I don’t think there were any other displays of that “magnitude”. It must have been one heckuva an ad bill.
As a kid, I remember being fairly adept at Windows 3.1, but that all went out the “window” once ‘95 came out.
It is only during the win98 era that we really started to use windows apps on our family computer and even then it didn't last long for me as on a pentium 90 overclocked at 100Mhz it was slower and less productive than using a Linux distribution.
I take it you haven't opened the article.
Yes. I worked in government sales (think wear a suit, meet with people at their office) for CompUSA in Indianapolis, Indiana. I had to come in the night of the release and work on the retail floor (the first, last and only time I worked on the retail floor). We had a DJ, free bunny suit dolls from Intel, and a line that went half-way around the parking lot. The best part is all the employees got a free "Window95 w/Plus pack" and a bonus for working that night. It was a lot of fun, and Windows95 was that big of a deal, even in Indiana.
I think Mick Jagger said I'd never allow his music for a commercial. Bill Gates proved that everyone has their price.
...as a diehard Amiga user I just remember how ridiculous it was that PC users would be so excited about OS features which even "home computers" like the Amiga had since the mid-80s.
None of their sales team knew anything about the Amiga, so I bought a Pentium.
(myself, I actually continued using my Amiga 3000 as my main computer until around 1998, despite also doing programming work on a PC with WinNT4 and testing on Win95 - mainly DirectX stuff)
The win 95 launch was just... insane. I was in a band at the time, and you'd get to the bar/club beforehand, and chit chat. When they found out I "did computers", I'd inevitably get asked by random strangers "should I get windows 95?!" Just... so much mania.
I mentioned the laptop story above because as part of the deliverable, we'd ship out a 'full laptop package' - the laptop, in a carrier bag, with any extra 'stuff' - usually an extra mouse, mouse pad, etc. Often people would want power strips for their laptop folks (sales guys on the road, mostly).
I distinctly remember early 96 getting a shipment of power strips that had a big "works with Windows 95!" gold rosette stamped on each box. It's not 'controlled' by windows 95 - there was no iot-level connectedness. It just 'worked' with Windows 95. Because... people bought anything with "works with windows 95" on it. Truly crazy times.
That was nuts… people camped out in the parking lot a week out to get some giveaways and deals.
I had graduated from school and had a professional job by then, but I happened to arrive at the store for Windows Me launch day when I popped in to grab a cable or something. I remember it was sad, they did a launch event and nobody came. So I got a free windows birthday cake with my overpriced cable!
Microsoft really nailed product marketing in the 90s.
I was in grade 8, my friend's dad worked in IT and took us to the Launch/Demo event at a convention centre that was packed.
I strongly recall trying to get my dad to explain to me what it was. He tried to explain but I recall being frustrated and not understanding. Looking back I am not entirely convinced he knew exactly what it was or why people were so excited.
We had a monochrome 286 at the time of which I was the biggest user. We had Apple II’s at school I spent a lot of time with. I was pretty acquainted with computers but the idea of a GUI threw me for a loop.