Nevertheless, as you will see, the effort to put in to write such an app is still herculean in its own right. Therefore, if one wants to write an app using Windows OS standard APIs, WFW 3.11 is the oldest one can go back without putting in even more exponential effort. Or to be more precise, why Windows For Workgroups (WFW) 3.11? There is a special reason for this, WFW 3.11 released in 1993 is the first Windows OS for consumers to have network installable TCP/IP support.

If you are too lazy to continue reading and want to dive into code, here is the repository on Github. On the right is my Mac with the Slack client for verification. Left is my Thinkpad 390e running Windows 3.1.

This blog post is a few months late as I needed time to clean up the code and write the documentation.ĭon’t forget to checkout out Part 2 of the game app with Hui Jing too! The App And perhaps what lessons can it offer us today. We would develop a small game for Win 3.1 with great help from the knowledge gained from this first project.įor Part 1, I shall detail the learnings and process for how a new old app can be created with the aid of modern tools and hindsight of old technologies. After all, Slack clients exist for most platforms but I’m certain one does not exist for Windows 3.1.Ī few months later in Dec 2019, I would join the Super Silly Hackathon for the second time with fellow retrocomputing enthusiast Hui Jing. My colleague Subhransu and I worked on a whacky idea of writing a brand-new Windows 3.1 app which was an OS released almost 30 years ago. In October 2019, my company SP Digital held an internal hackathon.

Slack app for windows 10