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Thread: August 24, 1995: "Start Me Up"

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    Default August 24, 1995: "Start Me Up"

    Twenty years ago, August 24, 1995, amid great fanfare, Microsoft released Windows 95, its feverishly anticipated new operating system.



    The launch was hyped by a $300 USD million marketing campaign, including a "cyber sitcom" showing off the new features. Friends stars Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry made cameos. Commercials for Windows 95 played The Rolling Stones song "Start Me Up," heralding the introduction of the now-iconic Start button.

    In addition to the Start button, Windows 95 introduced the task bar, and added support for filenames up to 250 characters (a thrilling feature at the time) and “Plug and Play” support for installing new hardware.

    Many electronics stores held midnight launches for the product, with thousands of people waiting in line to be the first to get their hands on the operating system.

    The release was a tremendous success. Microsoft sold 7 million copies in the first five weeks, and Windows 95 was soon the most popular operating system on the market.


    Src:

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    gordon_s1942 (27-08-15),ol' boy (27-08-15),OSIRUS (27-08-15),Surething (27-08-15)



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    Being a real bottom end Computer user, I didnt upgrade from 3.1 to 95 for some time and from memory it came on a CD that took half a day to load unlike 3.1 that was on 11 or so 3.5 floppy disks which gave you RSI from loading them.
    A friend gave me another O/S that was real upmarket at the time and it had 20 odd Floppies from memory.
    Vic20/64 only allowed 8 characters for File names which the experts claimed was all a computer could handle.
    I stand unequivicably behind everything I say , I just dont ever remember saying it !!

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    Surething (27-08-15)

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    Haha! Thanks for the memories gordon_s1942 and jwoegerbauer. I remember an IT guy telling us we shouldn't upgrade our Win3.1 work PCs to 95 because 'Windows 95 needs too much hard drive space and is too memory hungry'. Seeing its system requirements again today made me chuckle. At the time we had only 5 office PCs interconnected, no dedicated server just the one with the most data and our accounting system being higher spec'ed. The accounting proggy was a bulletproof MS-DOS 16-bit program which ran like a well-oiled clock and otherwise we did only basic word processing on computer, not much else. Less than 18 months later we upgraded the hardware and went to 95, and only a few months after the release of 98 upgraded all the hardware and OSs again. Seemed an endless stream of upgrades at work after that. My [rarely used] home PC was Win3.1 until '01 when i replaced it with a new XP machine and an ADSL modem. Ahhh! The good old days ... [not!].
    Last edited by Surething; 27-08-15 at 05:43 PM.

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    Win95 was a real game changer. So easy to plug and play hardware compared to the dos based Win3.1. Networking and sharing your pc was so much easier.

    Leroy
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    Christ, was that 20 years ago
    If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!

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    Longtime in IT progression, but 20 years seems a mere heartbeat to us oldtimers ..... [mumble, grumble ... i dunno .... bloody young whippersnappers, always blaspheming ....]

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    i had to put xp on a machine last week
    a freebie for my great nephew, couldnt find enough ddr2 yes ddr2
    to run 7 or 8
    amazing how good & fast it actually ran
    are we blinded by upgrades?
    long live xp
    https://www.facebook.com/philquad68

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    Quote Originally Posted by Philquad View Post
    ...couldnt find enough ddr2 yes ddr2
    to run 7 or 8....
    I've got a few sticks floating about Phil, what do you need?
    Cheers
    Ted (Al)

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    LeroyPatrol (27-08-15)

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    Quote Originally Posted by Philquad View Post
    are we blinded by upgrades?
    long live xp
    Hearing you there Phil!
    I still love XP, it was my last Microsoft OS before moving to Unix.

    I still remember an I.T. friend tried to run Windows 3.1 on a modern machine, just to see how fast it would run.
    Sadly, it would not run at all due to hardware changes
    Last edited by ol' boy; 27-08-15 at 08:55 PM.
    If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!

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    Lots of hospitality terminals, self-service vending applications, etc etc all still run XP. God help them if someone discovers another serious vulnerability, although unlikely now with all the prior patches and 3 SPs, absolute havoc would be the result ..... Ummm, there's an opening for a bright young lad. I wonder does that XP machine gathering dust in the garage still work?

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    Its actually amazing how many OBD2 programs need to run on Win 95 or XP.
    Some will run on Win 7 with different drivers.

    But not many run on newer versions of Windoz (64bit etc)
    If u want to go on an expedition get a Land Rover, if u want to come home from an expedition get a Landcruiser!

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    Machine connected to Wife's TV is still running XP. I was selling 'puters back when '95 was released. We were an IBM dealership. Had one customer, who was in drafting, whose machine had died and needed a machine in a hurry. All we had in stock was an "office" type machine about half the spec of the dead "clone" but we set it up for him and he went off. Rang up a day later and ordered another one! It outperformed the, so called, specialist machine! Time was when the hardware had to be "matched" to achieve a good result. Back then IBM would only specify genuine or Hypertech RAM for their machines and, then, specific one's for specific machines. Now almost any old stick of RAM will work.
    I'm out of my mind, but feel free to leave a message...

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    Quote Originally Posted by Surething View Post
    Lots of hospitality terminals, self-service vending applications, etc etc all still run XP. God help them if someone discovers another serious vulnerability, although unlikely now with all the prior patches and 3 SPs, absolute havoc would be the result ..... Ummm, there's an opening for a bright young lad. I wonder does that XP machine gathering dust in the garage still work?
    Given the more or less revolving door of serious vulnerabilities (as in we own your machine now) that have been found that affect XP since XP went out of public support, it's a given. The saving grace for some such as QLD health is that they paid big buckets of money to Microsoft to continue supporting the OS.

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