I find the timing interesting. It certainly sheds light on whether or not Microsoft should own the trademark on "Windows", as it is obvious it is an established generic term at the time by the way the article was written ("windows" is not in direct reference to Microsoft's product at all in the article).<p>This is not news to me, mind you, as I remember painstakingly entering every character of a long machine-language program into the monitor (call -151) of my Apple //c back in the '80s, for a graphical "windows" system published in Nibble Magazine (I really wanted a Cauzin strip reader!).
This software was merely interesting, not really useful without extensive work. You could do the same sort of thing with a few pokes (defining the corners of the printable/scrollable screen area), just without the fancy graphics. It had no mouse support, relying on the keyboard for input and the software currently running in a window to manage the contents of that window. Being hand-entered from a magazine, I didn't exactly expect more. Still, it was fun to show people at the time. :) Of course the software discussed in the article was far more useful, but still probably not that much <i>at the time</i>.<p>I also remember the threats that Caldera made against Microsoft, saying they had enough prior art to lift Microsoft's trademark. That certainly had some interesting twists.<p>Later the suit between Microsoft and Lindows, which ended (interestingly) with Microsoft buying the name from them.<p>I was curious of exactly when the trademark was applied for and given, and was astonished how late (and mysterious) it was:<p><a href="http://www.geek.com/news/suit-seeks-to-strip-ms-of-windows-trademark-552275/" rel="nofollow">http://www.geek.com/news/suit-seeks-to-strip-ms-of-windows-t...</a>