Windows 3.1 Turns 30: Here’s How It Made Windows Essential
3.1 and 3.11 for Workgroups was the first Windows I ran hard, taking some advantage of the limited ability to run multiple apps at once.  For me, prior versions were a curio.  Didn&#x27;t need them.<p>For me, 3.11 was very nice to have CAD, Office, and some basics, like uncompressing files in a DOS window while running CAD, all working together. (Some big archives would take 20 minutes!)<p>My home setup included dialup Internet, both shell and Winsock, just enough to get online and communicating.  That was a huge advantage back then!  Got DSL the day it was possible.<p>I scored a few gigs actually demonstrating the Internet and doing basic literacy and manufacturing&#x2F;engineering specific workflows, useful apps, case studies.  Would dial up live and show n tell to people wanting a quick look at what they could do, and they came away from it with a glossary, basic roadmap and apps needed to do business.<p>For a short while during that time, I did side work programming and CNC programming, and selling a manufacturing app I had written on a DOS 640k 8088 PC.  It was the absolute minimum to build the application, which ran so slowly on that box as to be unusable except for debug and test.  Every user I had at the time had a far better experience than I did!  But that all funded the fun to come!  Each system did.<p>I cobbled together a 386 with 5Mb of RAM running 3.11  Just enough to do most things and a small 40Mb hard disk, just enough to hold Win 3.11 CAD, browser, Office and a few games.<p>That was the machine I developed the literacy courses on and it got me consulting gigs and my first big jump out of manufacturing and into bigger systems capable of running high end CAD and Animation software on SGI machines.<p>Got an Indy for home use the moment I could and that was my primary online computer until the very late 90&#x27;s.  CAD, all the technical computing and most Internet tasks happened on that box, until Wjndows caught up some and I could get a fast Pentium.<p>Yeah, Win 3.1 was the launch point for a lot of good in my life.  It is striking me to think about right now. Unexpected memories, PC speaker only sound!<p>That early era, through the 90&#x27;s was a fun ride! Apple &#x2F;&#x2F;e, 6502, Color Computer 3 6809, PC XT 8088,AT 386, 486, Pentium 90, 200, 600, Win 98, SGI IRIX 6.2, 6.5, Red Hat 5.2, Mandrake 8.1, 9.0, NT 3.51, Win 2K, Win XP!<p>Total blast!