Happy Birthday Windows95

Washington Post ^ | Thursday, August 24, 1995 | David Segal

[N3WBI3]

With Windows 95's Debut, Microsoft Scales Heights of Hype

By David Segal Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, August 24, 1995; Page A14

You can hide under a bridge, row a boat to the middle of the ocean or wedge yourself under the sofa, cover your ears and then hum loudly. But get near a newspaper, radio, television or computer retailer today and you will experience the multimillion-dollar hype surrounding the launch of Windows 95.

Microsoft Corp. is spending about $300 million to trumpet the arrival of Windows 95, an upgraded operating system, the software that tells the machinery inside your personal computer what to do. Marketing mavens believe the all-out media blitz is the largest product advertising campaign ever. Print ads – from both Microsoft and increasingly giddy computer retailers – have been inescapable over the past few weeks.

[Fido969]

I still have a machine that runs on 3.11 WFW for a particular day-to-day critical custom application. Solid as a rock.

[VeniVidiVici]

I'm still running some 3.11 workstations off an NT server. It's been running, but for occasional power interruptions, since 1994

LOL! You should contact MS about this. Maybe they'll do an ad spread on you similar to the Volvo and VW ads that show their cars going a million miles.

Either that or they'd berate you for not upgrading ;-)

[Stellar Dendrite]

"I think I'll reboot four times today just for old times sake."


LOL

[Arthalion]

You're kidding! I was a beta tester for NT4 and got a pre-production MS Natural keyboard out of the deal (the serial number is...8). Funny thing is, all these years later I still have that keyboard and use it daily.

I wonder what it would go for on EBay :)

[Born Conservative]

Prior to the release of ME, Microsoft gave away free copies to winners in their contest. I got one of the "advanced commemorative" copies of ME (about 1 week prior to the official release date). Within a year, I had reformatted my HDD and installed W98 again. Just my luck; I finally win something in a contest, and it had to be Win ME. Why couldn't it be the Powerball jackpot instead? ME SUCKS!

[Commander Salamander]

That was always my favorite! LOL!

Reminds me of Packard Bell's "Navigator"

[mikegi]

Win95 was a great O/S. Unfortunately, it had to deal with crap hardware like "Changs Number One Video Card" and "Joes Super Rodent" mouse.

Yep, quite an accomplishment to bridge from a 16 to 32 bit world.

[TChris]

Me is the redheaded stepchild of the Windows family; one that MS wishes had never been born. As bad as other versions were, for one reason or another, Me was absolutely horrid.

[1rudeboy]

I still have one computer that "runs" Win95. All I need is some sort of resource disk to get it to boot (not a "start-up" disk). When I have the time . . . .

[Stellar Dendrite]

"Still running it here"

My god, man!!!

[SlowBoat407]

Why couldn't it be the Powerball jackpot instead? ME SUCKS!

My goodness, what an unfortunate way to phrase it.

[mikegi]

I think I'll reboot four times today just for old times sake.

Why did you have to reboot? What happened if you ran with the VGA driver? Was your problem ever tracked down???

[Arthalion]

Oh, I also have to mention this:

The original published minimum requirements for Windows 95 were a 386 DX20, 4MB of RAM, DOS 3.2, 1X CDROM, and 70MB of HDD space. One day some friends and I got bored in my garage and BUILT a 386 DX20 with 4MB of RAM (SIPP's no less), a 1X CDROM, DOS 5, and a 250MB IDE hard drive.

It took 18 hours to install the operating system onto the computer and boot it for the first time. After the installation was completed, total boot time for the system, from power button to Start button, was about 20 minutes. When you moved your mouse to the start button and clicked it, it would typically take 1-3 minutes for the start menu to draw onto the screen.

It's largely forgotten today, but at the time the minimum requirements for Win95 were considered to be one of the most egregious marketing lies in computer history. When I mentioned this to a former MS developer years later, he was amazed that we'd gotten it to install at all...apparently MS itself had only managed to get the configuration to function a handful of times, and most installations resulted in a crash or freeze.

[chronic_loser]

The way Steve Ballmer dealt with OS/2 put him on the track to be the man he is today. Voted THE most cowardly prominent business man in America today: Read it here http://www.fastcompany.com/subscr/98/open_cowards.html?partner=yahoo-pf%3fcid=yahoo-pf-36></A>

[sine_nomine]

Isn't that true of all MS minimum requirements? Even today?

[Billthedrill]

Hunh - I mentioned that to my co-workers just now (one Micro$oftie, one Netware, one Unix) and would you believe it? They refused to sing "Happy Birthday," instead dissolving into derisive laughter and suggesting that I reformat and install Linux.

Anyone got a Linux build for a Commodore 64?

[wbill]

I have ME on my home PC and am too lazy to upgrade. It works OK for what I want......but I don't ask it to do very much.

FYI, ME came stock on my system. I think that it was one of 5 PCs that Dell shipped with ME.

And, IMHO, Microsoft BOB is the red-headed stepchild. Never seen such a POS Operating System. And, it won't DIE....the stupid little characters live on in Office and XP help....

[Disambiguator]

There are "minimum" requirements and then there are "recommended" configurations. The minimum was usually barely enough to install the OS, and maybe play Solitaire.

I had a recent experience with a machine running a specialized application. The guy who sourced the machine bought it because it met the "minimum" requirements for the application. It kept crashing until we tripled the amount of RAM on the thing, and suddenly all the problems went away.

[ShadowAce]

Anyone got a Linux build for a Commodore 64?

Yeah. Try this out

[laotzu]

bump for later reference