???? – 1999retired
AlltheWeb
“It indexed the web before Google told it to; rest easy, FAST friend.”
“It booted through MS-DOS and into our hearts, one startup sound at a time.”
Windows 9x was Microsoft's line of home operating systems — Windows 95, Windows 98, and Windows Me — all built on the kernel first introduced in Windows 95 and continuously updated along the way. It kept MS-DOS support for booting and real mode compatibility, and it was predominantly known for its use in home desktops. At its height in 1998, Windows held 82% of the operating system market share, which tells you rough
The line ended with Windows Me, the third and last version, on December 31, 2000, after which Windows XP superseded it and moved all of Windows onto a new foundation. Internally the family lived as version 4.x — 4.0, 4.1, and 4.9 — a tidy lineage for software that so often felt anything but tidy. It left behind a generation of home users who learned what a computer was by living inside it.
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“It indexed the web before Google told it to; rest easy, FAST friend.”
“Daisy-chained with dignity, no hub required, still plugged in somewhere inside.”
“First of the 32-bit line, it left the DOS crutch behind and never looked back.”