14 DAY TRIAL // Because of the rapid pace at which technology evolves, Windows 3.1 has become in less than two decades a fossil of the operating system world. More and more PC users have never booted Windows 3.1 a single time, and for the vast majority of those that did, the platform has certainly faded out of memory by now.
However, for the melancholic, and the users that want a “back in time” travel experience to the beginning of Windows, version 3.1 is “available” via a browser of your choice. The inverted commas are necessary because the website put together by Michael Vincent doesn’t actually offer Windows 3.1, but rather an emulated experience.
“The goal of this site is not to create an entirely complete mirror image of Windows 3.1, but rather keep the spirit and omit features when they are not justified by an effort to usability ratio. For example, Notepad lacks a find and replace feature because it is not worth the effort. Where features do exist, every effort is made to present them in exactly the manner that they existed in Windows 3.1,” reads the website’s description. “I have also endeavored to put plenty of features in which are not readily apparent, hopefully making the site a fun and long-lasting process of experimentation and discovery. For example, try pressing the keystroke for full screen mode in MS-DOS Prompt.”
Via the website, users will get access to items from the Windows 3.1 desktop, including Main, Accessories, Games, Internet Browser and additional content. Those that want to see how a primitive Control Panel looked like can now do so with ease. There’s even the good old MS-DOS prompt, which I’m sure nobody misses, and a very early form of Minesweeper, which, of course, did not evolve all that much.
“Michaelv.org is coded in JavaScript and strict XHTML 1.0, with AJAX functionality provided through PHP. It has been tested for compatibility in Firefox and IE. Firefox 2 or 3 is highly recommended, but the site is almost entirely functional in IE 6, 7, or 8. Media Player does not work in IE as IE lacks the ability to dynamically instantiate <OBJECT>,” it is added in the site’s description. “The file system is stored in SQL and is dynamic. File creation, renaming, deletion, reading, and writing can all be accomplished in real-time and with persistent results. However, for obvious reasons, visitors are not able to make changes to the file system in any way.”