replaced Neptune, but that is false).

I'm very well aware that Longhorn IS Vista. I'm using Longhorn as a reference to the pre-reset versions, you know, BEFORE they called it Vista? Yeah. Those were riddled with bugs, and were completely unsustainable in development... hence why they reset it and called it Vista. I'm trying to discern the two.

[Battler]

...Well thank you, Captain Obvious.

I'm very well aware that Longhorn IS Vista. I'm using Longhorn as a reference to the pre-reset versions, you know, BEFORE they called it Vista? Yeah. Those were riddled with bugs, and were completely unsustainable in development... hence why they reset it and called it Vista.

Name-calling people is tantamount to flaming, and is therefore against the rules. Please do not do that.

[Maza]

Thanks! Very informative :). Also, how exactly did you find this?

I am sorry for the late reply. I found the document at the Internet Archive Wayback Machine (http://www.archive.org), though I no longer have the link to the page where the file was listed.

[T3hSimson]

Wow, awesome! Gee, I still remember how crazy I was about Longhorn related stuff back in 2005/06, good old times Wish they hadn't ditched all of the Longhorn stuff, even today I find all of these way more attractive than the Metro 'n Tablet revolution... *sigh*

I definatley agree, longhorn should have been continued.

Anybody who has seriously tested Longhorn can tell you that that is a horrible idea. Literally, Longhorn was riddled to death with bugs.

Yes, I know that. A reboot of Longhorn in terms of code was definitely a must. What should have stayed intact, however, was all of the cool UI stuff like the Windows Explorer layout, especially PPA, tile-based sidebar, glass toasts, purple auroras, glassy Windows flag, Start Menu more like from Hillel's demo, etc, etc. I'm pretty sure at least some of them could have been safely left without causing any stability issues.

[MouseOnMars]

Anybody who has seriously tested Longhorn can tell you that that is a horrible idea.

I'd disagree
Idea was sane and "there", but its ehm... how do you say "being done" was badly executed
and from all the seen concepts and half made things within LH's
it was clear that MS wanted compete with Apple regarding graphic look and even beat them
with technology like WinFS and probably 3D icons (I don't say 3D file explorer as that wouldn't be practical)

and if we are to believe from that guy who posted Longhorn flash concepts
that those were Original "thoughts" on what Longhorn should be, then as I said "idea" was there
and to me it looked pretty good one

[DJ Deedahx]

Longhorn had a good user interface, but it was horrible to use.
Believe me, I've only tried build 4051.

[Maza]

I have found a whitepaper for a Microsoft Windows Home PC concept, which includes content similar to what is included in the "Athens" whitepaper. Like the previous document, I don't think that it would reach a broad audience without being posted in a forum topic.

http://download.microsoft.com/download/ ... oncept.doc

[ExplicitNuM5]

Honestly, you guys are arguing whether Longhorn is any good or not in a forum which is discussing Longhorn Tablet PC interface.

But to add my opinion, the only time Vista was ever beautiful and usable is after Vista SP2 and IE9. The SP1 and SP0 is so much more laggy, slow, and hated. Although OEMs created TONS of trouble with mixing the Longhorn requirements and Vista, people blame Microsoft.

And to the Athens interface, why did they care what the OEMs do? As far as I know, there is STILL no PCs with a "Auxiliary Display"/notification. And there is no point in having extra devices included in a PC combo that costs at least $1500. $1500 is the price for a gaming desktop/laptop with i5/45**/i7-47**, nVidia GTX 7x0, >80 GB SSD, 1TB HDD, and still some more.

And isn't it sooooooo sad that they scrapped the MS Home concepts? Those looks soooo nice and futuristic. However, note that the old Vista/WinMo 6.5 interface is still there.

And why are they so focused on VoIP, Bluetooth, etc. back then? VoIP - isn't it still quite new?

[DJ Deedahx]

Taking a look at Maza's post, though, I think this stuff should be held until 2015 or close to that.
I don't think it was touchscreen, though.

[Maza]

And to the Athens interface, why did they care what the OEMs do? As far as I know, there is STILL no PCs with a "Auxiliary Display"/notification. And there is no point in having extra devices included in a PC combo that costs at least $1500. $1500 is the price for a gaming desktop/laptop with i5/45**/i7-47**, nVidia GTX 7x0, >80 GB SSD, 1TB HDD, and still some more.

And isn't it sooooooo sad that they scrapped the MS Home concepts? Those looks soooo nice and futuristic. However, note that the old Vista/WinMo 6.5 interface is still there.

I know that it isn't directly related to the Microsoft Home PC white paper, but it should be noted that there are (or were) a number of PCs / devices with auxiliary displays. A few that come to mind are the Asus W5Fe, the BenQ Joybook Q41, the Dell XPS 420, and the Ricavision Windows Vista MCE remote.

Also, I agree with you that the Microsoft Home concepts look nice. It is nice to see that the blue and green aurora predates the development reset of "Longhorn."

[mrpijey]

Maza is quite right. There were quite a few laptops that came with this extra display, however it never caught on with OEMs and it eventually died out. I own two of these laptops myself, and there was even a sofrware extension for the PocketPC OS where you could use your PPC device as an extra display to your desktop or laptop, I used this for three years with my old trusty HP hx4700 PDA as a systems monitor and notification center. The technology by the way was called Windows SideShow, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_SideShow .

[ExplicitNuM5]

Ohhhhh. Okay, I haven't seen those before.
How did it die out?

[mrpijey]

OEMs simply didn't show any interest in it, and with the emerging smartphone market there wasn't any need since you could have email and all kinds of stuff on the smartphone, rather than having the laptop yell when you got email etc.

[Melcher]

I own a Dell XPS 420, that has such a Windows Sideshow on top of the tower
I am not quite sure why they put it there, as the location is not easily reachable...

[Maza]

I feel that these do not warrant a new topic as they are directly related to the "Athens" and Media Center concepts that were discussed before. I am posting these images in the hopes that they will spark your interest in the concepts, and also so that you will preserve them.

Most of these were discovered at the Internet Archive Wayback Machine, but I had to search for a few of them. The intelligent remote concept looks like the odd one out but the archive of Microsoft's WinHEC image gallery strongly suggests that it has always looked this way. The image measures 125 x 398 and is a paltry 118KB in size.


Bill Gates displaying the Windows Home PC developed in collaboration with Hewlett-Packard


Greg Sullivan, lead product manager of Microsoft Corporation, displaying a Hewlett-Packard communication prototype computer and a Windows smartphone


Windows Home PC wall dock


Subtle Light Pendulum - Reinforcing Windows Connectedness


Home Center


Home Center 2


Windows Home PC concept


A/V Cabinet Windows Home concept


A/V Cabinet Windows Home concept - front view


Windows Home Center, intelligent remote, and home tablet PC concepts.


Intelligent remote concept


Intelligent remote and home tablet PC concept

[siberia12437]

Yes, this great remote from Ricavision. Unfortunately I never got it. Doesn't seem to have come onto the market in Germany and you can't find anything on eBay anywhere in the world.

Those were the days.

The list goes on by the way, you could buy a Portege think r400 from Toshiba which could be configured with a text display in the frame. So you saw it when you opened your laptop bag. There is something important waiting for me.