What are features that were originally Microsoft's own on PC's?

Question

Me and my friend are having a debate on Microsoft and Apple and I love Microsoft and he loves Apple. He says Microsoft is just a big copy cat with everything and I insist that they are NOT. So I want to proove him wrong and give him things that Microsoft has thought of themselves. Can anyone help me out. Like Microsofts own desktop appearances and features.

-Thank You

Answer 1

tell your friend he/she is being coned, MS windows 1, 2 and 3 which run under dos 3 was out long before the mac, Windows came out around 1983, the Mac never entered the market till the late 80's early 90's and never made it big time until they changed their processor chips from the Cyrix processors to intel processors a couple of yrs back, also tell him/her that you can run OS/x on your computer also.. to prove it go to the web link below and check it out..

By the way, DOS stands for Disk Operating System
and while your looking at mac/dell check out Linux v's Vista Ultimate at the same time and just see what Linux operating system can do.... that comes Free with all the software you will ever need... also Free

Answer 2

You've touched a nerve here. Correct that Microsoft doesn't make PC's they make software to run an IBM PC. IBM and Microsoft bested Apple and it's OS/x on the market.

Bill Gates is continually lambasted for reappropriating most of Apples and Linux's ideas and then copyrighting many of them as his own. Bill Gates didn't really even invent windows, some wino did and Bill got that from him. Other operating systems were windowing long before windoze.

With XP, Microsoft actually made it's first decent operating system, the most stable. However, looks like they are back on track with Vista which actually has a file structure that looks like Linux and Mac but is still unstable and new on the market so many drivers don't work with it. It is also incompatible with most of windoze older stuff cause it won't read FAT unless a fix recently came out.

Fortunately or Unfortunately Microsoft wins in the OS market as they are used by 80% of the computers in the world. Can't fight City Hall.

On the other hand, Mac's are rather expensive and for the money, not really worth it unless you are a Mac user. They are proprietary and their hardware in the past has not worked with windoze. If you are a rebel, buy a Mac. If you want mainstream, buy a PC. Most software is compatible with either or has versions written for either.

Answer 3

It is important to note that Microsoft doesn't make PCs they only write the Operating System, Apple does both the hardware and software.

The first ever Apple I computer went on sale in April 1976, followed by the Apple II.
The first independent version of Microsoft Windows, version 1.0, released on November 20, 1985, - Care of Wikipedia)
Steve Jobs announced the original Macintosh in 1984 (Cue the Super Bowl Advert)
MS bought out very few things themselves including DOS
The original GUI concept originated from PARC Xerox which was adopted by the team at Apple and later copied again by MS who flipped it 90 flipped it 90 degrees to bring you Windows 95.
MS had protected memory in Win2k before Apple who only bought it in for Mac OS X.
Apple had desktop widgets waaay back in System 7 which it bought back into Tiger which was well before MS introduced its "Gadgets" into Vista.

MS invented Mr Clippy - and killed him too because he was the most useless thing they ever invented.
One of their developers did come up with the Control +Alt +Delete to force quit the OS which worked prior to Win2k
MS has perfected the art of copying Apple in all but a few areas.

OS X will run Windows, and Linux via Bootcamp, VMWare or Parallels where as Windows will only run Linux or Windows.

In summary you will have a hard time proving your friend wrong

Answer 4

as already pointed out, M$ started with MSDOS, which was in itself actually a copy cat of PCDOS. It later moved to Windows - a similar interface used by Apple and in this respect, your friend is correct.

For those familar with DOS, Im sure it's obvious that even the entire MS office has its DOS counterpart. So, as far as originality goes, M$ has none. They have however made vast improvements to the original products from which they 'borrow' (or 'steal' if u wish) the ideas.