The C6 Days: Tools, Memory, and Bugs | by Rico Mariani | Jul, 2026 | MediumSitemapOpen in appSign up<br>Sign in

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The C6 Days: Tools, Memory, and Bugs

Rico Mariani

26 min read·<br>2 days ago

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This will hopefully be a short series on the old-timey tools around C6.0, C/C++ 7.0 and Visual C++ 1.0. I’m not sure how long it will take me to write the other parts…<br>For context, this is what was going on in the OS world at that time…<br>Table of Microsoft Operating System Releases<br>Aug 1981 MS-DOS 1.0 Single-directory FAT12 file system, 8088 real mode, command-line shell for IBM PC<br>Mar 1983 MS-DOS 2.0 Subdirectories, hard disk support, installable device drivers, UNIX-inspired I/O redirection & pipes<br>Aug 1984 MS-DOS 3.0 1.2MB floppy support, larger hard disks (FAT16), network support hooks<br>Mar 1985 MS-DOS 3.1 Network redirection support (MS-NET compatible)<br>Nov 1985 Windows 1.0 Tiled windows GUI, mouse support, cooperative multitasking, bundled apps (Paint, Write, Calculator)<br>1986 MS-DOS 3.2 3.5" 720KB floppy support<br>Apr 1987 MS-DOS 3.3 Logical partitions >32MB, national language support, 1.44MB 3.5" floppies<br>Dec 1987 OS/2 1.0 Protected mode (286), preemptive multitasking, up to 16MB RAM, named pipes/IPC — text mode only<br>Dec 1987 Windows 2.0 Overlapping windows, keyboard shortcuts, expanded/extended memory support<br>May 1988 Windows 2.1 Separate 286 and 386 editions; 386 version adds virtual 8086 mode multitasking<br>Jul 1988 MS-DOS 4.0 DOS Shell (graphical file manager), volumes >32MB, EMS support<br>Oct 1988 OS/2 1.1 Presentation Manager GUI, graphical windowing system, VIO/AVIO subsystems<br>Oct 1989 OS/2 1.2 HPFS (high-performance file system), installable file systems, improved Presentation Manager<br>May 1990 Windows 3.0 Protected mode (286/386), virtual memory, redesigned UI with Program Manager, TrueType-ready<br>1991 OS/2 1.3 Improved performance, smaller memory footprint — last version with Microsoft involvement<br>Jun 1991 MS-DOS 5.0 HMA/UMB memory management (load high), full-screen editor, UNDELETE/UNFORMAT, QBasic<br>Apr 1992 Windows 3.1 TrueType fonts, multimedia (MCI), OLE 1.0, improved stability (protected mode only)<br>Oct 1992 Windows for Workgroups 3.1 Built-in peer-to-peer networking, file/printer sharing, NetBEUI/IPX<br>Mar 1993 MS-DOS 6.0 DoubleSpace disk compression, MEMMAKER, multi-boot configurations, defrag, antivirus<br>Jul 1993 Win NT 3.1 32-bit preemptive multitasking, NTFS, hardware abstraction layer, Win32 API, multiprocessor support, security subsystem (C2-level)<br>Nov 1993 MS-DOS 6.2 DriveSpace replaces DoubleSpace (legal), SCANDISK, safer disk operations<br>Nov 1993 Windows for Workgroups 3.11 32-bit file access, TCP/IP stack option, faster networking<br>1994 MS-DOS 6.22 Last standalone DOS release, refined DriveSpace<br>Sep 1994 Win NT 3.5 Smaller footprint, TCP/IP as default protocol, long filename support, improved NTFS performance<br>Jun 1995 Win NT 3.51 PowerPC support, PCMCIA, Windows 95–style common controls, compressed NTFS<br>Aug 24, 1995 Win 95 Start menu/taskbar, 32-bit apps with Win32 API, Plug and Play, long filenames on FAT (VFAT), integrated TCP/IP, preemptive multitasking for 32-bit appsA few days ago, the Microsoft Voluntary Retirement Program had its first actual separation day, and so many people that I had known for a very long time — including some comparatively old-timers — decided this was a good time to retire. I’m very happy for them. I think of all the ways to part with the company, this method is pretty gentle. And you get some nice perks on the way out, which is very nice.<br>One of the fellows told me that I was now maybe the last person still at the company who had any memory of the early product days that we worked on together, back when Languages was much younger. Well, Languages has always been much older. The first products were languages, so even when I joined in 1988, Languages was already comparatively old at 13 years. Many businesses would have to go a lot longer before they reach the 13-year milestone. But now 13 years is less remarkable. The company’s been around 50 years. Lots of businesses seem comparatively older. And the difference between Languages and, say, the Applications business is much less than it was in the middle ’80s. OK, fair enough.<br>I wanted to talk a little bit about what was going on then and what the languages products looked like. I can speak to the native languages. There are other languages products that I had nothing to do with, but I’ll try to talk to the C compiler and its friends. Many of the other systems that produced native binaries used the same back end, and so a lot of the tooling situation for them was basically identical. If you look at the native output of, say, BASIC or Fortran or some of the other languages that were available, you’ll find that it’s the same from an ecosystem perspective.<br>You can’t really talk about languages and tooling without talking about the operating...