3.2. Pre-MFC 1.0
In the beginning, Microsoft created a group called the AFX group (stands for (A)pplication (F)ramework(X)). This group probably was created to come out with an OWL competitor, since Borland C++ was doing pretty well. They came up with a class library that presented a very high abstraction from the Windows API, kind of like OWL does.
[Note: The group was actually formed before OWL 1.0 according to [email protected] ]
Legend has it that they then went and tried writing applications with it for a couple of months and found that it was just too far removed from the Windows API. They couldn't leverage any knowledge of Windows and most of these guys were die hard Windows API hackers.
Legend also has it that at this point they scrapped the ENTIRE AFX class library, and then worked on what would become MFC 1.0... You can still see remnants of the AFX days, many of the source files have afx prefixes and lots of macros in MFC today still have AFX in them.
The AFX group was actually responsible for two things: the MFC library and the IDE's support for MFC (namely, the resource editor and the wizards). The AFX name was dropped in April 1994, and the group's members simply became part of smaller teams within the Visual C++ group. One of those smaller teams is today's MFC team.
I've also heard rumors that MFC was once called the MS Fulcrum Classes.