Windows 3 described in the Bible

Is your memory that short, Melchior? One would install DOS even if one only intended to use Windows for Workgroups because the latter is an operating environment and thus depends on the former, an operating system. True, a bootdisk would work, but only for someone with the patience of Job. WFW relied heavily on DOS for its basic functions. Using a bootdisk would slow WFW operations to a crawl.

Melchior writes:

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I don't think it was until SVGA was introduced that you needed additional files, and that was during the late 486 'era'.

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No, it was earlier than that. SVGA may have been introduced after the initial introduction of the 486, but the 386 was still in use and quite viable throughout the Win 3.x lifespan. Even when 3.0 was first released, SVGA drivers were available and had to be installed to use anything above 640x480 @ 16 colors. I'm pretty sure SVGA predates even Win 3.0 because I seem to remember it being available on one of the early OS/2 releases.

Melchior writes:

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Sorry, my bad. I checked up on the requirements and such on the program. It does indeed require SVGA. It was released in -95, which is sort of late for 386's (You could just as well buy a Pentium at that time).

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Yes, I've been thinking about it since that last post, and I remember that SVGA does indeed predate Win 3.0. I now recall distinctly that an early OS/2 release had a graphical environment that heavily influenced Win 3.0, and SVGA drivers were available for it. Also, there were a number of SVGA games available before Win 3.0.I'm not sure what you mean by "It was released in -95", since that was the year Win 95 came out. 3.0 came about five years or so earlier. The 386 dates back to about 1986.You must remember also that there were two types of 386: the original, fully 32-bit processor and a later, scaled down 16-bit version that was known as a 386SX. When the SX was introduced, the original processor was redubbed the 386DX. One might think of the SX as being the Celeron of its day, although it didn't perform nearly as well relative to the DX.All of this is simply to say that, equipped with a generous amount of RAM and a good SVGA card, a 386DX running at at least 33Mhz was a perfectly viable machine for the entire lifespan of the Win 3.x line.

Ah, then yes a Pentium would have been available. Some small improvement had been made to the original Pentium by that time, something called MMX if I'm not mistaken. I think it would have been available at 120Mhz (or was it 133, I forget) by then and probably affordable for most people at 90Mhz.