Mitigating Microsoft with virtual consoles
N. Holmes · Computer · 1998
The most striking aspect of computing in the 1990s, or at least the late 1990s, is the almost universal acceptance of windows as a way users interact with software. Users get a strong feeling of control, even exhilaration, in having several windows in production at once and being able to choose among them. Before windowing took over, the console, the display terminal together with the keyboard, was implemented primarily in hardware. Now that hardware is so much more capable than it used to be, it could run multiple virtual consoles just as easily as it used to run single consoles. The author discusses Microsoft's strength, virtual consoles in hardware and XML (Extensible Markup Language).