Post subject: Windows 3.1 on CD-ROM? Posted: Wed Dec 27, 2006 3:23 am
I seem to remember seeing this on ebay a few years ago. It was Windows 3.1 and MS-DOS 6.22 together on CD-ROM. I have not seen it since though so I'm not sure if this was an actual Microsoft release or just something someone made. Anyone have any information about it?
The MSDN versions of Windows 3.1 were on CD - I have some CDs that have many different language versions of Windows and Windows for Workgroups on them - I've never seen a retail CD version though
seems kind of a waste to have about 5mb on a 700mb cd
There's more than one Windows 3.1 version on these MSDN CDs. There are multiple versions of it and these are in multiple languages each. This can fill the CD quickly.
Hover for the win! The videos of Goodtimes and Buddy Holly by Weezer weren't too bad either... they need to bring back the random CD extras that seem to have slowly disappeared over the years.
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Hover for the win! The videos of Goodtimes and Buddy Holly by Weezer weren't too bad either... they need to bring back the random CD extras that seem to have slowly disappeared over the years.
i wish they printed manuals these days, not just slap a pdf onto a cd (in black and white)
Post subject: Re: Windows 3.1 on CD-ROM? Posted: Sun Oct 20, 2013 11:49 am
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If you bought a computer that came with a cdrom as a standard feature, then it was pretty usual for the OEM to replace a great pile of diskettes with a cdrom. This disk normally did not just have dos and windows, but the drivers for the supplied hardware, and various other proggies that the OEM might ship with the box.
Sometimes it might be pre-installed setups (ie a set of superimplsed archives), while other times, you might be able to set the stuff up yourself.
It's not unusual to 'waste' diskettes on very little data. An average diskette might rate in 199x prices, say at 50c or so a disk, usually more. A pressed cd-rom is well under $4, so if you are putting together a proggie that uses 8 or more diskettes, then a cdrom is cheaper than the diskettes.
You should recall that in the time of Windows 3.1, a 500 MB hard drive was pretty much a very large thing. When i did my first cd-burn (an outsource job in 1995), i did a lot of calculations on the cost of these things, how much it would cost to master a disk etc. The limitations of the hard disks was 250 MB, the resulting disk cost 100$ or something.
When i got my burner in 1997, it cost 600$, and ran mainly under OS/2. Dos could not access enough of the hard disk to make burning profitable, and the disks cost 20$ ea. But you could do a custom reinstall of nearly everything in a few hours before tea, rather than a whole weekend.
Post subject: Re: Windows 3.1 on CD-ROM? Posted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 3:28 pm
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Catweazle wrote:
I seem to remember seeing this on ebay a few years ago. It was Windows 3.1 and MS-DOS 6.22 together on CD-ROM. I have not seen it since though so I'm not sure if this was an actual Microsoft release or just something someone made. Anyone have any information about it?
You can somehow set bootable CD with Windows 3.1 and DOS 6.22 with some programs.
Post subject: Re: Windows 3.1 on CD-ROM? Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 5:20 am
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It isn't unreasonable to put Windows 3.x on CDs. As these days, we don't use flops anymore, right? But it would seem a waste to put ~20 Mbs. of tiny fluff on a 700 Mb CD...
Post subject: Re: Windows 3.1 on CD-ROM? Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 9:39 am
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However, you are not just restricted to putting Windows on the disk. You can put DOS and drivers and applications on there as well. But as i mentioned earlier, eight disks is the cutover point where it's cheaper to press a cdrom than to make floppies. It's much less now: something like 2 disks.
cdroms are more robust than floppy disks, especially since they can't be written over.
Post subject: Re: Windows 3.1 on CD-ROM? Posted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 10:05 pm
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I remember that a friend of mine had a legit German Windows 3.11 for Workgroups on CD-Rom. Back in the days that was pretty nifty to have it on CD, but yeah, the CD most probably wasn't "full" (as in "having no or nearly no space left"). But still better than a pack of floppies if you had a CD-Drive. I don't think the disc was bootable though.
Edit: Image stolen from ended ebay auction, but it looked kinda like that:
Post subject: Re: Windows 3.1 on CD-ROM? Posted: Sun Dec 01, 2013 10:37 pm
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Win95Fan wrote:
Unfortunately, Windows 3.1 was a floppy-only product.
As far as I know, the actual official Microsoft media was only available in a floppy disk version, while system manufacturers provided their own CD-ROMs of it, as stated above.
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