Re: [vcf-midatlantic] But...Windows 95...
I think part of the resistance is the fact that Windows as it was is largely still with us, at least in spirit, and that the first exposure people around my age had to it was in a work environment. So we don’t exactly have fond memories of playing with it. I know I didn’t have fun loading it from diskette for hours and trying to get real mode drivers to play nice. For us, early 8 and 16-bit micros were fun, PCs were (mostly) work. For us who like to tinker with hardware in the 90s, PCs started becoming more and more black boxes. That being said, thirty is indeed retro. And I believe many are nostalgic for it and would be interested, especially if introduced with a short history of computer GUI’s, Windows evolution and the challenges we faced configuring and running it in the days of ‘Plug and pray’ which would still involve a short side trip Into memory and IRQ conflicts. Care to volunteer? On Wed, Apr 2, 2025 at 1:14 PM Jeffrey Golas via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
Anyone else that would have been mildly interested in the Win95 talk? Its turning 30 this year in August, is that retro yet?
I know some have serious Winderz hate and thats ok, but I have fond memories waiting for it to boot on a 486 dx2 I got used and admiring the new graphics.
Jeff
On its own Windows may not cause a lot of nostalgia, but the story behind the development of BE, OS/2, Windows, MAC, NeXT, SGI, DEC UNIX X, etc. together make for an interesting story/exhibit Bill On Wed, Apr 2, 2025 at 1:28 PM Dean Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I think part of the resistance is the fact that Windows as it was is largely still with us, at least in spirit, and that the first exposure people around my age had to it was in a work environment. So we don’t exactly have fond memories of playing with it. I know I didn’t have fun loading it from diskette for hours and trying to get real mode drivers to play nice. <snip>
That being said, thirty is indeed retro. And I believe many are nostalgic for it and would be interested, especially if introduced with a short history of computer GUI’s, Windows evolution and the challenges we faced configuring and running it in the days of ‘Plug and pray’ which would still involve a short side trip Into memory and IRQ conflicts.
Care to volunteer?
Anyone else that would have been mildly interested in the Win95 talk? Its turning 30 this year in August, is that retro yet?
I know some have serious Winderz hate and thats ok, but I have fond memories waiting for it to boot on a 486 dx2 I got used and admiring the new graphics.
Jeff
I’ve been playing around with later-MS-DOS/early-Windows a bit lately on old 286 & Pentium 1 hardware. It’s been a very fun nostalgic trip for me as a 47 year old who transitioned to PCs in my high school years. There is something oddly cathartic in wrestling through the finicky pain that is setting up that era of PC! Things were really picking up steam with networking & communications (BBS & early WWW) which was pretty exciting at the time too. Call me weird but I find the whole lore & intrigue around the businesses of the early 90s to be fascinating too. For me it drops off VERY quickly after Windows 95 but I still find some enjoyment dusting off the mid-90s memories. Benjamin Krein Sent from my iPhone
On Apr 2, 2025, at 2:15 PM, Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On its own Windows may not cause a lot of nostalgia, but the story behind the development of BE, OS/2, Windows, MAC, NeXT, SGI, DEC UNIX X, etc. together make for an interesting story/exhibit
Bill
On Wed, Apr 2, 2025 at 1:28 PM Dean Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I think part of the resistance is the fact that Windows as it was is largely still with us, at least in spirit, and that the first exposure people around my age had to it was in a work environment. So we don’t exactly have fond memories of playing with it. I know I didn’t have fun loading it from diskette for hours and trying to get real mode drivers to play nice. <snip>
That being said, thirty is indeed retro. And I believe many are nostalgic for it and would be interested, especially if introduced with a short history of computer GUI’s, Windows evolution and the challenges we faced configuring and running it in the days of ‘Plug and pray’ which would still involve a short side trip Into memory and IRQ conflicts.
Care to volunteer?
Anyone else that would have been mildly interested in the Win95 talk? Its turning 30 this year in August, is that retro yet?
I know some have serious Winderz hate and thats ok, but I have fond memories waiting for it to boot on a 486 dx2 I got used and admiring the new graphics.
Jeff
Being one of the younger members, I do hold a certain reverence for Windows 95, it was my first time on the computer and natively held many of my first internet experiences. I'm sure i can't be the only one that has a strong connection to this era of 90s computing. And i'm not! LGR has built a channel largely on content revolving windows 9x based machines Thanks, Andrew Mattera
On Apr 2, 2025, at 14:46, Benjamin Krein via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I’ve been playing around with later-MS-DOS/early-Windows a bit lately on old 286 & Pentium 1 hardware. It’s been a very fun nostalgic trip for me as a 47 year old who transitioned to PCs in my high school years.
There is something oddly cathartic in wrestling through the finicky pain that is setting up that era of PC! Things were really picking up steam with networking & communications (BBS & early WWW) which was pretty exciting at the time too.
Call me weird but I find the whole lore & intrigue around the businesses of the early 90s to be fascinating too.
For me it drops off VERY quickly after Windows 95 but I still find some enjoyment dusting off the mid-90s memories.
Benjamin Krein Sent from my iPhone
On Apr 2, 2025, at 2:15 PM, Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic <vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
On its own Windows may not cause a lot of nostalgia, but the story behind the development of BE, OS/2, Windows, MAC, NeXT, SGI, DEC UNIX X, etc. together make for an interesting story/exhibit
Bill
On Wed, Apr 2, 2025 at 1:28 PM Dean Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I think part of the resistance is the fact that Windows as it was is largely still with us, at least in spirit, and that the first exposure people around my age had to it was in a work environment. So we don’t exactly have fond memories of playing with it. I know I didn’t have fun loading it from diskette for hours and trying to get real mode drivers to play nice. <snip>
That being said, thirty is indeed retro. And I believe many are nostalgic for it and would be interested, especially if introduced with a short history of computer GUI’s, Windows evolution and the challenges we faced configuring and running it in the days of ‘Plug and pray’ which would still involve a short side trip Into memory and IRQ conflicts.
Care to volunteer?
Anyone else that would have been mildly interested in the Win95 talk? Its turning 30 this year in August, is that retro yet?
I know some have serious Winderz hate and thats ok, but I have fond memories waiting for it to boot on a 486 dx2 I got used and admiring the new graphics.
Jeff
On 4/2/25 16:07, Andrew Mattera via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
Being one of the younger members, I do hold a certain reverence for Windows 95, it was my first time on the computer and natively held many of my first internet experiences.
I'm sure i can't be the only one that has a strong connection to this era of 90s computing. And i'm not! LGR has built a channel largely on content revolving windows 9x based machines
I think it's very natural for a person to have an affinity and/or reverence for the stuff they started out on. The animosity that you see from some of us old-timers is because we started out way, way before Windows 95, and the stuff we used was generally far and away better in just about every way. We saw Windows (95 in particular) barging in with all of its problems, and people like me in the networking world having to develop workarounds for those problems when we thought people should just use better products to begin with left a really bad taste in our mouths that just won't go away. You will never, ever get me to like Windows or even take it seriously. But I will never, ever fault you for having a soft spot for it. Given that you started there, I think there'd be something seriously wrong with you if you didn't. -Dave -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA
Just for the record, we have all of those except for Unix in operation in the museum. Along with the STAR and LISA. Its where we tell about the evolving of the various GUIs. (Not exhaustive... there's a lot more "also rans" that would be fun to go into but not, perhaps too interesting to the general public. Something for the big museum... On 4/2/2025 1:48 PM, Bill Degnan via vcf-midatlantic wrote:
On its own Windows may not cause a lot of nostalgia, but the story behind the development of BE, OS/2, Windows, MAC, NeXT, SGI, DEC UNIX X, etc. together make for an interesting story/exhibit
Bill
On Wed, Apr 2, 2025 at 1:28 PM Dean Notarnicola via vcf-midatlantic < vcf-midatlantic@lists.vcfed.org> wrote:
I think part of the resistance is the fact that Windows as it was is largely still with us, at least in spirit, and that the first exposure people around my age had to it was in a work environment. So we don’t exactly have fond memories of playing with it. I know I didn’t have fun loading it from diskette for hours and trying to get real mode drivers to play nice. <snip>
That being said, thirty is indeed retro. And I believe many are nostalgic for it and would be interested, especially if introduced with a short history of computer GUI’s, Windows evolution and the challenges we faced configuring and running it in the days of ‘Plug and pray’ which would still involve a short side trip Into memory and IRQ conflicts.
Care to volunteer?
Anyone else that would have been mildly interested in the Win95 talk? Its turning 30 this year in August, is that retro yet?
I know some have serious Winderz hate and thats ok, but I have fond memories waiting for it to boot on a 486 dx2 I got used and admiring the new graphics.
Jeff
-- Douglas Crawford VCF Mid-Atlantic Museum Mgr InfoAge Science & History Museums 2201 Marconi Road Wall, NJ 07719
participants (6)
-
Andrew Mattera -
Benjamin Krein -
Bill Degnan -
Dave McGuire -
Dean Notarnicola -
Douglas Crawford