TONT 39893 关于Windows 3.0的一件小事

轶闻：便宜没好货。

原文链接：https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20040407-00/?p=39893

In an earlier comment, Larry Osterman described why Windows 3.0 was such a runaway success. He got a little of the timeline wrong, so I’ll correct it here.

在早先的一则评论中，Larry Osterman描述了为什么Windows 3.0成功得如此顺滑，不过他所说的一些时间节点有点小差错，所以我在这里纠正一下。

Windows 2.0 did support protected mode. And it was Windows/386, which came out before Windows 3.0, which first used the new virtual-x86 mode of the 80386 processor to support pre-emptively multitasked DOS boxes. The old Windows 2.0 program was renamed “Windows/286” to keep the names in sync.

Windows 2.0的确支持保护模式。而在Windows 3.0之前出世的Windows/386，则第一次采用了80386处理器的新式虚拟x86模式来支持抢占式多任务的DOS盒子（DOS-boxes）。过往的Windows 2.0则被更名为『Windows/286』来让产品名称看上去协调一些。

The three modes of Windows then became “real mode” (Windows 1.0 style), “standard mode” (Windows/286 style) and “enhanced mode” (Windows/386 style). Amazingly, even though the way the operating system used the processor was radically different in each of the three modes, a program written for “real mode” successfully ran without change in the other two modes. You could write a single program that ran on all three operating systems.

此后，Windows中的三种模式被划分为『实模式』（ Windows 1.0风格）、『标准模式』（Windows/286风格）和『增强模式』（Windows/386风格）。令人惊奇的是，尽管操作系统在这三种模式下对处理器的使用方式大相径庭，为『实模式』编写的程序在另外两种模式下也能不经任何修改顺利运行。你可以写一个程序，然后（不需要经过修改）就能在以上三个系统中跑起来了。

And then Windows 3.0 came out and the world changed. Sales were through the roof. I remember that some major software reseller (Egghead?) was so pleased with the success of Windows 3.0 that it bought bought every Microsoft employee a Dove ice cream bar. (Even the employees like me who were working on OS/2.) I was sitting in my office and some people came in with a big box of ice cream bars and they handed me one. “This is from Egghead. Thank you for making Windows 3.0 a success,” they said.

后来Windows 3.0发布，整个世界都发生了变化，销量则冲破了天际。我记得某家大型软件分销商（Egghead？）对Windows 3.0的成功实在是太满意了，干脆给每个微软的员工买了一根德芙的雪糕。（就连像我这样当时在OS/2项目组的人也一样。）当时我坐在办公室里，有个人抱着一大箱雪糕走进来，递给我一根（并说道），『这是Egghead送的，感谢你们让Windows 3.0如此成功』。

It was a strange feeling, getting a thank-you for something you not only didn’t work on, but something which totally destroyed the project you were working on!

这种感觉实在太奇怪了，不光因为这个感谢与你的工作毫无关联，还因为它所感谢的东西事实上搞砸了你在进行的工作啊！

（译注：据说其实这些冰糕已经过期了，所以Egghead才那么慷慨地给微软的员工一人一根。

以下为评论原文：

Joel Spolsky (April 7, 2004 at 8:56 am)

Egghead was owned by the same company that owned a supermarket chain, QFC.

And the dove bars (I remember them) were months past their expiration date. I was sort of surprised at how bad they tasted.

So I think egghead, a fairly inept operation to begin with, was just dumping leftover inventory from their supermarkets.）