Calmira XP is no more. “After almost 15 years of Windows 3.1 and 5 years of Calmira XP this is the time to say goodbye to this great project. I had a great time developing this, and I hope you enjoyed using it. As a farewell-gift I made a last version which includes all the graphical enhancements of Calmira XP 4.0, but without the experimental LFN-support; so this is a stable version. Now it’s time to search for a new, fresh project.”
It is sad to see this project go, specially since nowhere in the project’s site does it say what is in fact calmira and what does it do. So in the end the project will simply die without no one knowing anything about it. Sad…
Exactly! I was gonna say the same thing. Never heard of “Calmira CP”, but anyway, it’s now defunct.
Never heard of it as well, but from the screenshots it looks like a replacemnt shell for win 3.x:
http://users.pandora.be/azone/calmira/calxp40.htm
http://users.pandora.be/azone/calmira/calxp333.htm
http://users.pandora.be/azone/calmira/calxp332.htm
More here:
http://users.pandora.be/azone/calmira.htm
“Never heard of it as well, but from the screenshots it looks like a replacemnt shell for win 3.x”
Correct you are. Shell replacement for Windows 3.1 to make it look more like later Windows versions.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Calmira
(Screenshots) & System requirements kinda hint to this also, but a description of the program itself would have been nice to read.
http://users.pandora.be/azone/info/sysreq.htm
Note that Calmira’s homepage is http://www.calmira.net/ — Calmira XP is a fork of the original project. That said, Calmira hasn’t seen an update in a year’s time (which is not unusual for the project).
I used Calmira for a few weeks in ’97 on a machine I hadn’t upgraded to Win95. It was a fun toy in much the same way that those Vista themes for 2000/XP and Aqua themes for Gnome/KDE are, but not something you’d really want to use permanently.
For those stupid “Hey I use the old version it’s much better than the new one!”
They all exist, for windows, mediaplayer, itunes, msn, winamp, .. And they are most definitly wrong each time.
If your havent heard of it you should read osnews more
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=6221
http://www.osnews.com/story.php/13890/Calmira-XP-4.0-Beta-Released
True – not sure if thats good or bad
– I remember that name – but not really something that interests me soo much – but has certainly been on OSn before 
Good luck & fun for the future to the dev
Reg Win 3.1
Only saw Win 3.1 – never used it AFAIK – my first Windows was 95 – but I think the simplicity & unbloat ( 95 used 50 – 80 MB on disk ? ) through hardware limits is rather appealing compared to bloaty-Linuxes or Windowses today – especially as the functionality & ease of use havent gone up x100 like the hard disk use .
When there isnt a real limit to RAM than there isnt a real good reason to make the extra effort to save those few KBs & MBs .
Sorry – Im draging this into the usual “OSes used to be so much more efficient” – topic .
But not all OSes today are bloaty just the big mainstream desktops .
IMO
EDIT :
It seems to be released under th GPL “2 or later” .
General OS fuctionality is of course limited as it is about the apps running on top of it .
Edited 2006-11-26 16:56
Wow that’s ugly. Good thing the project is going the way of the dodo.
Yes, but it looks more polished than the original interface. I have no use for this, but if I had to use 3.11, I’d rather look at this than the very dated look of the orginal interface.
I have to agree with the author, Windows 3.1 was a great product. Microsoft went in the wrong direction after with ’95. Windows 3.1 which was certainly the best version of Windows from a general interface stand point.
If your primary complaint about later version of Windows was the UI, why would you be agreeing with someone who wanted to bring a clone of the UI of later versions to 3.1?
Regardless, I’d be inclined to disagree with your point. Windows 3.1’s UI was, IMO, not at all intuitive and somewhat annoying.
Anyway, if you like the 3.1 UI, Program Manager is actually included in every Windows version since. (Except Vista.) To run it, just go to “Run…” and type “progman.exe” Happy program-managing!
As for Win 3.1 greatness : ENIAC _WAS_ great too – 50 years ago.
“As for Win 3.1 greatness : ENIAC _WAS_ great too – 50 years ago.”
Windows 3.1 was never actually great though, not even in it’s 3.11 incarnation.
Alot of people knew about it. It was just one of those projects that alot of people enjoy looking at but never really use it because it wouldn’t make much sense.
If you come from a non-Windows world, sure you didn’t know about it. But Windows enthusiasts like developers, testers, etc knew about it. I know alot of people who reinstalled Win3.1x for fun just to try it, along with the network stack Microsoft released for Win3.1x after Win95. Oh, not to forget Win32s and some old version of mIRC so you can connect on a network and tell your friends about how l33t you are…and disconnect ASAP before getting owned
GOOD OLD DAYS.
hehe, even install IE5.5 16bit on windows 3.x… I wonder how long that would last on the net.
Probably a hell of a lot longer than a fresh install of XP… who’s exploiting 16-bit apps these days?
ha, thats true. Lets all go back to the old apps/OSes! no one releases exploits for them now! itll be safer
I’d recon you’d be pretty safe on the net with Windows 3.11. It’s not the net you need to worry about; you should be more afraid of old or borrowed floppy disks (aargh! junkieboot virus! PANIC!).
Windows 3.11 had an identity. Windows 95 had it too, but since that identity is now used in just about every platform out there, it’s not as clear-cut anymore.
“Windows 3.11 had an identity. Windows 95 had it too, but since that identity is now used in just about every platform out there, it’s not as clear-cut anymore.”
Yes, the Macintosh identity. Get real, Thom…
“Windows 3.11 had an identity.”
Yeah, it looked a lot like OS/2….
Woot? O_o
Well.. true for OS/2 1.x – it looked a lot like Windows 2.x and 3.x.
But there is no resemblence between 16-bit Windows and 32-bit OS/2. Not even the slightest bit.
“Well.. true for OS/2 1.x – it looked a lot like Windows 2.x and 3.x.”
Well, yeah, that was what was available at the time.
I also have this faint memory of OS/2 2.1 and Windows 3.11 being visually similar but maybe I remember that wrong. It was more than 10 years ago, after all.
For some reason my original post was modded down. That’s odd.
Maybe it’s because OS/2 could run Win16 apps natively due to licensing code from Microsoft. In fact, because IBM’s compilers were better, it ran them better than MS Windows 3.x did.
you can always install firefox…
I originally used it in 97 or so because the Windows program manager was so substandard. There was a very good reason people still used xtree or norton commander instead of the program manager within Windows. Calmira let me get a little more out of my 486. I just downloaded an installed in Qemu, and Calmira runs nicely.
I’m 100% certain that you can’t install firefox on 3.1, but you can install an older 3x version of Opera that should work really well (compared to the equivalent 16-bit netscape/ie). Last time I checked there isn’t a port of Lynx either (in case you’
re wondering) Of course there’s always Aranchne, I guess.
As far as memory requirements back then. It’s interesting how our perceptions change. My first experience of Win95 was on 486’s with 4 or 8 megs of RAM. Took forever to launch Word 6 compared to the equivalent 3.1 machine.
THere are DOS ports of lynx and (e)links if im not mistaken. So those work work.
You’re right, of course, there is a DOS port. I’ve grown so used to Windows-only apps, I must have forgotten about it.
Gosh, the more I think about it, the more it is apparent what a dead-end Win16 was. Even DOS had its moments, if only because it got out of the way.
I can only imagine the excitement of having a free nix on your computer at this time. I came along a bit later to Linux, then the BSDs.
yeah, its crazy what all you can do to DOS. you can give it networking, 2d hardware accel, good browsers, usb support (!!!), pcmcia support etc. you can still do a LOT with dos
even load up a ton of ported unix utils so you have most commands you want from unix.. theres even ports of bash.
I’ve used most of those, with the exception of USB support.
DOS seems now like a sort of second-stage bootloader with extras.
Though, I still find myself at the command prompt in XP often enough. Not DOS, but the shell hasn’t changed (much). Nothing still like xcopy or ren when you need them. (total commander being nice, but a drop to the shell so much faster)
Woot? O_o
Firefox on a 16-bit Windows? Can I have some of what you’re smoking?
Windows 3.1(1) in “enhanced mode” supported 32-bit programs through Win32S extension (what later turned into Win32 on W95 and higher).
So it is possible, though I don’t think it’d run usably on older machines.
I use(d) CalmiraXP in my copy of Windows 3.11 installed in DOSBox emulator. A nice GUI.
Considering the lack of stability, I cannot imagine defragmenting a 40 GB FAT32 partition in Windows (for Workgroups) 3.1x – it would be most exciting, in the bad way :p
EDIT: I doubt Firefox can run with Win32S – but it’s worth a try :p
Edited 2006-11-27 18:02
There is also Java available – and with some tweaks, binary patches and what not, you can also have long filenames, and advanced defragmentation in Windows and so on.
The only thing that’s bad about 16-bit Windows is the lack of stability
This was a really nice shell for windows 3.x … My grandad has an old 386 with 3.1 that he refuses to get rid of. I loaded calmira on it. He loves it. Hate to see the project die.
This must be one of the funniest obituaries I ever saw on osnews
For those of you who like the project and if you know about programming, you can always ask the author if you can keep developing it.
It’s funny to see people looking back fondly at Windows 3. At the time I remember hating the fact that I had to use it in work. I’m a retro computer/OS geek, but that’s one of the few old systems that I have no warm feelings of nostalgia about whatsoever.
The GUI was an unintuitive mess that just wasn’t designed for multitasking apps, while the system crashed even more than the worst versions of System 7 that I tried on my Powerbook. Quite a few of the people I worked with prefered using DOS apps like old versions of Wordperfect, rather than having to deal with Windows 3.
Obviously it was a big improvement over Windows 1&2, but just about anything would look good compared with them.Compared with the RISC OS desktop I was using at home, with its drag and drop, iconbar and elegant window management, it seemed like something out of the stone age. Despite its high system requirements and the lack of any real innovation, Windows 95 was one of the few Windows releases that I considered essential.
Still, it’s interesting to see how people have managed to update Windows 3, and keep on using it for so many years after it was replaced. I might end up the same way with Windows 2K/XP, as I’m not planning on upgrading to Vista any time soon.
I remember some other Windows 3 GUI enhancements, for example a NeXTSTEP style Dock and Window theme, the equivalent of running an Aqua theme on Windows XP I suppose. Of course that kind of thing is only skin deep and couldn’t solve the real problems with the OS.
It’s funny to see people looking back fondly at Windows 3.
AOL, even at the time it was terrible, especially compared to its main contender, OS/2 2.x. OS/2 2 provided decent multitasking, could run multiple DOS sessions, and even Windows 3.0 sessions. Besides that, the Workplace Shell was an environment that was much nicer to work with.
I ran OS/2 2.11 for a while, and I really liked it. Though, in 1993~1994 I found out about GNU/Linux, and it was much more interesting for me, because it had free compilers and all sources included. At that time Windows NT 3.x was also available, and it was much more mature than Windows 3.x. I never quite understood why Microsoft continued the 3.1/95/98/ME line.
It’s funny to see people looking back fondly at Windows 3. At the time I remember hating the fact that I had to use it in work. I’m a retro computer/OS geek, but that’s one of the few old systems that I have no warm feelings of nostalgia about whatsoever.
Heh, same here. I started out on computers with Windows 3.x in the early 90’s and even then, it was a pain in the ass. When Win95 came out, I switched to it immediately and haven’t looked back since.
And whoever said that Win v3 was the best Windows ever, I don’t know hwat you’re smoking, but would you mind shipping some of it this way ?
Back when I first tried Win3.1 I was using AmigaOS1.3 and 2.0 on my Amiga 500 and AmigaOS just felt lightyears ahead of the abomination that was Windows.
First thing I noticed was why were we not observing the real file system? Oh, this was the 8.3 filenames nightmare, so they had to cover it up with a new layer to make program names more pretty, but also made file management more complex. Nice. This was so much simpler in AmigaOS (other OS’es would have gotten this right as well).
Also I found it amusing that the Amiga 500 could boot faster from a floppy, than the PC could with Win3.11 on a harddisk. Now how many install floppies were there? 12? 14?
I’m saddened that I didn’t know NeXT at the time.
AmigaOS has always been ugly. I just cannot use it…
But it was much simpler and enabled you to do a lot more. Oh, there was this 32-bit preemptive multitasking thing also! That was great.
Edited 2006-11-26 19:27
I’m saddened that I didn’t know NeXT at the time.
oh man, if you had, you would have been amazed. It stomped amiga OS, windows 3.x etc into the ground… Course it was a state of the art workstation OS…
I still want to try it.
From time-to-time there are copies of OpenStep Intel on eBay that I’m tempted to pick up. I know it is very particular as to the hardware, but I think I have everything necessary. SCSI card, etc.
Has anyone done this with white box hardware (I have an early hp 9000, and Sun 4m as well, it doesn’t have to be x86, if you’ve had luck with that instead)?
Thanks
Building an Intel OPENSTEP box is quite easy and very cheap these days.
I’ve used NeXTSTEP/OPENSTEP on a variety of x86 systems, ranging from a 200Mhz K6 to a 1.4Ghz Athlon, without any major problems. I didn’t bother with SCSI as I had no trouble installing it with an IDE CD-ROM and hard drive using the beta EIDE driver. Compatible graphics cards, network cards and sound cards can be picked up for next to nothing on ebay.
Something like a Pentium 3 with 256Mb RAM, a small hard drive, and a supported graphics card like a Matrox Millenium 1/2/G200/G400, would be ideal for trying it out.
Thanks so much for the information. The fact that there is an IDE driver makes it that much easier.
rich, email me at
nocling AT gmail DOT com
I have an AudioTrix card that works in NeXTStep I’m gonna be selling soon. Dunno if it was Intel only or what, as I used the card in OS/2.
Always wanted to use an Amiga, if only for Video Toaster. Brent Butterworth wrote an awesome article about it in Video magazine when it was first released (around 1990).
I hated the fact that MS got rid of the Write in Win9x. That and File Manger was a hell of a lot more useful to me than Windows Explorer. Too bad I never got around to trying OS/2, other than the eComStation live CD.
This project was useless. Like putting nitrous in a Model T.
I used Calmira (then called Calypso!) with Windows 3.11 in 1990s. Why do I feel old?
I remember using Calypso on my 486 back in the late 90’s. Windows 95 was nice, but after OSR2 it just seemed too slow with my 8 MB of RAM (I later spent $80 on a 32MB SIMM to get a whopping 40 megs). So I installed MS-DOS 6.22 and Windows for Workgroups 3.11 (not to be confused with Windows 3.11), it was so much quicker to boot. This setup also gave me a pure DOS environment when I needed it for games, unlike Win 95. There were plenty of programs still available for Windows at the time that enhanced the interface, such as Calypso, WIN32s, patchdrv.zip which allowed one to skin the title bar (I remember there was a port of the Plastic theme from IceWM which eventually sparked my interest in Linux). At the time, third party software support was still as good as with Windows 95–Eudora mail, Forte Agent, Netscape Navigator, and Paint Shop Pro were almost standard on everyone’s computer. Of course, you needed a third party dialer for internet service, but most ISPs included one on CD (I used the one that came with Mindspring). Calmira was only one of several programs designed for this niche market, for people who didn’t have the money to shell out for a whopping Pentium 166. For a lot of people, this was their first experience with an open source project on Windows. Of course, as vendors stopped supporting 16 bit Windows, people migrated to Linux, and I made the transition to KDE 1.x back in 1998. So for nostalgic purposes, I’m sad to see this end, but in all reality Calmira’s market has all but disappeared and there isn’t much that can be added, development wise. Calmira has served its purpose well. Thank you for your project.
GOODBYE CALMIRA…..One of the best projects till today.
I’ve been using it my old laptop that came with win 3.11, great just great..What more to say? Looking forward to some new good projects.
Win 3.1 still has more uses than Linux (at least among Russians)
http://www.artlebedev.com/tools/browsers/
Leave it to NotParker to get in a a jab at Linux even in a thread without a single mention of Linux or OSS.
Win 3.x also has more uses than NotParker ever will in any reality.
Why would ANYONE want to voluntarily keep using Windows 3.1? I mean, a computer that is 10 YEARS OLD can EASILY run Windows 95. Windows 3.1 is worth runnning only for museum curiosity value only… otherwise, it has absolutely zero redeeming features.
I can see why the guy gave up on the project…
I still use Calmira to this day- makes Win 3.1 in OS/2 – eCom a lot nicer to deal with. It didn’t only make it look “newer” but adds features to make it more manageable. It was a great project, and I’ll be archiving it so it doesn’t get lost in time. The developer has been great, sad to see it go, but there’s really nowhere else for it to go to.