Teens React To Windows 95

Megalith

Megalith

24-bit/48kHz
Staff member
Joined
Aug 20, 2006
Messages
13,000
These must be the dumbest, uncultured teenagers ever.

Windows 95 is over 20 years old — yes, it’s been that long. For those of you who remember the days of Windows 95, congrats on being old (ok, you’re not really that old). For many, Windows 95 is an ancient operating system — as evident in the video above where several kids explore the operating system for the very first time.
 
Are they dumb and uncultured, or is OP just old? Legit question, though.

If you're born in the 80's, you would say these same things about a punch-card terminal.
 
In before a bunch of neckbeards need to express their superiority by baulking at the teen's inability to use an operating system older than they are.

I'm pretty sure I couldn't operate a horse and buggy... because I don't freaking need to.
 
wicktr0n_ said:
Are they dumb and uncultured, or is OP just old? Legit question, though.

If you're born in the 80's, you would say these same things about a punch-card terminal.
Click to expand...
Pretty much everyone would say that if they were looking at a computer before the Apple ][ or IBM PC.
 
I wonder what their reaction would be to Windows 3.1 or WfW 3.11... ?
 
Great Tiger said:
Their reactions are forgivable what worries me a little is how they take today's technology a little too "for granted".
Click to expand...

I think that is an accomplishment of society. Many people take microwaves and electricity for granted, but those are inventions that have improved society greatly. We SHOULD take them for granted: that's the point of advancement. If we just sat in awe of how amazing every piece of not-a-rock-or-stick technology, then we would NEVER create new technology.
 
KazeoHin said:
I think that is an accomplishment of society. Many people take microwaves and electricity for granted, but those are inventions that have improved society greatly. We SHOULD take them for granted: that's the point of advancement. If we just sat in awe of how amazing every piece of not-a-rock-or-stick technology, then we would NEVER create new technology.
Click to expand...

The problem....

Is that tech has reached the point of being magic. You can use a microwave or a smartphone or a car without a goddamned clue as to how any of it works. You can have GPS, without having any idea about the dependence on atomic clocks and relativity to make the system work.
 
Skripka said:
The problem....

Is that tech has reached the point of being magic. You can use a microwave or a smartphone or a car without a goddamned clue as to how any of it works.
Click to expand...

That's kind of the explanation of human history.

People grew seeds from the ground without really knowing a damn thing about biology, they heated metal and banged on it to create tools with the equivalent knowledge of a single page of a metallurgy textbook: The people who USED the tools knew even less. Don't even get me started on the progression of ancient medicine.

The great thing is that we've managed to write this stuff down: The key differentiating factor between a tribe and a society is the ability to create permanent information. Scrolls, books, Wikipedia pages: they are all things that help the net amount of societal knowledge increase, even though the net individual knowledge has not increased much.
 
Its not that surprising really unless you grew up around an IT type person. Windows 3.11 would have been a good one for them to see. Xtree would have been a hoot for them I'm sure.
 
Yeah immediately after they should have said "OK now here's Win3.1" and I bet the appreciation for Win95 would have skyrocketed.
 
KazeoHin said:
In before a bunch of neckbeards need to express their superiority by baulking at the teen's inability to use an operating system older than they are.

I'm pretty sure I couldn't operate a horse and buggy... because I don't freaking need to.
Click to expand...

Great. I just spent 20 minutes looking at funny neckbeard pictures! :p
 
couldnt watch past the half way. guess I just dislike today's youngsters for the most part. while I understand the 'whaaattt!' at first it got pretty tiresome. looking at the video the os hasnt changed all that much really. still got icons, start button, programs...pretty dull looking I guess. I've got a laptop from 2009 that takes that long to boot up (actually that machine booted pretty quick, maybe a fresh install?)
 
Listening to what they said about pre-start button (what they call MS Dos) was just mindblowing... no child you don't need to know how to program in computer code, all you need to know is the commands to navigate through directories. And yes other little girl child it may have been more of a pain, but back in the day you tended to organize your shit so that everything was easily found (something I do to this day out of habit), you want games? cd games, you want utilities? (what today they call apps) cd utils, etc etc.

About the only real pain in the ass thing was the whole allocation of memory trying to squeeze out bytes here in there just to get a fucking game to run :D
 
sfsuphysics said:
Listening to what they said about pre-start button (what they call MS Dos) was just mindblowing... no child you don't need to know how to program in computer code, all you need to know is the commands to navigate through directories. And yes other little girl child it may have been more of a pain, but back in the day you tended to organize your shit so that everything was easily found (something I do to this day out of habit), you want games? cd games, you want utilities? (what today they call apps) cd utils, etc etc.

About the only real pain in the ass thing was the whole allocation of memory trying to squeeze out bytes here in there just to get a fucking game to run :D
Click to expand...

I remember those days. Making boot disks with specially edited config.sys and autoexec.bat files with only the drivers needed to be loaded and the right memory allocation using conventional and higher memory in the HIMEM.sys. Took some time and effort. Oh and the days making special INIT strings to get the most out of your 14.4k baud modem.

I remember before the internet was public, all the geeks were dialing into nodes on a BBS to play Warcraft 2 and DOOM, or just to chat or play MUDs.

I actually kind of miss those days a little bit.
 
I made it to 4:08 and I had to stop the video.. I actually got a tiny bit nauseous.
 
sfsuphysics said:
Listening to what they said about pre-start button (what they call MS Dos) was just mindblowing... no child you don't need to know how to program in computer code, all you need to know is the commands to navigate through directories. And yes other little girl child it may have been more of a pain, but back in the day you tended to organize your shit so that everything was easily found (something I do to this day out of habit), you want games? cd games, you want utilities? (what today they call apps) cd utils, etc etc.

About the only real pain in the ass thing was the whole allocation of memory trying to squeeze out bytes here in there just to get a fucking game to run :D
Click to expand...
Yeah, I caught that too. "computer code"? What? Also, these kids don't seem to understand the concept of an internet connection without wifi? Gotta get a connection to your home somehow, your ISP isn't just magically beaming data into your wireless access point(well, there are some wireless ISPs but you get what I'm trying to say).
 
Betaboy1983 said:
I made it to 4:08 and I had to stop the video.. I actually got a tiny bit nauseous.
Click to expand...

I mean seriously... A bunch of kids aren't able to perform tasks they have never had to perform, and get upset at the lack of usability present in a piece of software older than they are, compared to the current state of the software that has had twenty years of improvements and usability studies.

Enough to make you sick!
 
Hmm.. no way to navigate but DOS before Windows 95?

Somebody needs to go back and actually learn about stuff before trying to tech kids about stuff that they know nothing about.
 
For those that thought Windows Vista was a resource hog, try running Win95 like I did on a 486/66/DX2 with only 4 megs of RAM. I immediately upgraded and maxed that computer out to 20 megs of RAM. I started out my computer days with MS DOS with my first experience with windows being 3.0. Playing games like Dare to Dream(how Cliffy B started his career) on my sound blaster 8 bit sound card as well as Epic's Castle of the Winds was what I thought to be amazing. Somewhere back then was my disaster with Pro Audio Spectrum, a Sound Blaster clone which was just awful. I remember going through the entire Ultima series only to be insanely let down with the final Ultima as I could not finish it due to the horrific bugs.

Anyone know where I can get a copy of Dare to Dream? I lost my original with box, floppy, and everything in a massive flood. Someone on this forum sent me a copy a while back but then that got lost after a freak HDD failure that happened right before I was able to backup everything.
 
Not really surprised I call these kids the facebook generation and sadly I know some university students that are in this group.

They can use facebook and IE but couldn't do many simple task. The have the computer skills of a 70 year old no one is asking them to program code but for the love of god learn some basics!
 
These people are just tech illiterate. Modems exist today. Internet without WiFi exists today. Command Prompt exists today. Both a computer and a monitor each have their own power buttons today. Also, when I was their age, I very well knew about the technology that came before what I was using at the time.
 
I prefer the teens play the original Nintendo better, that was a riot. :)
 
amdgamer said:
For those that thought Windows Vista was a resource hog, try running Win95 like I did on a 486/66/DX2 with only 4 megs of RAM. I immediately upgraded and maxed that computer out to 20 megs of RAM. I started out my computer days with MS DOS with my first experience with windows being 3.0. Playing games like Dare to Dream(how Cliffy B started his career) on my sound blaster 8 bit sound card as well as Epic's Castle of the Winds was what I thought to be amazing. Somewhere back then was my disaster with Pro Audio Spectrum, a Sound Blaster clone which was just awful. I remember going through the entire Ultima series only to be insanely let down with the final Ultima as I could not finish it due to the horrific bugs.

Anyone know where I can get a copy of Dare to Dream? I lost my original with box, floppy, and everything in a massive flood. Someone on this forum sent me a copy a while back but then that got lost after a freak HDD failure that happened right before I was able to backup everything.
Click to expand...

DARE2DRM.rar

Abandoneware sites rock for old games - found this on one.
 
Skripka said:
The problem....

Is that tech has reached the point of being magic. You can use a microwave or a smartphone or a car without a goddamned clue as to how any of it works. You can have GPS, without having any idea about the dependence on atomic clocks and relativity to make the system work.
Click to expand...

Why does that matter as long as there are still some specialists/engineers around who do know how that stuff works? Without specialization technology can't advance. All of our technologies and sciences have become too complicated for any single person to understand how they all work, even on a fairly basic level.

"If i have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders of giants" is even more true now than it was then.

variant said:
These people are just tech illiterate. Modems exist today. Internet without WiFi exists today. Command Prompt exists today. Both a computer and a monitor each have their own power buttons today. Also, when I was their age, I very well knew about the technology that came before what I was using at the time.
Click to expand...

Yep. If you asked a modern computer nerd teenager they wouldn't be confused at all by any of this stuff. If you went back to 1995 the average tech illiterate person would be equally confused if not MORE confused by Win95.

That wouldn't make for a very amusing video though, just showing a modern computer geek who isn't phased by any of this stuff. This video is basically just an excuse for old nerds to say "kids these days...get off my lawn"
 
Last edited:
wicktr0n_ said:
Are they dumb and uncultured, or is OP just old? Legit question, though.

If you're born in the 80's, you would say these same things about a punch-card terminal.
Click to expand...
They're just dumb.

2016 monitors still have power buttons independent of the desktop. While we don't use modems over phone lines, we still use modems for cable connectivity, so there's no good excuse to not understand what a modem is. Ethernet hardwired connections are still very much commonplace in 2016, which also confused them as they only knew how to use wifi. And considering the inherent similarity between the basic GUI of Windows 95 and even Windows 10, yeah, they are just dumb.

That brunette had a serious rack though... but since she apparently wasn't even born yet in 1995, I consider that entrapment. All <18 year olds should be required to wear duct tape over their chests to flatten those puppies, and not wear makeup so I can't tell how old they are.
 
They are acting it up for the cameras. From a usage perspective, Windows 95 really isn't that different from a current desktop OS., It's just a little slower, less featured and less pretty. If they cant figure this out, they have never used a real computer at all. Even with a current desktop the power button is on the case, not on the monitor.

That and the AMAZEMENT at having to type commands in order to use a computer, is really just silly. There is still a command line interface in current windows, mac and linux operating systems...

That is - of course - unless they really never have used a real computer, and have only ever touched consumer electronics type devices, like iOS/Android devices, in which case I pity them. If this is the case, they don't even know just how limited they are.

Still, I can't help but think this is nothing but a big act.
 
Of course it's an act. The majority of their time is likely spent finding dumbasses who will go on camera and act like idiots without trying. I don't know how to use a cotton gin, however if I saw one I wouldn't act like a retard.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
They are acting it up for the cameras. From a usage perspective, Windows 95 really isn't that different from a current desktop OS., It's just a little slower, less featured and less pretty. If they cant figure this out, they have never used a real computer at all. Even with a current desktop the power button is on the case, not on the monitor.

That and the AMAZEMENT at having to type commands in order to use a computer, is really just silly. There is still a command line interface in current windows, mac and linux operating systems...

That is - of course - unless they really never have used a real computer, and have only ever touched consumer electronics type devices, like iOS/Android devices, in which case I pity them. If this is the case, they don't even know just how limited they are.

Still, I can't help but think this is nothing but a big act.
Click to expand...

MOST people use notebooks, tablets and smartphones now, if they DO buy a desktop, its an AIO desktop. Classical "Tower and screen" desktops are only for professionals and gamers at this point. Instead of waving your fists at these kids, you should really have a look about what these kid's reactions say about the industry at large.
 
Meh, just the generation that treats everything like a phone. They might be able to teach me how to use a modern phone. Nah not really, accomplishing phone wizardry is the domain of the idiot.
 
at 4:08 "If you go somewhere and DONT have Wi-fi, that's like the worst thing that could ever happen to you".

Seems legit, unlike being diagnosed with a terminal illness, loosing a loved one or loosing one of your favorite pair of socks in an apartment fire....

So glad I grew up when I did.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top