Anyone remember Windows versions before Windows 95? When Windows ran on top of MS-DOS (you would type “win” to start it, which inspired the “type “win” and you lose” joke :)).
For some reason, even though it’s been more than a decade, I remembered something today, which I want to share.
- Windows 3.0, sometimes, had errors which would mysteriously, unexplainably and in a non-repeatable way crash an application, or even the entire Windows system. They were called “Unrecoverable Application Errors” (UAEs).
- Windows 3.1, sometimes, had errors which would mysteriously, unexplainably and in a non-repeatable way crash an application, or even the entire Windows system. They were called “General Protection Faults” (GPFs).
Notice anything yet? 
Of course, MS boasted (and computer magazines repeated their boast as “news”, as always) that they had “fixed UAEs” between Windows 3.0 and 3.1.
But they didn’t mention that they did it… by renaming them. 
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“It isn’t my fault, it’s General Protection’s Fault.”