Windows 95 is 25 Years Old Today!!!

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DoubleTap

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THRESHIN said:
Oh god thanks for bringing back that memory. We had the floppy version of 95 and it was a painful all day job to install it.

I remember my dad reinstalling the floppy version. He stuck me with babysitting the installation to swap the disks so he could go do something useful with his time. Thanks dad. My dad was an ass.
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If you think that's bad - I had to install the Video Toaster software on an Amiga 4000 back in 1993 - it was a handfull short of 200 floppies (I think 174 or 178?)
 
Starfalcon

Starfalcon

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I still have my windows XP startup floppies I had to have to install in an old computer years ago that didnt support booting from CD. Boots it up and gets enough running to let the CD do its thing. Its only 5 floppies though.
 
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Aurelius

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I remember bugging my dad to get Windows 95 as quickly as possible, and when we did (think it was just a few weeks after launch) it was like a revelation. Finally, a version of Windows worth booting into by default! Multitasking! Rich multimedia! Gaming-friendly technology! Until then we'd booted into DOS and launched Windows 3.x after the fact. Mind you, it's a bit ironic to celebrate this as I'm a full-on Mac user now and only occasionally touch Windows.

In some ways, this was also the beginning of the end for Microsoft. It was key to helping the company reach its peak, but it also fuelled practices that led to antitrust regulation. And importantly, it gave Steve Ballmer the mindset that ultimately knocked Microsoft off its perch. With the success of Windows 95 through XP, Ballmer was convinced all humans were born loving Windows and that the mere whiff of it would let Microsoft dominate any category. He developed a blind spot that let Apple and Google thrive... which is arguably a good thing as it shook off the Microsoft monopoly, even if it created other issues down the road.

Speaking of music attached to Windows 95, there's more than just Weezer's "Buddy Holly" -- I love that Spencer Brown wrote a trance tune, "Windows 95 on Acid," that uses the startup sound as its centerpiece. Couldn't help but listen to it to mark the occasion.

 
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Aurelius

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Axman said:
I feel bad we've said this much and haven't rolled this out:

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I still remember marvelling at that. It's a high-quality music video! On my computer! Of course, PCs circa 1995 had so little power that you couldn't do much more than run the video. These days I can play a 4K video in the background while I have several apps open.
 
Red Falcon

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HockeyJon said:
While we’re on the topic of inhuman amounts of floppy disks, does anyone else remember iOmega ZIP disks? I still have my old internal drive. 100MB on a single floppy disk, homie! Too bad CD burners became cool shortly after, making the ZIP drive a bad investment in retrospect.
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Yes, I used to use those back in the late 1990s with Windows 95, and their transfer speeds were night and day over standard 3.5" FDDs.
Still have the SCSI, USB 1.1/2.0, and parallel versions of them in 100MB, 250MB, and 750MB variations.

CD burners did quickly kill them off by the early 2000s, though, and USB flash drives were the death of all of that by the mid 2000s.

iomega-zip-100-drive.jpg

Now, that's some 90s sexy right there... oh baby, your removable disk capacity is soooo big! :D
 
cybereality

cybereality

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I never use the Start menu except for sleeping my computer. Much easier to just type in the search box.
 
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ChronoDetector

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Windows 95 was my first Windows OS installed on my very first PC when I was a kid. Having IE4 installed with Active Desktop enabled made it more enjoyable, I didn't like how the windows were opened separately. Yes I know there was an option to disable it but having the IE buttons on top of the window made it more easier and accessible for me. Though I preferred Windows 98 more, thank god Windows ME was the last 9x Windows and ME was trash.
 
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Fifliffl

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I remember getting my upgrade in the mail from hewlet Packard as a kid. Fun times. All so I could play the journeyman project
 
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Fifliffl

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sirmonkey1985 said:
i miss them but after trying to play red alert remastered i quickly realized it wasn't worth ruining the memories i had of those old games.
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Star control 2 remastered holds up surprisingly well


...but yeah alot do not and ruin the memories.
 
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jardows

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I remember someone writing a parody of "Who's on First" describing the Windows 95 experience, especially focusing on clicking "Start" to shut down the computer. I've tried finding it again, but to no avail.

I did find this little cringe-worthy gem though!
 
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D-EJ915

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Wat said:
Am I the only one that was running OS/2 at that time?
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Probably at least for personal use since IBM charged so much for it. I remember seeing warp in the store and they wanted 450 dollars for it.
 
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sphinx99

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This was so true for me:


Mine was a 486DX2/66 that struggled - despite standing in line to buy my retail copy, and tolerating it for ~6 months, I eventually went back to Windows 3.11. Went back to W95 when I got into a Pentium 2 (P2/300 I think) but Windows 98 arrived became available to me in a similar time frame so my second journey with W95 also was short-lived.
 
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Brian912

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Had to mess with the autoexec.bat ?? And one other file to get dark forces to run, what was the memory limit again....694kb? It's been too long for me to remember, if I was motivated I could break out DOS for Dummies sitting on the bookshelf.
 
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BinarySynapse

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sphinx99 said:
This was so true for me:


Mine was a 486DX2/66 that struggled - despite standing in line to buy my retail copy, and tolerating it for ~6 months, I eventually went back to Windows 3.11. Went back to W95 when I got into a Pentium 2 (P2/300 I think) but Windows 98 arrived became available to me in a similar time frame so my second journey with W95 also was short-lived.
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Hah, I would have killed for a 486. I bought W95 to put on my 386 with 4MB RAM.
 
F

Fifliffl

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cybereality said:
autoexec.bat and config.sys.

I wish I could say those were good times, but I'm not so sure.
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Man having different named ones for different games so I could free up different resources to play each after a reboot was crazy. I spent more time getting games working than playing them.
 
Absalom

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Red Falcon said:
Yes, I used to use those back in the late 1990s with Windows 95, and their transfer speeds were night and day over standard 3.5" FDDs.
Still have the SCSI, USB 1.1/2.0, and parallel versions of them in 100MB, 250MB, and 750MB variations.

CD burners did quickly kill them off by the early 2000s, though, and USB flash drives were the death of all of that by the mid 2000s.

View attachment 273153

Now, that's some 90s sexy right there... oh baby, your removable disk capacity is soooo big! :D
Click to expand...
When those Zip Drives came out, I was completely perplexed why they were so popular. People did not think that one through and do the math:

circa 1994-1995:

Zip Drive: $200
Zip Disk 100MB: $20

1x/2x CD Burner: $500-1500 (I paid $700 for an HP CD-R/RW burner w/ external parallel port in 1995)
CD-R disc 650MB: $1
CD-RW disc 650MB: $5

Yeah, the burners themselves were expensive AF back then. But compared to the Zip Disks, CD-R media was dirt cheap and a single CD-R could hold 6.5 times more than a single Zip Disk AND it cost 1/20th the price. Even the CD-RWs were cheaper.

The only cons to the burners was that even at 2x burning an entire disc took approx 40 minutes (80 mins if you're slogging along at 1x), which was an eternity. I also remember about 1 in every 10 discs I tried to burn ended up failing. Believe me, it was the loss of time that mattered more to me than the measly $1 disc.

I will admit that I can see a small financial appeal of the Zip Drive if you never planned on buying more than 10 discs during its entire lifetime. But if you were a data hog like me, CDs were a no brainer - large initial investment be damned! As far as I'm concerned, that $700 burner paid for itself after burning my 20th disc.

Also keep in mind that after 1995, CD burners plummeted in price which made them more affordable for the masses. And they got faster and more reliable. The CD-Rs got cheaper, but that just meant you could buy them in bulk and start burning stuff for your friends free of charge. By the time the larger capacity Zip Disks came out, it was too late. Those Zip Disks would have been a godsend if they had come out earlier, say 1989.
 
cybereality

cybereality

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I used ZIP disks in school, that was a requirement. CDR was around, but still far too unreliable and slow to be worthwhile at that time.

That said, I did get the click of death and lost some work, so I ditched ZIP. Got a desktop IDE drive and put in an enclosure with FireWire.

Had fun with that, it was a pretty unique setup, though it was huge and had so many wires.
 
Red Falcon

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Absalom said:
When those Zip Drives came out, I was completely perplexed why they were so popular. People did not think that one through and do the math:

circa 1994-1995:

Zip Drive: $200
Zip Disk 100MB: $20

1x/2x CD Burner: $500-1500 (I paid $700 for an HP CD-R/RW burner w/ external parallel port in 1995)
CD-R disc 650MB: $1
CD-RW disc 650MB: $5

Yeah, the burners themselves were expensive AF back then. But compared to the Zip Disks, CD-R media was dirt cheap and a single CD-R could hold 6.5 times more than a single Zip Disk AND it cost 1/20th the price. Even the CD-RWs were cheaper.

The only cons to the burners was that even at 2x burning an entire disc took approx 40 minutes (80 mins if you're slogging along at 1x), which was an eternity. I also remember about 1 in every 10 discs I tried to burn ended up failing. Believe me, it was the loss of time that mattered more to me than the measly $1 disc.

I will admit that I can see a small financial appeal of the Zip Drive if you never planned on buying more than 10 discs during its entire lifetime. But if you were a data hog like me, CDs were a no brainer - large initial investment be damned! As far as I'm concerned, that $700 burner paid for itself after burning my 20th disc.

Also keep in mind that after 1995, CD burners plummeted in price which made them more affordable for the masses. And they got faster and more reliable. The CD-Rs got cheaper, but that just meant you could buy them in bulk and start burning stuff for your friends free of charge. By the time the larger capacity Zip Disks came out, it was too late. Those Zip Disks would have been a godsend if they had come out earlier, say 1989.
Click to expand...
Perhaps where you lived at, CD-R and CD-RW discs were that cheap, but I remember them being more like $25 per disc in the mid-90s, and even by 1999, they were still around $10 each; apparently I was living in the wrong area. :p
Not to mention, ZIP diskettes could be written to much faster, albeit with a much lower storage capacity.

You are right about the CD burners plummeting in price by that point.
Oh, to have 750MB per diskette in 1989, and heck, even 1999, would have been amazing; heck, many 5.25" full-height HDDs weren't even close to 750MB in 1989.

You are starting to inspire me... I might just break out those ZIP drives and setup a few network shares on them, just for fun! :D
Good memories!
 
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HockeyJon

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funkydmunky said:
And we are still using the start button. Even M$ tried ditching it :ROFLMAO:
I personally like it.
Click to expand...

That’s because it works really well with the keyboard and mouse format. As long as that still exists, so should the start menu. I remember the first time trying to use Windows 8 on a PC, it was an absolute nightmare trying to navigate. Microsoft eventually had to capitulate, which took long enough considering the fact that Classic Shell was dominating their App Store downloads.
 
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regk

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cybereality said:
I used ZIP disks in school, that was a requirement. CDR was around, but still far too unreliable and slow to be worthwhile at that time.

That said, I did get the click of death and lost some work, so I ditched ZIP. Got a desktop IDE drive and put in an enclosure with FireWire.

Had fun with that, it was a pretty unique setup, though it was huge and had so many wires.
Click to expand...
I made the dreaded mistake of ejecting one too early and lost all my data in one fell swoop. NOT an enjoyable experience...
 
auntjemima

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AceGoober said:
Setup Windows 95 my Pentium 200 MMX with dual-boot into DOS 6.22 to run my DOS games.

Kinda miss those days of literal simplicity.
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I like installing older hardware as well, but simplicity is not why lol
 
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BinarySynapse

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Axman said:
I take it you didn't have to mess with the IRQ settings...
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ahh yes. definitely don't miss the days of tinkering with unlabeled jumper blocks on card that you may or may not have the manual for.

IRQ 14 - jumper two vertical pins three sets over.
IRQ 15 - jumper two vertical pins four over, plus two horizontal pins on the bottom five over.
IRQ 11 - remove all jumpers, unless you're using I/O port 3F0h, then put the jumper back on the last two pins.
 
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HAL_404

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Blue screens smilie'n at me
Nothin' but blue screens do I see
My Desktop, now that it's gone
Nothin' but blue screens from now on

well, at least they finally fixed that, sort of
 
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