It seems a lot longer ago , but 15 years ago today on the 24 August 1995, Windows 95 was released.
I was just getting into PC’s then after years of using the Commodore range of computers.
But back then the Amiga was just coming sadly to the end of its era and it seemed pc’s with Microsoft OS on them was going to take off.
I first ran Windows 95 on a 386 card I had in my Amiga 2000
Can’t remember how much memory that card had now, but it did run and I thought it was about time I got myself a PC.
Windows 95 seemed quite a big upgrade to Windows 3.1 and although the Amiga’s I was using back then were amazing machines for there time, it was obvious that it was now the age of the Windows PC’s, and as back then software houses were all working to bring out software and games on the PC platform, I built myself a Windows 95 PC.
Although the journey from the take off of Windows 95 to what we have now in Windows 7 has been a interesting time and the hardware we have today and the Internet is awesome compared to what was around in 1995, for me the days of using a Amiga and dialling through a 14.4k modem over a phone line to a Bulletin board and the people I met through the hobby were awesome times, and computing back then was a lot more fun, in part due to computers were so new then and being part of all that was a special time.
Anyhow congrats Microsoft on Windows 95 being 15 today and for many people they will only known of windows machines, but for some of us old farts, there used to be other computer Operating Systems before Windows, and they were at the time better at multitasking and graphics and video, but Microsoft got the marketing right and also the future was about the software leading the road ahead, not the hardware as it was always thought back then.
Whether you use Microsoft, Apple or Linux, Desktop operating systems are well matured by now and you don’t get the excitement in the same way as when it was all so very new and more of a hobby.
For sure Apple is the closet I see now to what I used to see with the Amiga excitement, but with Apple its all about really nice looking machines, but inside they are just Intel pc’s and the media and Mac Fanboy/Girls go way over the top sometimes when there leader tells them its time to buy yet another upgrade, but they do have a loyal following and Apple can get away with charging a very high premium for the same hardware that a pc has in it for the most part and that is quite a feat as most pc makers make a tiny percentage of profit on each computer and have to turn out millions in volumes to make a profit, but with Apple they have managed to do what makers like Commodore used to do in the past, charge a premium for the hardware, the only difference is the hardware inside there iMacs and laptops is the same as other pc and laptops, just sexy looking cases and lots of hype, but most systems no matter what OS you use now are mostly tools and common place to most in the world.
In another 15 years time?
A guess is most of the normal public will use online or cloud storage as it called now, and devices will be very slim and everything will sync no matter what device you will be using, there will I think still be a lot who want there own computer, and Storage will be purely flash memory based by then, CPU’s that prob getting some of the extra power they need from pulling from a online resource pool of super computing power, the internet will be mostly wireless or via new powerful satellite technologies by then in space, with no need for any wires at all.
Although its touch screen everything today is all the rage, I still think in the future there will be some kind of keyboard and mouse as its still a good way to input, but for sure voice and touch will be big over the next few years, but communication will be very big across devices and walks of life, and things whether products or services will change really quickly and adapting to what people in the world want and that’s also why I feel places like China and Asia will really rule the world, they don’t have the red tape, high tax’s and rules like we do here in Europe and the USA and means they can change far quicker to what people want and will ask for in the future’s every quickly changing world.
Been rambling on again, but one thing for sure, no one really has any clue what computing will look like in 15 years time, it will seem obvious to us then, but predicting it before is always hard.
Maybe it will be Google OS and google everything by then 😉
