Windows 95 was revolutionary. It introduced an incredible amount of “this is how you use a computer” that has stuck around to this day. The concept of the start menu and the three buttons in the top right that so many applications use today originated there, for instance. The “open file” dialog on just about any computer today takes inspiration from or is designed after the one that came with Windows 95.
There was no alternative for it other than Windows 3.11. Windows NT existed but had no drivers. Linux had no GUI. Macintosh was around, but the OS required Apple hardware, or cheap clones thereof, and only ran on slower CPUs. Apple was terribly mismanaged at the time, almost going bankrupt two years after Windows 95 launched until Microsoft loaned them some money to stay afloat; kind of ironic, really.
Windows 95 managed what Windows 3.1 set out to do, and made running DOS programs inside a GUI usable. Subsequent releases and Windows 98 would improve that support, but there was a huge difference. Microsoft put in an ungodly amount of work to make Windows 95 work with existing software despite being incompatible at its core (after all, in MS-DOS any program has complete control over all of your hardware, and now those programs had to share). You could take your five year old software and run it on Windows and it usually actually worked.
Microsoft also invested massively into UX design, in the way that they don’t today. Every single control, window, menu, had been designed from the ground up, while remaining familiar and compatible to existing Windows software and users.
It may not have been as stable as today’s modern operating systems (none of the consumer operating systems at the time are), but it changed the face of computers forever. Windows 95 is where Microsoft’s near monopoly took off. Jay Leno agreed to copresent the unveiling of the thing in one of the cringiest attempts at making computers funny in history, perhaps only topped by Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry doing a “guide to Windows 95” for home release.
In hindsight, it looks old and lacks shortcuts. At the time, stores were running out of copies, for an OS released at $210 ($420 in today’s money if you add inflation). Almost nobody had a computer, so in absolute numbers very few people cared, but for any computer owner, Windows 95 was huge, whether you were seething about Microsoft copying “your” preferred operating system or if you were about to go through your network of floppy copiers to get a version of your own.
You’re forgettin literally all the versions of unix that existed at that time, solaris being prominent, but ibm had their own version, and so did many other companies, all of these ram x11 desktops, win95 was much farther from being the only option than windows 10 was before windows 11
Unix existed in an entirely separate market. High-end computers, data centers, CAD workstations, that stuff used Unix. There was no Unix for home users (though I think Microsoft tried to sell that with Xenix at some point?). Novell (owner of the Unix IP at the time) targeted its OS as competition to Windows NT, rather than consumer Windows versions. Sun’s Solaris only came with computers ten or twenty times the price of a normal computer. It’s no wonder Linux and macOS ate Unix’s lunch.
There were early versions of free BSDs and Linux, but those had market shares smaller than OS/2.
Windows 95 was revolutionary. It introduced an incredible amount of “this is how you use a computer” that has stuck around to this day. The concept of the start menu and the three buttons in the top right that so many applications use today originated there, for instance. The “open file” dialog on just about any computer today takes inspiration from or is designed after the one that came with Windows 95.
There was no alternative for it other than Windows 3.11. Windows NT existed but had no drivers. Linux had no GUI. Macintosh was around, but the OS required Apple hardware, or cheap clones thereof, and only ran on slower CPUs. Apple was terribly mismanaged at the time, almost going bankrupt two years after Windows 95 launched until Microsoft loaned them some money to stay afloat; kind of ironic, really.
Windows 95 managed what Windows 3.1 set out to do, and made running DOS programs inside a GUI usable. Subsequent releases and Windows 98 would improve that support, but there was a huge difference. Microsoft put in an ungodly amount of work to make Windows 95 work with existing software despite being incompatible at its core (after all, in MS-DOS any program has complete control over all of your hardware, and now those programs had to share). You could take your five year old software and run it on Windows and it usually actually worked.
Microsoft also invested massively into UX design, in the way that they don’t today. Every single control, window, menu, had been designed from the ground up, while remaining familiar and compatible to existing Windows software and users.
It may not have been as stable as today’s modern operating systems (none of the consumer operating systems at the time are), but it changed the face of computers forever. Windows 95 is where Microsoft’s near monopoly took off. Jay Leno agreed to copresent the unveiling of the thing in one of the cringiest attempts at making computers funny in history, perhaps only topped by Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry doing a “guide to Windows 95” for home release.
In hindsight, it looks old and lacks shortcuts. At the time, stores were running out of copies, for an OS released at $210 ($420 in today’s money if you add inflation). Almost nobody had a computer, so in absolute numbers very few people cared, but for any computer owner, Windows 95 was huge, whether you were seething about Microsoft copying “your” preferred operating system or if you were about to go through your network of floppy copiers to get a version of your own.
Linux absolutely had a GUI. It ran X just fine. I know because it was my desktop at the time.
And you had to write your own modeline
Indeed you did. Linux was more fun back then.
…no thanks. I would take atleast LXQt or dwm as minimum baseline today.
You’re forgettin literally all the versions of unix that existed at that time, solaris being prominent, but ibm had their own version, and so did many other companies, all of these ram x11 desktops, win95 was much farther from being the only option than windows 10 was before windows 11
Unix existed in an entirely separate market. High-end computers, data centers, CAD workstations, that stuff used Unix. There was no Unix for home users (though I think Microsoft tried to sell that with Xenix at some point?). Novell (owner of the Unix IP at the time) targeted its OS as competition to Windows NT, rather than consumer Windows versions. Sun’s Solaris only came with computers ten or twenty times the price of a normal computer. It’s no wonder Linux and macOS ate Unix’s lunch.
There were early versions of free BSDs and Linux, but those had market shares smaller than OS/2.