I would agree with the earlier poster that Windows 1.0 requirements were not extreme. Like he says, the modern version of
Windows pretty much requires exactly what is sold today in the average consumer computer store, except that modern
hard disks are far larger than necessary.
Windows XP will gladly use all 256Meg of memory and all 2G of processor speed and will not work well without it.
Comparatively in 1985 all machines had 256K (it was more expensive to get smaller memory chips) and most had 512K. At work all machines had 1M of memory, although the well-know 640K limit made a block of that useless, and the part after that block nearly useless (see HiMem.sys for one use). Also everybody was actively looking at EMM and other horrible hacks so that more than 1M of memory was usable, as it was quite obvious that it was going to be needed soon. Also all the machines had 20M hard disks, I am actually suprised to hear that Windows1.0 did not require a hard disk.
So what I am saying is that WIndows1.0 needed about 50% of a "good" machine in 1985. In 2005 Windows XP needs 100% of a "good" machine. Seems we are going backwards...