I’ve been thinking of doing this for awhile and I finally am getting to do it. I’ve wanted to do a short series on looking back in the past of the Operating systems I have used over the years. Most of these will have video companion on my YouTube channel and some will not. I hope anyone reading this will enjoy this little series of videos and blog posts about the OS’s I’ve used and maybe will bring you some nostalgia.
The Birth of a Computer Nerd:
My fascination with computers came long before I had a my computer at home but I didn’t really get into it until I had my own that I could do whatever I wanted to without getting in trouble at school. I was in 3rd grade and it was around my birthday and I don’t remember if I asked for it or if I was asked if I wanted a computer, I just remember I wanted a Apple computer. Mostly cause my school used Macs so that’s what I was used to,I don’t think I had ever even herd of Windows at that point of time.
Of course I didn’t get a Mac cause even then they were expensive, but I did get a computer a PC made by compaq. I remember my mom picking me up from school and telling me that my grandparents wanted to see me when I got home. This didn’t surprise me too much since it was around my birthday. I came home took my backpack off and went to my grandparents side of the house. (We lived in a double house that my grandparents owned). I think I remember them giving me a birthday card but I was bad at reading and didn’t really know what it said and so I said thank you, they lead me out back were there vane was and my grandpa opened the door. Before the door was even open I could see it was a computer. I could have cared less that it wasn’t a Mac I was just so excited. They got me everything I could have needed, speakers, a printer, the pc, monitor, and a desk to put it all on.
That night I remember sitting in the dinning room were we put the boxes until my uncle and grandpa could put the desk together. I just sat there staring at the boxes and looking at the pictures on them. I even open one box looking at some of the papers and CDs that were in it. I wanted nothing more then to just take everything out right then and there, and just put everything together on the dinning room table and use it. But I couldn’t and I think I had school in the morning. It was a week later before the desk was put together and the computer was set up.
The computer it’s self was a Compaq Presario internet ready PC running Windows 98 had about 98 MB of memory and 2 GBs of hard drive space, a ATI CPU, and a CD-ROM drive.Once everything was setup I just so happy I just started looking around and clicking things to see what they were and playing around in MS paint and the educational games my mom got me for the computer. At this point I didn’t have the internet and it would be another year before I did. But I had no problem with that. I just kept playing and exploring, every thing was new and exciting.
At some point I did something to the computer and it wasn’t working right and I had to ask my uncle to fix it. He ended up using the restore disks that come with the computer and everything was fine again. This was a significant moment for me, learning what the restore disks did. I learned if I fucked up the software on the computer all I had to do is use those disks and everything went back the way it was when I first turned it on. So I started exploring more of the computer going into the C: drive and seeing were things went when I installed them from a CD and other things. This was how I learned how to use a computer and slowly figured out how windows worked.
Windows Memphis:
Now that you know my story let’s talk a bit about Windows 98’s story. Windows 98s development started as early as 1990 and went under the code name Windows Memphis. At one point it was even called windows 97 before finally coming out in 1998 as windows 98. Then a year later they did a update called windows 98 Second Edition, which came with a lot of stability improvements and features.
Windows 98 was supported from 1999 to 2002 and extended support didn’t end until 2006. When I was looking this information up it kind of felt weird that windows 98 was being supported up to a year before the original iPhone was released. Thats just crazy.
Back to the Future:
I guess I should end this and say its nice to look back at this operating system that I had on hardware that I took to the limit at the time. Windows 98 will always have a place in my hart and in my memory, mostly good ones though a lot of them are a dark blue color. Though that wasn’t all windows fault, we can pin some of that on DOS. But it will always be my first OS and the first OS that took me online.
I plan on continuing this with series with the next computer I got which ran Windows XP. We will be taking a look at XP in the next blog post.
