The fun stuff on the Windows 95 discs. Windows 95 disc owners are talking about it! While we live in the age of the internet where “everything is online”, the original Windows 95 disc nostalgia still hold us and seeing how everyone is tapping into what made the Windows 95 Fun Stuff folder so great. Let’s not lose focus here. Firstly, the scary bit first… CD’s have a life span, which I’m strongly reminding myself. Depending on how well someone takes care of them, they should last 100 years. So that’s the first thing. I don’t want to lose the free nostalgia that came out of the Windows 95 discs.
It’s clearly the thought that went into the fun stuff folder that everyone wanted to know, so I believe I have a few theories into why, which I just want to get out there. I’ve treasured the ‘fun stuff’ just as much as the next person. The Windows 95 discs retailed at over $200 in the United States. Here in the UK, it was over £100 which was worth the same price more or less at the time. Got what you’ve paid off. During the 90s, the yuppie culture (YUP – Young Urban Professionals) was something of the last decade. Those hard workers in office suits who would sit in the offices got depressed, so what better way to entertain them with high quality content found for free hidden in another folder on an operating disc? Who else could navigate into that? It wasn’t just them it’s clearly for anyone who owned the disc, which could of been anyone. my parents weren’t exactly ‘yuppies’ when they owned the disc for me to handle, they wanted me to just have a computer to help me get into university or somewhere.
Clearly it’s another way of getting owners of Windows 95 talking to get someone else to get a computer with Windows 95. It clearly got us to talk how cool computers were because at the time, there was this idea of having a computer, made owners into nerds and that wasn’t cool with the culture which were around during the 80s, early 90s. Before Windows 95, it did take some work to get a computer working, like typing in win, at the console command screen to access Windows 3.1.
Microsoft did have help along the way to be confident to manufacture the operating system on a CD-ROM unless it’s predecessor, Windows 3.1 which was shipped on floppy discs. Firstly the CD-ROM usage was populated heavily in America for the PC. For example, in the computer games scene (they, that’s what folks called it back as I would remember then before it all merged in one sole term, Computer games over console gaming and video games), had games like Myst and The 7th Guest which helped alot of folks get a CD-ROM to experience the game. The success of Myst for example has even found its way into a Simpson episode for example and there’s even been spin offs of the game Myst if anyone would look into it. Around this time, where was debate about how superior the CD-ROM was compared to a previous format, the Floppy Disc, the video game System Shock for example, which was shipped on both median but was said that the CD-ROM was superior and everyone wanted that version of the game. There was a lack of movies on CD-ROMs to have Microsoft to form an opinion also, which I believe.
Now for the specifics on each item, because I really want to move on, sorry folks, I’m really done with CDs, too much to care for to not say anything. The content were clearly to showcase the capability but from an art view, I think there’s alot more thought that went into the selection of content then it just to be thrown in there. Music videos wise, at the time, must of had some meaning. I actually don’t care so much about that stuff because now we have YouTube. My personal thoughts, Weezer’s popular music video, Buddy Holly. I never knew it was actually filmed at the time it was released, in 1994. I thought it was archived from the 1970s, because of the Happy Days theme and Microsoft was showcasing 1970s material with what could be done with the technology. I never had MTV on Cable back then, that’s why I never knew about the popularity of Weezer and their video after reading about it.
The Edie Brickell – Good Times video was natural in my opinion. I thought it was fitting anyways to showcase the material and I’m glad it looked natural with the street setting and colors on screen. I think that was the point of it. It made sense because people usually see computers at the time as very ugly when they were built and what’s on screen as robotic, so the video helped in my opinion.
The Bill Plympton cartoons were pretty much the same, but clearly in animation format because it was recorded in a different medium.
The more interesting ‘stuff’ was Hover!. The 3D game where you take control of a hovercraft to win capturing all the flags before the other team. I believe it was meant to be a family friendly take on the games out there. Before the release of Hover in 1995, In 1993, there was Doom, the violent first person shooting game with the evil look to it. It continued demons, blood and gore, which was popular back then. So someone at Microsoft and the other developers must of thought it would fit to have a game with the same first person feel to it, but without the violence and to aim it to everyone, which includes the family. Not that it mattered if people caught on or not, but by design, it’s clear that they wanted everyone to play it. Hover has been upgraded into the browser but the same game could be downloaded into the browser also.
Clearly Microsoft bundled in alot of other fun stuff in their Windows 95 operating system, like Solitaire and those screen savers, even chatroom, so there must be alot more to talk about from Windows 95 release. This is too much. I’ll see but I’m done with the fun stuff because of the re-releases and re-uploads.
Before 2001 