- Living History: Retracing the Evolution of the PC and <i>PC
Magazine</i> - 1982: Hello, World - 1983: The IBM Standard Takes
Over - 1984: The Shape of Things to Come - 1985-86: The
Interface Race - 1987-1989: IBM Strikes Back - 1990-1992:
Windows Wakes Up - 1993-1994: Everyone Online - 1995: Windows 95
and Multimedia - 1996-99: The Dot-Com Revolution - 2000-2002:
Back to Basics By 1995, 32-bit processors had been a major part
of the PC landscape for some time. The Motorola 68000 that
powered the original Macintosh back in 1984 was a 32-bit
processor, and Intel had moved the PC-compatible world into the
32-bit era with the introduction of the 386 in 1985. But ten
years later, most PC users were still running 16-bit
applications such as DOS, OS/2, and Windows. It was high time a
32-bit operating system became the standard. Windows 95 proved
to be the operating system that would fill that need. IBM and
Microsoft had independently talked about 32-bit OSs for years.
Indeed, at one point, Microsoft had promised o