WEBVTT

00:00:00.080 --> 00:00:05.839
we've all gotten used to the Windows taskbar and start menu being on the

00:00:03.280 --> 00:00:10.240
bottom of the screen by default but why down there and yes i know you can

00:00:08.639 --> 00:00:15.280
move them to different parts of the display if you'd like but most folks

00:00:12.320 --> 00:00:18.640
leave them exactly where they are so is the bottom of the screen somehow

00:00:17.199 --> 00:00:23.359
superior well back in the pre-Windows 95 days

00:00:21.439 --> 00:00:28.480
legacy versions of Windows actually supported minimizing programs down into

00:00:26.000 --> 00:00:32.239
icons that would sit in a taskbar-like area at the bottom of the screen

00:00:30.480 --> 00:00:36.239
but even with that developers at microsoft weren't married to having the

00:00:34.160 --> 00:00:40.399
taskbar at the bottom of the screen during the development of Windows 95 the

00:00:38.879 --> 00:00:45.040
first version of Windows made with this kind of purpose-made taskbar that we're

00:00:42.640 --> 00:00:49.440
used to today in fact one of the development team's original ideas for

00:00:47.360 --> 00:00:53.920
the task bar might actually remind you more of today's web browsers instead of

00:00:51.920 --> 00:00:58.160
having a bar with buttons on the top of the screen you would have tabs at the

00:00:56.160 --> 00:01:02.879
top where each tab would give you access to a running window or program

00:01:00.800 --> 00:01:06.560
this was a heck of a lot better than the previous system in older versions of

00:01:04.559 --> 00:01:10.960
Windows in which there actually wasn't any quick way to see exactly what you

00:01:08.799 --> 00:01:15.520
already had running at any given time because of this many users would just

00:01:13.119 --> 00:01:19.840
keep opening multiple instances of the same program rather than restoring a

00:01:17.759 --> 00:01:23.360
previous window leading to slowdowns and even crashes my mom did this all the

00:01:21.600 --> 00:01:28.799
time it drove me absolutely freaking crazy but there were a couple of big problems

00:01:26.240 --> 00:01:33.600
with having the taskbar up top one was that many programs simply wouldn't play

00:01:31.280 --> 00:01:37.840
nicely with having it up there you see the pixels on a computer monitor are

00:01:35.520 --> 00:01:43.680
arranged with a coordinate system with the first pixel at the top left of the

00:01:40.240 --> 00:01:46.240
screen being given the coordinates 0 0

00:01:43.680 --> 00:01:49.759
well lots of programs assumed that that was where the usable part of the

00:01:47.759 --> 00:01:54.960
screen's real estate started so they would open at the very top of the screen

00:01:52.399 --> 00:01:59.119
where the taskbar would obscure them the devs didn't have a very good way to stop

00:01:56.799 --> 00:02:03.360
this behavior so they moved the taskbar down to the bottom of the screen of

00:02:00.960 --> 00:02:07.600
course macOS users had had their menu bar at the top of the screen for a long

00:02:05.119 --> 00:02:11.360
time but that's a different video for a different day we'll tell you more after

00:02:09.759 --> 00:02:15.680
we thank team group for sponsoring this video on september 23rd team group is

00:02:13.680 --> 00:02:20.400
hosting their annual team event focused on memory the event will revolve around

00:02:17.680 --> 00:02:25.360
heat dissipation large capacities and overclocked ddr5 memory and there will

00:02:23.599 --> 00:02:30.319
be giveaways with the grand prize being a 3500 gaming pc check out the link in

00:02:28.400 --> 00:02:34.959
the description to learn more so how did the start button end up on

00:02:32.480 --> 00:02:39.360
the taskbar well space was a real concern during Windows 95's development

00:02:37.120 --> 00:02:43.000
since many computer monitors of the day defaulted to relatively low resolutions

00:02:42.080 --> 00:02:48.080
with 640x480 being especially popular this

00:02:46.080 --> 00:02:52.080
led to a number of design decisions such as using buttons on the taskbar which

00:02:50.640 --> 00:02:56.640
were smaller than the originally envisioned tabs as well as putting the

00:02:54.319 --> 00:03:00.319
start button on the taskbar in order to consolidate visual elements and

00:02:58.400 --> 00:03:04.400
ultimately make the user interface more space efficient and putting the start

00:03:02.400 --> 00:03:08.480
button there made sense in other ways as well one of the fundamental problems

00:03:06.800 --> 00:03:13.120
facing the development team was to make it easy for users to figure out where

00:03:10.480 --> 00:03:18.400
the heck all their stuff was whether it be running programs or other resources

00:03:15.920 --> 00:03:23.519
on the computer the old program manager from Windows 3.1 was often criticized as

00:03:21.040 --> 00:03:28.000
being hard to navigate to the point that one of the developers claimed that a

00:03:25.440 --> 00:03:33.040
boeing rocket scientist was stuck for 20 minutes simply trying to figure out how

00:03:30.080 --> 00:03:37.120
to open a word processor so microsoft decided on having a single button be the

00:03:35.200 --> 00:03:41.920
gateway for everything on the system including programs files and settings

00:03:40.400 --> 00:03:46.319
originally the button was actually labeled system but users didn't want to

00:03:44.400 --> 00:03:50.239
click on it in microsoft's usability studies because it sounded overly

00:03:48.159 --> 00:03:54.640
technical so the dev team labeled the button start stuck it on the taskbar

00:03:52.640 --> 00:03:58.480
which already showed running programs and the system tray and the rest is

00:03:56.560 --> 00:04:02.000
history i just hope they never pull another Windows 8 and decide to take it

00:04:00.400 --> 00:04:05.840
away from us again thanks for watching guys you can like

00:04:03.920 --> 00:04:10.159
dislike check out our other videos or leave a comment if you have a suggestion

00:04:07.280 --> 00:04:14.959
for a future Techquickie topic subscribe subscribe yes do that