#microserfs
I was reminded of this because as we all know by now, Bill & Melinda Gates have broken up.
I immediately thought of the Douglas Coupland’s classic Microserfs when the characters (who previously worked at Microsoft) found out that Bill & Melinda got married in early 1994:
Then, I remembered Start Me Up.
Which I always associate with the launch of Windows 95 in the late Summer of 1995, because it was used big time in the commercials for the operating system.
[The lady in commercial using laptop in a taxi cab – who was doing that in 1995 – who is doing that today?]
(source)
I also associate Windows 95 with my mom and I going to WalMart on a regular basis that Summer. WalMart was a ~new thing~ for us after we avoided it for the first few years of it being open in our town due to store being ~too crowded~. On the outside of our WalMart, there was this huge banner advertising Windows 95 arriving on August 24th. It looked just like this photo I had to mock up in Pixlr because I surprisingly couldn’t find one online.
From my local newspaper, Daily Press:
Cold Pizza Hut < Windows 95 at the CompUSA in Norfolk. 2,000 customers at the midnight launch!
“Ｉ ｋｎｏｗ ｉ＇ｌｌ ｗａｎｔ ｔｈｉｓ， ｉｔ ｗｉｌｌ ｂｅ ｐｅｒｆｅｃｔ ｆｏｒ ｍｅ.” - Sal
OS/2 was IBM’s operating system. It’s last version came out in 1996.
Here’s the Coke commercial. I’ve noticed in nearly all the photos I’ve found of guys in stores buying Windows 95, they’re all dressed like Bill. That polo shirt/baggy khaki combo.
I got excited to see that I could find archives of the newspaper from Staunton, VA, where I lived for 2 years while I finished college. Only one person bought it at the KMart in Waynesboro!
While tropical storm-like weather plagued Central Florida, Alan Blalock still went out in the elements to get a copy.
The price signs at Sam’s Club still look like that in 2021.
Wait, so Allen in the photo bought it on launch day, but wasn’t installing it until the end of the year?
Jay Leno helped Bill Gates introduce Windows 95 in a show shown at computer stores. Of course he had to tell a lame O.J. trial joke:
Windows 95 can do so many things, it can keep track of all of O.J.’s alibi at once.
I still haven’t found any news coverage of these “computer geek costume balls”.
At CompUSA you could take a 3 hour $79 class on Windows 95.
Even Rachel and Chandler got into the Windows 95 hype. They were the stars of an infomercial video for the software. Rachel thought that cutting and pasting files was “trippy”. Check out that ergonomic keyboard! Love those.
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