Windows 95 Turns 15 Years Old, Retired Since Age 6
Everybody sing it with us now, "Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you...you live in a zoo," and so forth. More accurately, Windows 95, which just turned 15 years old this week, lives on in infamy as a groundbreaking operating system that was light years ahead of its predecessors, and set the tone -- at least in terms of the GUI -- for future versions to follow.
"If you look at Windows 95, it was a quantum leap in difference in technological capability and stability," Gartner analyst Neil MacDonald said years ago.
While incredibly stale by today's standards, Windows 95 was perhaps the greatest thing to happen to PC gaming at the time, next to the advent of 3D videocards. The OS essentially sat on top of MS-DOS, but for the first time, gaming on Windows was actually viable, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Not without its dark side, Windows 95 also signaled the eventual end of Netscape Navigator. As of Windows 95 OEM Service Release 1, Microsoft began bundling Internet Explorer with its OS, a practice that would contribute greatly to IE's browser market share dominance.
What are you favorite memories of Windows 95? Do you remember what system specs you were rocking back then? Get all nostalgic in the comments section below.
"If you look at Windows 95, it was a quantum leap in difference in technological capability and stability," Gartner analyst Neil MacDonald said years ago.
While incredibly stale by today's standards, Windows 95 was perhaps the greatest thing to happen to PC gaming at the time, next to the advent of 3D videocards. The OS essentially sat on top of MS-DOS, but for the first time, gaming on Windows was actually viable, and the rest, as they say, is history.
Not without its dark side, Windows 95 also signaled the eventual end of Netscape Navigator. As of Windows 95 OEM Service Release 1, Microsoft began bundling Internet Explorer with its OS, a practice that would contribute greatly to IE's browser market share dominance.
What are you favorite memories of Windows 95? Do you remember what system specs you were rocking back then? Get all nostalgic in the comments section below.
