On August 24th, possibly the biggest marketing day in history, not counting the "O.J. Simpson/Ford Bronco Ad" day, my Father and I had the opportunity to attend one of the satellite simulcasts of the debut of Windows '95, direct from Redmond, Washington, starring Jay Leno and Bill Gates. We were totally impressed with the event. It allayed all our fears, and proved once and for all that Bill Gates has a very promising future in stand-up comedy. We're not so sure about Jay Leno, though.

By way of background, we have been Windows users since about release 1.0, before Microsoft released "Solitaire", easily the most widely-used Windows application in history. We now have about a dozen "workstations" - PC's with at least one exotic card in them - all "running" Windows for Workgroups 3.11. We have managed, finally, to get all the components in these systems to sing from the same hymn book, so to speak, although one or two of them occasionally still sings out of key.

When we heard that Windows '95 was coming, we felt no pressure to be in the initial mass of people to take the plunge, much less to be at our local computer store at midnight to stand in line with other people that really should get out of the house more often. That was before we committed to being on a national talk radio show the day AFTER the release, as an "expert" on '95.

We picked up a copy and spent the next several hours swapping diskettes and thoroughly enjoying reading the full three pages of documentation that came with the Windows '95 comic book/installation pamphlet.

Far and away, the easiest part of the installation process was purchasing the product. Beyond that, here are the things we feel may be important for you to understand about Windows '95:

Memory: They say it will run in 4mb. Really. That's probably true, unless you want to run an application. While 8mb is adequate, the real minimum for any serious user is at least 16mb.

32-bit: Let's see; there are two bits in a quarter, so 32-bits must be... No, wait. 32-bit means that all of those old 16-bit applications you now own will eventually need to be "upgraded" to the new, 32-bit version to fully exploit the potential of the processor you already have. Sounds fair to us.

Plug and Pray: This exciting new technology means that you can actually plug in new hardware, like a sound card or business card, and Windows '95 will automatically detect it and ignore it for you. No more fussing with those pesky IRQ's. (IRQ is pronounced "erk", as in, "it really IRQs me that this stupid sound card still doesn't work.")

MicroSoft Network: The jury's in: it's bundled with '95. By merely pressing the MSN icon, you can personally provide your credit card number to Micro$oft and join millions of your closest friends in paying WAY too much for hourly access to material that has been sanitized for your protection by Microsofts' own "editors and producers". Really. Apparently, nobody in the Legal Department read about Prodigys' success with editing. They (Prodigy) lost a $200 million (US) suit for doing this. But then, Micro$oft dropped that much in one day plugging '95.

In summary, should you buy Windows '95 if you have not already? It's kind of like the situation with "Advanced Pick" versus "R83/generic Pick"; there's probably very little, if any, development being done on the "old" code. My professional, "expert" opinion is that eventually you will have no choice, if you want to use Windows at all. It's the old Supply and Demand thing: Supply the product and Demand that people buy it. It's hard to stand in front of the Flood-Gates.

See you next issue.

Jon Sisk
www.jes.com

Original article for Computing News & Review, September 1995

Copyright © 1995 Jonathan E. Sisk.