Microsoft, 1987. Windows.
Windows 2.0 was released to manufacturing on 9 December 1987, two years after Windows 1.0. Unlike its predecessor, it lets windows overlap and be resized. It also added desktop icons, keyboard shortcuts, support for 16-colour VGA graphics, and the words “minimize” and “maximize” in place of Windows 1.0’s “iconize” and “zoom”.
It came in two variants: a base edition for the 8086, and Windows/386, which used the 80386 processor to run several MS-DOS programs side by side. Microsoft Word and Excel first appeared as Windows programs for it, and Aldus PageMaker and CorelDRAW were written for it too. It was the last version of Windows that could run entirely from floppy disks.
It cost US$99. Reviews called it an improvement on Windows 1.0 but still a work in progress. In March 1988 Apple sued Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard, claiming that Windows 2.0 copied the look and feel of the Macintosh. The court ruled for Microsoft and HP on all but 10 of the 189 interface elements in the suit, and found that those 10 couldn’t be copyrighted.
This exhibit runs it from a hard disk. Its MS-DOS Executive lists the programs in C:\WINDOWS, among them CALC.EXE, CLOCK.EXE, PAINT.EXE, REVERSI.EXE and WRITE.EXE.