I remember Windows 95 being released, it was an absolute revolution. There was a Start Menu, a Task Bar, it was 32 bit! At the time, I didn’t know what that meant, but it was more than 16 bit so it had to be better. Plug and Play was a mind-blowing idea – You could just install a component in to your PC and it would …… just work1? You didn’t have to power the PC off, plug the hardware in, maybe set some jumpers, install some drivers, then maybe a reboot? You could just plug it in and it would work? What was this sorcery?
There was a web browser available? What even was the web?
There was a whole world of possibilities with Windows 95. It was truly game changing
Of course, there was a whole multimedia experience that was possible – I had Encarta ’95 where even the opening screen was exciting. And don’t get me started on Dangerous Creatures. With those two programs it felt like you had all of the worlds knowledge available to you! It was real information that people had researched. With pictures, videos, and sounds! I still remember the excitement of loading either of them (but mostly Dangerous Creatures). Wikipedia is incredibly impressive, but it’s never had that same level of excitement about it
Then there was the “Fun Stuff” that Windows 95 shipped with. Probably the most memorable was the video to Weezer’s Buddy Holly, who themselves didn’t know it was going to be there
The song is slower than I remember it. Maybe that’s just the passing of time and how it doesn’t seem quite as exciting as it was 30 years ago on first viewing
Hours and hours on Dune 2 and Settlers 2 became hours and hours on Warcraft 2, finding out my soundcard worked perfectly. Apparently I wouldn’t play the first instalment of games until Command & Conquer was released. Somehow that was monumental. Of course, I owned Red Alert and Tiberian Sun but somehow lost interest after that – There was so much excitement over the release of Tiberian Sun, even though it’s release was delayed. I remember at the time reading that it had finally gone gold and I couldn’t wait to get my hands on it in a few short weeks
Yes, I did buy the Remastered Collection, and yes it was every bit as good as I remembered
I’m pretty sure that it was Settlers 2 which included a demo video for ‘Battle Isle 3: Shadow of the Emperor’, which I assumed was just called ‘Shadow of the Empire’ ::shrug::
The graphics are pretty laughable now, but put yourself in the mid 90’s and imagine hearing and seeing something like that for the first time! This kind of thing was simply unimaginable even a year before. Weirdly it was quickly forgotten. It’s not a game I bought, I’ve no idea why
Then came web rings, the start of social media, ICQ/AIM/MSN. If you were on all 3 (or more!), you had Trillian. Oh, those notification sounds. You could send an audio recording to friends over ICQ without having to think about it. You could make someone’s MSN shake to try to get their attention (I’m glad this feature no longer exists, much like it’s a good thing <marquee> and <blink> hopefully no longer do anything.) Yes, I can still remember my ICQ number
The internet was exciting. People shared knowledge just to share knowledge. Now everything2 is behind paywalls and sign up processes because that’s somehow better. Games had character as they all3 had their own game engines. Now every4 game just uses the Unreal Engine. There’s nothing wrong with the Unreal Engine – It’s an incredible piece of software. But those games that use tend to blur in to one. How many game studios are really left now? Like, 6?
Some of the excitement of Buddy Holly came back when Frog Leap Studios completed the song
Those were good days, exciting times, and technology was evolving in useful ways
Nowadays we have Windows 11, which is measurably worse than Windows 10 by pretty much any usability metric you choose. We don’t really have web rings or personal websites as everything5 is on Facebook or behind a paywall of some sort. Fundamentally, there’s some barrier/friction to accessing things. Not least of all because you can no longer really trust what you find online. Who’s to say it’s not just AI slop that (sometimes) reads convincingly?
But if you believe the companies who are all passing round the same $100 billion, it’s just better this way
Anyone try the fish?
- Ok, it wasn’t quite as smooth as this. But it was still pretty impressive ↩︎
- Ok, so not everything is behind a paywall. But the internet is a lot more closed off than it used to be ↩︎
- Ok, not all games used their own engine. But there was a lot more variety than there is now. Citation needed and so on ↩︎
- Ok, not every game uses the Unreal Engine. But an awful lot do, which means a lot of games feel the same these days ↩︎
- Ok, not everything is on Facebook. But, where are the homepages of the past? ↩︎