Happy Windows 95 day!

Harry Palmr · 24-08-2015 12:44PM #1

It was 20 years ago today
Modern GUI came out to play
Its been going in and out of style
Certainly not guaranteed to raise a smile
With every new device driver a blow
As the blue screen of death would show
Fatal exceptions, press CRTL-ALT-DEL - Oh NO!

etc!

Fukuyama · 24-08-2015 12:47PM

Switching to linux soon. Fed up of Microsoft and their ****ty spying. Becoming more like Apple every day.

MEGA BRO WOLF 5000 · 24-08-2015 12:53PM

The best thing about windows 95 was the grainy weezer video they included in the install cd.

KK4SAM · 24-08-2015 12:57PM

Edie Brickell - Good Times Bad Times......

Menas · 24-08-2015 01:04PM

I have a set of windows 3.11 on floppy disk at home. Every now and again I get tempted to revert....

24-08-2015 01:12PM

Menas wrote: »

I have a set of windows 3.11 on floppy disk at home. Every now and again I get tempted to revert....

3.11 that's for young whippier snappers. I have 2.03 on disks and what's more I also have it running on a VM.

goose2005 · 24-08-2015 01:14PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGYcNcFhctc

Don't forget the classic Friends episode, The One Where They Shill Microsoft

TheDoctor · 24-08-2015 01:17PM

It is now safe to turn off your computer

mzungu · 24-08-2015 01:20PM

XP was always where it was at.

24-08-2015 01:26PM

goose2005 wrote: »

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kGYcNcFhctc

Don't forget the classic Friends episode, The One Where They Shill Microsoft

Less than a minute in and I felt like throwing myself out the window.

the_monkey · 24-08-2015 01:33PM

MS DOS 5 ....

custard gannet · 24-08-2015 01:35PM

It used to quite annoy me when you would watch something on TV in the mid nineties and these middle class media types would casually say that for more information you could check out the website at whatever. They seemed wrapped up in the assumption that in the mid nineties a great deal of people outside of Dublin 4 had any sort of access to the internet.

KungPao · 24-08-2015 01:36PM

goose2005 wrote: »

Don't forget the classic Friends episode, The One Where They Shill Microsoft

Could that video BE any more '90s?

KungPao · 24-08-2015 01:39PM

custard gannet wrote: »

It used to quite annoy me when you would watch something on TV in the mid nineties and these middle class media types would casually say that for more information you could check out the website at whatever. They seemed wrapped up in the assumption that in the mid nineties a great deal of people outside of Dublin 4 had any sort of access to the internet.

I am not middle class and had internet from around '96 on, on a fairly crap PC. It wasn't hard, install Ireland Online from a free CD and stick in the phone line. Slow as hell but cheap enough.

whiskeyman · 24-08-2015 01:42PM

custard gannet wrote: »

It used to quite annoy me when you would watch something on TV in the mid nineties and these middle class media types would casually say that for more information you could check out the website at whatever. They seemed wrapped up in the assumption that in the mid nineties a great deal of people outside of Dublin 4 had any sort of access to the internet.

Shure just call your cousins in de big shmoke and ask them to check the website for ya...

Irish Guitarist · 24-08-2015 01:48PM

I didn't own a computer twenty years ago and knew absolutely nothing about them. The first time I heard of Windows 95 was on an episode of Emmerdale when Chris Tate was reading a Windows 95 magazine.

jester77 · 24-08-2015 01:57PM

I remember being so excited about getting the demo in a box of floppy disks back then. Hard to believe they could fit a demo in < 2MB when you consider how things are today.

KungPao · 24-08-2015 02:23PM

jester77 wrote: »

I remember being so excited about getting the demo in a box of floppy disks back then. Hard to believe they could fit a demo in < 2MB when you consider how things are today.

Is it weird that I miss this sound?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Qz9a8kYYkA

Buona Fortuna · 24-08-2015 02:24PM

My first laptop didn't run windows.

It had a front end menu designed by the nerdy guys in the office.

It ran Rapidfile, Wordstar and Supercalc 4, but if you wanted to run Supercalc 5 you had to reconfigure the memory. None of the programmes were WYSIWYG.

Computing was less of a dark art in those days.

rubadub · 24-08-2015 02:35PM

You had to log out to get any games to run decently.

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T3 P330 H6 E620

knew some code like that off by heart which would amaze friends watching.

Standard Toaster · 24-08-2015 02:55PM

http://windows95tips.com

KungPao · 24-08-2015 03:07PM

News report video from 1995 about it.

http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/windows-95-game-changer-computer-users/story?id=33212036

blastman · 24-08-2015 03:15PM

rubadub wrote: »

You had to log out to get any games to run decently.

SET BLASTER=A220 I5 D1 T3 P330 H6 E620

knew some code like that off by heart which would amaze friends watching.

So you had a Sound Blaster card, big whoop! :P

Andrewf20 · 24-08-2015 05:15PM

Windows 95. The bain of my life initially. Within a week of buying my fancy pants gateway 2000 pentium 200 in 1997, it crashed. It then blue screened approx 3 more times over the next 2 weeks resulting in multiple telephone calls to gateway tech support to help reinstall windows and get the rudy sound card set up which was always finicky.

yoyo · 24-08-2015 05:43PM

Windows would crash and then scandisk would kick in

. And not to forget this error message!

Nick

acb121 · 24-08-2015 07:44PM

Little story for you;

When XP came out, I went to my local megastore.

There was a sign up on one of those conference room paper boards;, buy XP TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT, first 5 people get a £1000 spec PC, next 10 get an £900 spec laptop, next 10 get a £700 pound spec PC, next 10 get a £600 laptop, next 10 get a PDA, next 20 get an external hard drive, next 20 get a laser printer and so on.

I asked the manager, you are having a laugh, arent you. Has to be a catch, this is pure BS. No catch he said. You queue up, you get it. BS I said, a free 1000 PC. We close at 10. We re-open at 12. I'm telling you, queue up he said.

I went off, wandered back about 10.30. 3/4 people queing. Fkk it I thought, went to the petrol station, bought a few cans of coke and a sandwich, and a couple of magazines, got back and joined the queue. By that time I was probably about 8th. A few stragglers turned up. I'm getting worried thinking this is deffo BS, but I've queued now, might as well wait till midnight. About a quarter to 12, about maybe 40 people turn up, they have all been clearly drinking, and a few are ratarsed. A few look pretty well off. A few camera crews turn up, and some of the women in the group are clearly are PR ladies, and start dealing with the crews, letting them in to the store to set up. The rest of them join the queue and there seems to be some big joke that they seem to be in on, that we arenet.

Midnight the doors open, everybody rushes in, I buy the upgrade for £89, am given a ticket, go to the back of the store and I am given a £900 laptop and let out the back door.

Next day on the news, " the new version of windows has been launched, and all over the world, people queued to get their hands on it at midnight .... ". Opened my eyes for sure. I think I threw away XP. Still the laptop was nice.

custard gannet · 24-08-2015 08:01PM

acb121 wrote: »

Little story for you;

When XP came out, I went to my local megastore.

There was a sign up on one of those conference room paper boards;, buy XP TONIGHT AT MIDNIGHT, first 5 people get a £1000 spec PC, next 10 get an £900 spec laptop, next 10 get a £700 pound spec PC, next 10 get a £600 laptop, next 10 get a PDA, next 20 get an external hard drive, next 20 get a laser printer and so on.

I asked the manager, you are having a laugh, arent you. Has to be a catch, this is pure BS. No catch he said. You queue up, you get it. BS I said, a free 1000 PC. We close at 10. We re-open at 12. I'm telling you, queue up he said.

I went off, wandered back about 10.30. 3/4 people queing. Fkk it I thought, went to the petrol station, bought a few cans of coke and a sandwich, and a couple of magazines, got back and joined the queue. By that time I was probably about 8th. A few stragglers turned up. I'm getting worried thinking this is deffo BS, but I've queued now, might as well wait till midnight. About a quarter to 12, about maybe 40 people turn up, they have all been clearly drinking, and a few are ratarsed. A few look pretty well off. A few camera crews turn up, and some of the women in the group are clearly are PR ladies, and start dealing with the crews, letting them in to the store to set up. The rest of them join the queue and there seems to be some big joke that they seem to be in on, that we arenet.

Midnight the doors open, everybody rushes in, I buy the upgrade for £89, am given a ticket, go to the back of the store and I am given a £900 laptop and let out the back door.

Next day on the news, " the new version of windows has been launched, and all over the world, people queued to get their hands on it at midnight .... ". Opened my eyes for sure. I think I threw away XP. Still the laptop was nice.

I'm surprised the manager didn't tell all his friends and family to queue up and buy themselves a 90 quid laptop.

Ruu · 24-08-2015 08:07PM

Menas wrote: »

I have a set of windows 3.11 on floppy disk at home. Every now and again I get tempted to revert....

Hotdog theme, burned my retinas.

Now get down to this!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EtoHxMWw354

acb121 · 24-08-2015 08:13PM

I forgot;

I knew him, cos I used to go there a lot. I phoned him the next afternoon to say thanks for the tip off. He said, come back, we have loads of stuff, they still had PDAs, laser printers, Disc burners (and these were about £400 at the time), external hard drives, and lots of other good stuff.

The thing was, before that, I had seen on the news people going mad rushing into shops to buy previous Windows and I had thought " nerds ", queing at midnight for a new version of windows.

Of course, then it clicked, the queue in Tokyo, Sydney, New York, Berlin, was full of people like me on the promise of a free laptop. Not even that, there was maybe 20 genuine customers, and then 30 stooges rolling up from the pub who all knew the PR girls in some way.

So of course, when it was on the news, I saw myself. When the new Windows was announced, I did ask around if they were having the official London midnight laucnch again, but I guess it was somewhere else ....

ToddyDoody · 24-08-2015 08:16PM

We had the pipes screensaver.. the one where the pipes would build along the screen then disappear.
We never had the flying through space screen saver which was so disappointing!
Then things really got going and somehow we ended up with a cool 'under water' screen saver which would give out a drip or swimming sound from time to time.

Herb Powell · 24-08-2015 08:21PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRsPheErBj8

Happy Windows 95 day!

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