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Speaker 1: This Day in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hello and Welcome to This Day in History Class, a

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Speaker 1: show that believes there's no time like the present to

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Speaker 1: learn about the past. I'm Gabe Lucier, and in this episode,

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Speaker 1: we're looking at a milestone in the history of personal computing.

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Speaker 1: The day when a tech company launched a new piece

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Speaker 1: of software and forever change the way we work and

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Speaker 1: play on our computers. The day was August twenty fourth,

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety five, Microsoft launched its revolutionary Windows ninety five

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Speaker 1: operating system. The long delayed, much anticipated release was marked

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Speaker 1: by midnight launches at electronics stores worldwide. It was a

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Speaker 1: costly piece of computer software, with each box of installation

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Speaker 1: discs priced at two hundred and ten dollars or just

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Speaker 1: over four hundred dollars in today's money, but the high

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Speaker 1: cost of entry was no deterrent to sales. Microsoft sold

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Speaker 1: seven million copies of Windows ninety five in the first

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Speaker 1: five weeks alone, and went on to sell forty million

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Speaker 1: units by the end of its first year. The products,

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Speaker 1: swift and sweeping, embraced by the public, secured its place

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Speaker 1: as the most popular operating system in the world. In

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Speaker 1: the early nineteen nineties, Microsoft was at the top of

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Speaker 1: the heap in the still growing market of computer software.

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Speaker 1: It had nearly eighteen thousand employees and boasted roughly six

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Speaker 1: billion dollars in sales. In nineteen ninety Its Windows three

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Speaker 1: point zero operating system had introduced the world to a

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Speaker 1: new graphical user interface, one where applications were presented as

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Speaker 1: clickable icons instead of as a list of file names. Then,

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Speaker 1: in nineteen ninety two, the company released Windows three point one,

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Speaker 1: which added new personalization options as well as multi media

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Speaker 1: staples such as screensavers. It would take three years for

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Speaker 1: Microsoft to release the successor to Windows three point one,

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Speaker 1: but the company pulled out all the stops to make

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Speaker 1: sure the weight was worth it. Executives even went so

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Speaker 1: far as to commission music legend Brian Eno to create

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Speaker 1: a short piece of music to play when the operating

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Speaker 1: system started up. The result was a six second track

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Speaker 1: known as the Windows Sound. Take a listen. Brian Eno

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Speaker 1: took the assignment very seriously, producing eighty four pieces in total. Ironically, though,

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Speaker 1: he composed all of them on a Mac, later admitting quote,

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Speaker 1: I've never used a PC in my life. I don't

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Speaker 1: like them. Borrowing features from its competitors, including Macintosh, Windows

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Speaker 1: ninety five was designed to make computers more accessible to

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Speaker 1: the everyday user. One of its most notable additions in

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Speaker 1: that regard was the now famous Start menu, which was

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Speaker 1: accessed through an ever present button in the bottom left

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Speaker 1: corner of the screen. Clicking it would bring up a

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Speaker 1: handy list of all the various programs installed, and should

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Speaker 1: you wish to run more than one of them simultaneously,

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Speaker 1: there were new multitasking features to make that easier than ever.

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Speaker 1: These included the now familiar minimize and maximize window buttons,

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Speaker 1: as well as a taskbar at the bottom of the

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Speaker 1: screen so that users could quickly switch between running programs.

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Speaker 1: And since it was a thirty two bit operating system,

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Speaker 1: Windows ninety five was also faster, smoother, and more responsive

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Speaker 1: than its sixteen bit predecessors. The increased memory capacity also

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Speaker 1: allowed it to support long file names up to two

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Speaker 1: hundred and fifty characters, and while that may not sound

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Speaker 1: like a flashy feature today, it was a massive upgrade

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Speaker 1: from the eight point three character limitation of Windows three

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Speaker 1: point one. The operating system also came bundled with the

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Speaker 1: Microsoft Network or MSN as well as the Internet Explorer

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Speaker 1: web browser, two applications which served as many people's introduction

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Speaker 1: to email and the Internet. Another major selling point of

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Speaker 1: Windows ninety five was the inclusion of plug and play functionality.

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Speaker 1: This allowed the computer to automatically detect and install hardware

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Speaker 1: such as a keyboard, mouse, or monitor, instead of the

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Speaker 1: user having to locate and install the right driver for

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Speaker 1: each device from a disc. Features like that greatly streamlined

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Speaker 1: the set up process for personal computers, making them more

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Speaker 1: user friendly than ever before. As a result, Windows ninety

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Speaker 1: five became the runaway leader of the OS marketplace, overtaking

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Speaker 1: rivals like IBM and Apple, although the latter would return

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Speaker 1: with a vengeance when it released OS X a few

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Speaker 1: years later. For the time being, though, all eyes were

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Speaker 1: on Microsoft, and the company's latest offering was one of

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Speaker 1: the most hotly anticipated products of the year. Windows ninety

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Speaker 1: five went on sale at midnight on August twenty fourth,

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Speaker 1: and tech geeks all over the world braved long lines

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Speaker 1: at their local stores to be among the first to

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Speaker 1: try it out. New Zealand was the first country to

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Speaker 1: reach the worldwide release date, and nineteen year old Jonathan

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Speaker 1: Prentiss of Auckland is believed to have been the first

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Speaker 1: person on Earth to purchase the new software package. Of course,

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Speaker 1: the launch day celebration extended well after the midnight release.

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Speaker 1: Later that day, Microsoft chairman and co founder Bill Gates

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Speaker 1: gave a presentation at the company's headquarters in Redmond, Washington.

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Speaker 1: He was introduced in typically corny fashion by the then

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Speaker 1: host of The Tonight Show, Jay Leno, and was then

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Speaker 1: joined on stage for a demonstration by the entire Windows

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Speaker 1: ninety five development team. The event, which included a campus carnival,

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Speaker 1: was attended by five hundred journalists, two thousand industry guests,

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Speaker 1: and nine thousand Microsoft employees, roughly half of the company's

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Speaker 1: sizeable workforce. The New York Times referred to Windows ninety

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Speaker 1: five's launch day hype as quote the splashiest, most frenzied,

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Speaker 1: most expensive introduction of a computer product in the industry's history,

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Speaker 1: and that was no exaggeration either. Microsoft had spent three

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Speaker 1: hundred million dollars on the marketing campaign, which included such

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Speaker 1: stunts as lighting up the Empire State Building in the

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Speaker 1: Windows color scheme red, green, blue, and yellow. The company

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Speaker 1: also touted the OS's new start button by airing round

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Speaker 1: the clock TV commercials featuring the Rolling Stones start me Up,

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Speaker 1: which was not cheap to license. Windows most infamous promotional tool, however,

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Speaker 1: was a baffling hour long instructional video that included a

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Speaker 1: so called cyber sitcom starring Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry

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Speaker 1: from the hit show Friends. Copies of that VHS tape

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Speaker 1: are a little hard to come by today and command

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Speaker 1: a disturbingly high price in good condition, But thankfully the

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Speaker 1: whole thing has been preserved online in all its awkward,

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Speaker 1: dated glory. Here's the taste. So this is where the

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Speaker 1: magic happens. Hunt the ground zero personal computing, the nerve

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Speaker 1: center of the world's biggest software company. I mean, the

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Speaker 1: atmosphere resonates with anticipation of mythical achievement. Mythical achievement right

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Speaker 1: now would be an unshewed number two pencil. Honey lash soon.

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Speaker 1: But if you want the job, spend some time. Look

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Speaker 1: at a Windows ninety five. What do you know about

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Speaker 1: the system? Well, I dabble with the old Windows a

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Speaker 1: little bit, can you? Oh, I'm still a mastering palm sweety.

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Speaker 1: Why don't you sit in a Bill's terminal Bill Gates Computer,

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Speaker 1: Microsoft officially ended its support for Windows ninety five in

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Speaker 1: late two thousand and one. By that point, the company

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Speaker 1: had already released a number of additional Windows iterations, with

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Speaker 1: plenty more still to come, but due to the changing

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Speaker 1: nature of the industry and the rise of Apple, none

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Speaker 1: of those operating systems were introduced with nearly as much

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Speaker 1: pomp and circumstanced as Windows ninety five, the os that

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Speaker 1: made computing mainstream. I'm Gabe Lucier and hopefully you now

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Speaker 1: know a little more about history today than you did yesterday.

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Speaker 1: If you enjoyed today's show, consider keeping up with us

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Speaker 1: on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. You can find us at

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Speaker 1: TDI HC Show. You can also rate and review the

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Speaker 1: show on Apple Podcasts, or you can get in touch

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Speaker 1: directly by writing to This Day at iHeartMedia dot com.

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Speaker 1: Thanks to Chandler Mays for producing the show, and thanks

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Speaker 1: to you for listening. I'll see you back here again

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Speaker 1: tomorrow for another day in History Class