Back to 95

Back in 1995 I managed a retail store in a mall. The pay was dreadfully low, the hours inflexible, and the environment? I mentioned it was in a mall, right? The only redeeming quality of the job was that our store was just down from a small software shop. I don’t recall for certain but it might have been a Software Etc. store. But everyday, I’d stroll through this store and check out the games, utilities and applications they had prominently displayed on the walls. Back then, the software stores were mostly about selling applications like Word Perfect and utilities like Norton and Partition Magic. Near the back you’d find a small section of games. Today, just the opposite is true where the store is all about the games and may or may not have a tiny section of other software like Spyware removal applications.

I recall the day Microsoft shipped Windows 95. There were signs and banners all over the mall. As I arrived early for work to open the store, I noticed a line that snaked through the mall. They were lined up to purchase a copy of Windows 95. Excitement was in the air. I was surprised to see the line was filled with people of all age groups.

Back then it didn’t take an MCSE to figure out which version you should buy because there was only one version. The only choice one had to make was whether to go with the floppy disk or CD-ROM package. I decided to head over to the store on my lunch break to see if it was still possible to purchase the new OS or if they had sold out. I was in luck and bought a copy that included 14 floppy disks.

I went home that evening and began the upgrade from Windows 3.11 inserting each disk into the floppy drive as Windows ordered me to do. It seems like it took about 40 minutes before my computer came alive and booted into Windows 95. It was like magic. No more DOS commands. No more switching between DOS and Windows 3.11. No more calling my uncle for help. For the most part, Windows 95 just worked.

Now all I had to do was figure out how to get my computer on the internet…