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A silly new app has been doing the rounds this week: Windows 95 as a standalone application. Running on Windows, macOS, and Linux, the Windows 95 "app" combines Electron (a framework for building desktop applications using JavaScript and other Web technology) with an existing x86 emulator written in JavaScript. The emulator can run a bunch of operating systems: for the app, it's preloaded with Windows 95.
This is, of course, software piracy. The developer of the app has no rights to distribute Windows 95 like this, and I'm a little surprised that the app hasn't been yanked from GitHub yet. And for now, the app is just a toy; there's no real reason to run Windows 95 like this, other than the novelty factor of it actually working.
But Windows 95 (and software that runs on or requires Windows 95) was an important piece of computing history. I think a case could be made that it's Microsoft's most important Windows release of all time, and its influence continues to be felt today. Not only was it technically important as an essential stepping stone from the world of 16-bit DOS and Windows 3.x to 32-bit Windows NT, and not only did it introduce a user interface that's largely stayed with us for more than 20 years—Windows 95 was also a major consumer event as people lined up to buy the thing as soon as it was available. A full understanding of the computing landscape today can't really be had without running, using, and understanding Windows 95.
(Score: 4, Informative) by SomeGuy on Sunday August 26 2018, @06:18PM (1 child)
Simply having NT available was not quite a "stepping stone".
Go back in time to when NT 3.x was released and try to run it. None of your commercially available applications would run natively on it. Those that did run would run like pigs in the NTVDM. Virtually none of your common hardware would work. If you called for tech support you would get laughed at. If you were to try to deploy this across a business, things would grind to a halt as critical applications and drivers would not work.
It took years for applications to migrate to 32-bit NT and vendors to write drivers. And even longer yet for people to buy all new compatible hardware and software. Small special purpose items took much longer and even more money. Hell, there are still some that never got migrated that are still in use today.
The key selling point of Windows 95 was that it was almost 100% compatible with exiting DOS and Windows 3.1 software while providing an integrated and more complete Win32 API. You could load that proprietary MS-DOS CD-ROM driver in your config.sys and it would STILL WORK! Meanwhile you could run that bleeding edge 32-bit application and be one step more ready for the NT world.
The improved Mac-like user interface was a huge bonus, as was peer to peer networking.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 26 2018, @09:35PM
It was interesting how hyped NT was-and had been in the pop tech journals for a few years prior to its release about how compatible, safe and faster it was than anything else, namely UNIX/AIX and OS/2. Even after the release it was universally pushed as more compatible than the original systems it was emulating.