Microsoft went crazy with Windows 95 marketing and release.
They also spent 3m (reported between 8m-15m at the time though -- which was massive for its day) on licensing Stones' Start Me Up.And they actually sent some shitty live version which would have avoided paying their old bassist. Jerks.
The hype was real though. I can still remember installing the floppy version on one of my first PCs. The first start up was like Star Trek level awe. It was so radically different and cool. Imho, Windows 95 is probably one of, if not, the most important software release of all time. Shaped how PC technology was used for the next 4 decades and still going strong.
I miss the 90s where every next iteration or release of hardware/software was generally a huge improvement. Like going from a 120mb hard drive to 1.6gb disk. Or getting your first CD-ROM after only having floppies, or CD-Writer (parents bought a 1x SCSI CDR the first year consumer ones came out -- made lots of coasters). Dial up to cable internet. The feeling of experiencing those new technologies was unmatched. It created such a since of awe, inspiration and wild imagination of possibilities. I don't get that feeling much these days.
The last 3 years of LLM progress, to me, feel like 1994-1998.
> they actually sent some shitty live version which would have avoided paying their old bassist.
Their old bassist did not make for good PR... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandy_Smith
I completely agree with you. Our family's first computer ran Windows 3.1. Moving to Windows 95 was a huge revelation about the potential that a computer could unleash.
The ad, for the curious:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=P0AJM6HMYjM
Higher-quality version:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRdl1BjTG7c
I'm so grateful for flat LCD screens. Man, all those CRT boxes. Yikes.
The rest of this video, it doesn't look like the world has changed all that much since 1995. Computing just kind of looks the same. I guess minus the lack of phones in everyone's hands.
And the fact that the UIs are less responsive and have worse UX now.
Is “Start Me Up” the song that goes, “you make a grown man cry”?
Our group replaced the “dead man” at the end with Bill Gates.
Amongst other bodily excretions
There were stories floating around at the time of people who were interested in buying it, having no idea what it was, not owning a computer and not realizing you needed one to use it.