Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux

Re:Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux by wanderingstan on Sunday July 30, 2023 @08:55AM (#36930690)

Hard to believe that a few system crashes per day was the norm. You just hoped you hadn’t lost too much, would re-boot and go get a drink while you waited.

Due to that “training” I still hit CTRL-S obsessively even when it hasn’t been needed for years.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux by mbwgh on Sunday July 30, 2023 @09:27AM (#36930960)

For me, my Ctrl+S moment was with Apple's Writer, on my first Macbook back in 2005 or so. Lost a whole evening's worth of work due to a crash.

I'm mostly in the `:w` camp now, but still...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux by stavros on Sunday July 30, 2023 @09:43AM (#36931076)

<Esc>:w is muscle memory by now, and it'll never change.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux by gcoakes on Sunday July 30, 2023 @10:39AM (#36931584)

A quirk in my config that I haven't bothered to fix makes it so my formatter runs post write. I've unfortunately picked up the habit of <esc>:w<cr>:w<cr> in rapid succession.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux by stavros on Sunday July 30, 2023 @10:41AM (#36931622)

Oof, my condolences. At least you make doubly sure it's saved.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux by LoganDark on Sunday July 30, 2023 @10:41AM (#36931621)

> I still hit CTRL-S obsessively

Same here, but because I used to forget to save before tabbing over to something else that depended on the changes I made. Now I never forget to save...

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux by wanderingstan on Sunday July 30, 2023 @10:54AM (#36931742)

Ah yes, I’ve had that too: I still wish editors would make it more visually apparent when you had unsaved changes.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux by accrual on Sunday July 30, 2023 @10:46AM (#36931667)

Initial versions of Windows 95 would crash if uptime exceeded 49.7 days. :)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28340101

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux by midasuni on Monday July 31, 2023 @03:14AM (#36939626)

This bug was never found because nobody managed to keep windows 95 up for more than 49.7 hours, let alone days!

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux by Roark66 on Sunday July 30, 2023 @11:52AM (#36932514)

>Hard to believe that a few system crashes per day was the norm.

It certainly wasn't for me! At the time I had my first it job in a local pc repair shop and we had a series of 24h burn in tests. If the newly installed pc crashed during it, there was something wrong with the hw. My personal windows 95 definitely didn't crash more than once every few weeks of heavy use. Programs did crash, explorer did crash, but the actual BSOD was quite rare.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux by crazygringo on Sunday July 30, 2023 @04:11PM (#36935428)

It was definitely the norm, but it seemed to have more to do with hardware and drivers and certain programs, so people's experiences varied dramatically.

Sounds like you just happened to luck into reliable hardware with well-written drivers.

For me, something about using CorelDraw with my video card led it to crash probably about once every twenty minutes of use.

On the other hand, if I just stuck to working in Word and wasn't trying to simultaneously play MP3's while also downloading files, I'd be fine.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux by lelanthran on Monday July 31, 2023 @03:26AM (#36939690)

> My personal windows 95 definitely didn't crash more than once every few weeks of heavy use.

You didn't need heavy use; there was a signed 32 bit integer bug that would cause W95/98 to lock up consistently every 31.5 days or so.

You can load Windows 95 into a VM today and still get the same results every 31.5 days.

[EDIT: 49.7 days]

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux by JohnBooty on Monday July 31, 2023 @10:12AM (#36942777)

I didn't get a lot of blue screens either.

I did a lot of optimization on my systems. Not drastically hacking crap, just obsessively pruning unnecessary services and software etc. Registry cleanup tools. Etc. Also always had as much RAM as I could afford.

I'm not sure if there was a correlation there but it sure felt like it. Seemed like folks with constant blue screens had PCs filled with crapware. Maybe the difference was purely hardware or, purely luck, I dunno.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux by ptidhomme on Sunday July 30, 2023 @02:44PM (#36934559)

I still hit CTRL-S obsessively

You better keep that habit when working in big MS Word files. It still randomly crashes and I've lost some amount of work several times due to this shit.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux by tombert on Sunday July 30, 2023 @11:09PM (#36938416)

> Due to that “training” I still hit CTRL-S obsessively even when it hasn’t been needed for years.

Same. I psychotically hit cmd-S or :w after every line of text I write; there was one time my computer crashed and I lost my entire 4th grade book report because I didn't save. I didn't know how to touch type then, so it took forever for me to retype it. Never again!

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux by rob74 on Monday July 31, 2023 @05:56AM (#36940495)

Contrast that to today, when you have editors like Sublime Text which will reliably keep your editor tabs (or "buffers") around for as long as you need them, even if you never save them (yourself - of course the editor does that behind the scenes).

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:Chicago95 – Windows 95 Theme for Linux by aimor on Monday July 31, 2023 @11:36AM (#36944226)

I remember these days at home. There were websites I knew would likely cause a BSOD and I'd just dive in and have fun until it happened. I was a kid though and accepted that as part of the experience. It was especially painful though because I thought ScanDisk was really important, that if I pressed Space I'd mess things up good.

[ Parent | on HN ]