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But I wasn’t using it.
There was nothing particularly exciting about DOS or Microsoft, at least back then.
Bill Gates, left, with Paul Allen in 1984
It was pervasive but not iconic.
I booted up the computer and started playing around in what was then Windows 2.0.
Apple products were mentioned, but far from the focus.
Bill Gates poses with a stack of Microsoft Word and Microsoft Mouse boxes in 1986
Not long after I joined PCMag, Microsoft released Windows 3.1.
Our job at PCMag was to guide our one million readers through the upgrade process.
There was no world wide web, so I called and faxed everyone.
Bill Gates poses with a stack of Microsoft Word and Microsoft Mouse boxes in 1986
Windows 95 Plus, which includedInternet Explorer, would arrive later, and cost an additional $49.99.
As with MS-DOS before it, soon, virtually all new PCs were shipping with Windows 95.
I became quite adept at using Autoexec.bat and Config.sys to manage the Windows configs and startup.
These were the days when all the big computing news was in print
That time I attended the Windows 95 launch.
I even chatted up @BillGates.
Wish I had a picture of that.
Bill Gates and Jay Leno at the Windows 95 launch in 1995. Leno delivered an impromptu comedy set on the Microsoft Campus lawn
Most of what I wrote related to how it would be perceived on Netscape.
That, of course, changed when Microsoft started shipping Windows 95 with Internet Explorer pre-installed.
I also remember how the initial OLE demo was basically an animation and not the real thing.
Bill Gates at 1998, speaking about the US government’s antitrust case against Microsoft
Microsoft eventually got it right.
Yes, the Surface Duo is 5G.
It has a 90hz screen.
Bill Gates at the Microsoft Office launch in 2003
More recently, Microsoft launched and then abandoned its cutting-edgeHoloLensmixed-reality headset, and launched an entire line ofSurfacecomputing devices.
It’s had a vexed history with phones.
I traveled back out to Redmond in 2012 for the initial Surface launch.
Steven Sinofsky and Panos Panay unveil the first Microsoft Surface device in 2012
Microsoft had no answer for the iPod or, later, for the iPhone.
But Microsoft at 50 seems to own that middle-aged mantle.
I sat in on many of his product launches, which could be over-hyped and sweaty affairs.
The one time we spoke directly, I complimented him on helping usher USB 2.0 into broad adoption.
Microsoft improbably dashed to the forefront of the nascent market with a surprising partnership and investment inOpenAI.
Suddenly,Bing, the search engine almost no one uses, could handle generative prompts.
It’s not just Microsoft that has to deal with this.
