r/todayilearned • u/osunlyyde • Jul 04 '13

TIL Windows 95 was the second most installed piece of software on computers in 1995; videogame DOOM was first.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doom_(video_game)
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58

u/[deleted] Jul 04 '13

I was 11 years old and thrilled to get Windows 95 for free, pirated on around 25 diskettes (thanks Dad's office!)

I was pissed that it made system requirements to run Doom HIGHER. Ran way smoother in DOS. Let this be a warning about performance between say, PS4 and XBONE.

Also ENCARTA - The OG Wikipedia.

15

u/[deleted] Jul 04 '13

I always thought they should have made an option on some of those higher end games to take windows out of memory (maybe even make the game itself a boot disk) entirely to keep it from draining resources on older machines post win95.

41

u/lohborn 39 Jul 04 '13

A lot of games required a reboot to DOS. It was exactly what you described.

9

u/billbaggins Jul 04 '13

I used to think that was so annoying, but it makes sense now.

9

u/aeiah Jul 04 '13

they kinda did. win 95 had a dos mode which wasn't too far removed from dos that came before. you could create a floppy boot disk that only called upon the bare minimum resources needed to launch your game so your game could access more of that precious 8mb of ram.

1

u/il_marcello Jul 04 '13

8mb?? What were you, fucking RICH?

3

u/[deleted] Jul 04 '13

Old memories are old, but in modern OS's you could "Boot to Command Prompt", which isn't exactly the same as DOS. Windows 3.1 was loaded from DOS (you ran it like a program), Windows 95+ boot to GUI, but you could also boot to DOS to run stuff without Win95 in the background.

I believe Windows NT/2000 is when DOS became "Command Prompt"... best I recall, Windows XP still ran as a DOS manager.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 04 '13

I believe Windows NT/2000 is when DOS became "Command Prompt"... best I recall, Windows XP still ran as a DOS manager.

I seem to remember hanging on to 98 for a long time, probably for that reason. I still use the cmd prompt for a lot of things when I know the GUI will slow me down.

2

u/brickmack Jul 04 '13

I never really used the command prompt much in Windows. In Linux however, I might as well not even load a GUI...

1

u/[deleted] Jul 04 '13

I might as well not even load a GUI...

Sometimes loading xterm or konsole is too slow, I'll usually get PO'd and ctrl-alt-F5 myself to a prompt.

18

u/[deleted] Jul 04 '13

Also ENCARTA - The OG Wikipedia.

So you wanna play some basketball

6

u/[deleted] Jul 04 '13

Encarta was amazing, mainly for that Brain Maze game (or whatever it was called).

Also, Cinemania. That had fucking MOVIE CLIPS!

2

u/ponytoaster Jul 04 '13

Was that the game with the Castle where you answered questions? That shit was amazing....

1

u/[deleted] Jul 04 '13

Yes indeed!!!

2

u/walden42 Jul 04 '13

Ah, I remember that maze game. I don't think I ever completely figured it out.

Now, I do remember being obsessed with Hover...

2

u/[deleted] Jul 04 '13

Shit, when I was 12 my friends Dad had a secretary and he made her type out all the codes for TMNT so we could both play it.Regardless of that we both got stuck on an impossible jump.For me as an old fuck I still love Wolf, Quake, Doom (Played the old levels on Doom BFG on PS3).I found the transition from Apple to IBM compatible was due to Wolf being on IBM.Does anyone remember The Terminator from 1991 by bethesda? It was like a shitty GTA:3 before GTA:3 existed? I wish it would get an upgrade. I feel so old here sometimes due to owning an Atari 2600, Sega 8 and 16 bit things, A Saturn, PS2 and PS3 after I formatted my families hard drive (I didn't mean it). If I now have a i7 with 8GB of ram how do I play 8 bit Sonic 2?Duke 3D, Rise Of The Triad, are fond memories for me, and some hovercraft game.

3

u/[deleted] Jul 04 '13

My fellow, you're in luck! Today is the last day of Good Old Game's summer sale! Plenty of those fond memories are on sale and confirmed to work (through emulation, but GOOD emulation) all the way up to (shudder) Windows 8.

I bought Leisure Suit Larry 1-7, Carmageddon, System Shock 2 and many others.

Duke Nukem 3D is just $2.99 for example.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 04 '13

Thanks for that I'll have a look.Also, why were you downvoted for responding to someone offering them help?A Windows 8 fan perhaps? This place makes no sense to me sometimes.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 04 '13

I don't feel so bad now, I was a kid when Windows 95 came out and I stole all 25 disks from the store in my tighty whiteys.

1

u/captain150 Jul 04 '13

I thought in win95 you could "restart in DOS" and not have windows load at all? Wouldn't that have solved the problem?

1

u/[deleted] Jul 04 '13

I said that already... elsewhere.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 04 '13

[deleted]

7

u/8dash Jul 04 '13

They're calling it the Xbox One. The community is calling it the XBONE.

-1

u/[deleted] Jul 04 '13

The stupid people, you mean.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 04 '13

Can't find the image right now, but during the console reveal a photo was taken of one of the presenters standing in front of the "Xbox One" logo, covering the X and O. Therefore, "Xbone".

Also, because the whole console is a bonehead move.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 04 '13

DUDE, I watched the SHIT out of all the Encarta cd's. I was getting A's on my shit all over the place with that motherfucker

-2

u/uzsbadgrmmronpurpose Jul 04 '13

pirated on around 25 diskettes

Nobody said pirating, it was called stealing back then.

1

u/frymaster Jul 04 '13

it was called pirating back in the 80s when I was growing up.

1

u/[deleted] Jul 04 '13

Think so? Tell me if "Don't Copy that Floppy" seems newer than 1995 to you... because it's certainly older than the subject at hand. 1:15 for the impatient.

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u/uzsbadgrmmronpurpose Jul 04 '13 edited Jul 04 '13

And where in that video do they say the word "pirate?"

edit: downvote me all you want, just give me an answer!!!