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0 pointsretrac2y ago0 comments

Windows 2000 was based on NT. While it had the Windows 98 interface it was very different underneath. It's a bit bonkers, but MS sold two superficially-identical operating systems for five plus years, that were in reality, about as different as two OSes could be; different histories, different underlying architecture, little code shared between the kernels and only part of the userland. And yet the two OS families had almost exactly the same UI and API.

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6 comments · 2 top-level

nikau2y ago· 4 in thread

it made sense at the time, pcs had limited ram and win98 ran much better.

reactordev2y ago

2000 is what you ran if you were hosting your lan party. 98 is what you had if you were invited to your friends lan party.

EvanAnderson2y ago

With a decent amount of RAM, though, 2000 was far more stable.

Dalewyn2y ago

I think you need to understand that most people maybe had 16~32MB of system RAM on average circa 1999, while Windows 2000 ideally wanted at least a staggering 128MB as just a sysreq recommendation. Windows 98 was fine with 16MB minimum or even 8MB with some wizardry.

How much did 128MB of RAM cost in 1999? According to a Reddit thread that Copilot found, about $370 in 2020 dollars[1]. Copilot also dug up another thread[2] where people reminisced about RAM capacity and pricing in the 90s.

So in very basic terms, 128MB of RAM (let alone more!) back then would be like buying 128GB of RAM today. Most people simply aren't going to buy ~$400 of RAM just like that, especially when upgrade cycles were also much shorter than today.

There was a very practical reason Windows 9x existed alongside Windows NT until XP merged the lines in 2001 when 256~512MB of RAM and more became much more affordable.

[1]: https://www.reddit.com/r/mac/comments/finsjm/how_much_did_12...

[2]: https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?t=62239

4 more replies

afavour2y ago

Driver support was also terrible for a long time.

johnwalkr2y ago

It was an interesting time. Until NT4.0, NT supported intel, Power PC, Alpha and MIPS architectures. And until Windows 2000, NT could run OS/2 apps.

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