Window Shopping
The ad men and writers have had fun with the inevitable: “Microsoft Does Windows.”
You read the headline and envision some programmers with buckets and rags, bravely scaling Manhattan skyscrapers to help executives get a clear view when they’re looking up from their computer screens.
Windows, however, actually are within computer screens.
You can split your screen into parts: one window showing a chart, for instance, while the other displays the report into which you’re inserting it.
Of course you need a screen big and sharp enough to get good views of many windows.
And the software problems could be hairy. Microsoft as of late 1984 was months and months behind in releasing its windows-type product. Other companies were behind on theirs, too. Someone once coined a term for much-talked-about-but-late software—“vaporware”—and it is sure described windows.[[104]]
Well, now that the miracle windows are theoretically here, are they worth gazing at?
Depends.