Latest news with #Windows95
Buzz Feed
10 hours ago
- Entertainment
- Buzz Feed
Basic Skills From The '90s That Nobody Under 25 Can Do
Nostalgia is absolutely my I reminisce about the good ol' days an embarrassing amount. I also spend way too much time spiraling over the fact that the '90s ended over 25 years ago, and comparing what life is like NOW to how it was BACK THEN. You get me, don't you? So to my delight, millennials on Reddit have recently been sharing the "trivial skills" they have that "others don't use anymore," and it's such a blast from the past! TBH, I'm pretty embarrassed I forgot about some of these things, yet simultaneously happy to be reminded of them now. So without further ado, here's what people said: "Burning a CD." "Remember when we had to have a typing speed of at least 60 words per minute to be considered for an office job?" And similarly: "I can text like crazy fast on a T9 keypad." "My penmanship is trash, but my ability to read cursive handwriting appears to be a superpower to my younger coworkers." "The ability to be alone with my thoughts for a few moments without losing my damn mind." "I know the secret to recording over VHS tapes that weren't meant for it." "Memorizing phone numbers." "How to use a map, AND fold it back up the right way." "I can unwind spiral telephone cords when they get a kink!" "I used to be a projectionist at a movie theatre. Most theaters are all digital now." "Keeping a Tamagotchi alive for more than 3 days." "I can both write a check and I can address an envelope to mail it to you." "Installing software via 10+ floppy disks. Anyone else install Windows 95 from a stack of floppies?" "I can honestly say things like: 'I managed a video store,' 'I learned basic coding from making my MySpace page cool,' and the ever-popular 'I learned how to play the trumpet, French horn, and trombone in order to play in a ska band.'" "The Dewey Decimal System." "The 'double space after a period' muscle memory." "Rewinding a cassette tape..." "MySpace background layouts." "I used to operate a keypunch card in the caveman days of the early 1970s." "I can drive a manual. Still a thing these days, but they're very rare, and most people can't." "I can use 'Save As.'" "My high school computer teacher thought it was important for us to read punch cards. I can still calculate the ASCII code, and I still remember that 'A' is 65. Yeah, not really useful anymore." "I almost always know which way north is." "How to use an actual printed dictionary." "Making a phone call without any type of anxiety." "I used to dial my friend's phone number by tapping the hang-up buttons, which simulated a rotary dial phone." "Cleaning out Super Nintendo cartridges." "I know who Tom is and why he's my friend." "I can tell the time using an analog clock." "Counting change correctly. That's $3.64, out of $20? 36 cents makes four...(grab $1) five, (grab $5) ten, and (grab $10) ten makes twenty." And finally: "Understanding a computer's folder system. I've met so many younger people who use technology 24/7, but don't understand computer file hierarchy at all, and it boggles my mind. Some don't even understand the difference between 'the cloud' and files they have on their computer." Now, if you're 25 or older, I wanna hear from you: what's a basic life skill that no young adults seem to have nowadays? Let's get honest! Answer in the anonymous form here, or in the comments below. And for more nostalgic content, be sure to follow BuzzFeed Canada on Instagram and TikTok!
Gizmodo
6 days ago
- Entertainment
- Gizmodo
This Retro PC Case Gives Your Gaming Rig Big Windows 95 Energy
Nostalgia is a hell of a drug. It's enough to turn off the parts of my brain that would normally despise the look of a big, gray, plastic box and transform me into a drooling retro devotee ready to hand over his cash just to hear those fans whir. That was my first reaction when I saw custom PC maker Maingear's new Retro95 throwback PC case. It comes packed with the modern components you expect to see in a modern gaming rig, but it adds extras like an optical disc drive and I/O ports hidden under a flap where you'd expect to find a floppy disk drive. The Retro95 is housed in a custom SilverStone FLP01 horizontal chassis that first hit the scene late last year. Maingear added its own embellishments, including a Windows 95-esque version of its logo above the twin USB-C ports out front. There's a cheeky 'Maingear Inside' sticker on the side of the device meant to help you reminisce when Intel stuck similar messaging on the side of every PC case. That's a little ironic, considering the case comes with options for both AMD and Intel CPUs. You can get a version with a powerful gaming CPU like the AMD Ryzen 7 9800X3D and up to an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5080 GPU. Maingear said it chose its components while keeping in mind 'modern thermals,' though that will be tight considering the RTX 5080 will essentially cut off airflow between one side of the case and the other. The optical drive is large enough that it juts out and overlaps the CPU cooler by a few centimeters. The system supports Noctua fans and up to an 850W PSU, and Maingear has a strong track record on gaming rigs with some of the best cable management I've personally experienced on pre-built PCs, like with the company's MG-1 PC. Beyond aesthetics, seeing that 24x DVD-R drive is a reminder of some of my first PC builds, back when I still had enough game discs to warrant the optical drive hovering above the big block that was my HDD. As much as it might sound fun to slot in your old copy of Planescape: Torment on disc to play in the old way, you'll run up against the mountain of compatibility issues with Windows 11 and all the new components in your rig. You'll either need to download mods and get good at troubleshooting or else turn to services like GOG's Good Old Games preservation service and continue to rely on digital downloads. You could source a Blu-ray DVD player to watch a few modern films on your PC. I'm sure there are folks out there planning to complete the look with a big, blocky CRT monitor. The case starts at $1,600 without the optical drive and an RTX 5050 packed in with an AMD Ryzen 5 9600X. That would still be more than enough to make the PC into a grand emulation station for all your old-school PC titles. Getting a config with all the fixings could cost well over $3,000, which should be expected considering the standing cost of today's high-end components. Either way, the PC will be a showpiece model with the added benefit of a modern motherboard and I/O ports. As much as the custom PC maker's artistic Apex PCs look great, the old grey boxes will have an appeal all their own.
The Verge
6 days ago
- The Verge
Maingear's Retro95 combines '90s-era PC design with modern specs
Maingear is launching a '90s-era horizontal desktop with modern components inside. The Retro95 is a beige sleeper build and is for anyone who is nostalgic for the days of Windows 95, floppy discs, dial-up internet, and LAN parties. The Retro95 is a prebuilt, customized iteration of the SilverStone FLP01, a case that originated as an April Fools' joke before becoming a reality last year. Maingear is using the latest components inside, including options to kit this out with AMD's Ryzen 7 9800X3D, an RTX 5080, 96GB of RAM, and 8TB of NVMe storage. While it looks like there are two floppy drives at the front, one is just for show or hides an optional 24x DVD-R drive. The other floppy drive conceals a hidden front-panel I/O, complete with a headphone jack, USB-C port, and two USB-A ports. Maingear is also using Noctua fans for great cooling performance and low amounts of noise, with plenty of ventilation at the sides of this vertical case to keep modern components running without thermal throttling. There's even the usual power and disk activity LEDs at the front, alongside power and reset buttons. The only thing missing at the front is a turbo button, which could have been a fun way to overclock a modern CPU like the 9800X3D. Maingear's Retro95 is available today starting at $1,599. It's part of a limited drop, with the PC builder warning: 'Once they're gone, it's game over.' Posts from this author will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All by Tom Warren Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Gaming Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Microsoft Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All News Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All PC Gaming Posts from this topic will be added to your daily email digest and your homepage feed. See All Tech
Yahoo
17-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
ASML's stock price is dropping today after the semiconductor giant issued this critical warning about 2026
One of the most critical companies in the chipmaking industry is seeing its stock price drop precipitously today. The Platinum Card is about to change. Amex's new fast-format airport lounge might be a sneak preview Southwest Florida's housing market is undergoing a material home price correction—here's why Windows 95's look and feel are more impressive than ever Dutch semiconductor company ASML Holding N.V. (Nasdaq: ASML) reported its second-quarter 2025 results, beating on its most critical metrics, but its stock price is still declining in premarket trading. The reason? Executives made comments about its upcoming 2026 fiscal year that have investors concerned. Here's what you need to know. The most important non-chip company in the chip industry ASML Holding N.V. is headquartered in Veldhoven, Netherlands, and is arguably the most important technology company within Europe's borders. Given that ASML is critical to the world's chipmaking supply chain, the company is also one of the most important tech giants in the world. ASML is not a chipmaker itself. However, it produced the machines that make the chips inside your devices. These machines are known as extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUV) photolithography machines, and they use light to etch patterns into the silicon wafers used in chipmaking. While the world has several photolithography machine companies, ASML is the world's only maker of EUV photolithography machines. EUV technology is critical in the world's most advanced chips, including those made by Apple for its Apple Silicon chips and the chips produced by Nvidia, which are crucial for artificial intelligence servers. ASML's customers include Nvidia and TSMC, the maker of Apple's chips. The Dutch company sells its EUV machines to these companies, enabling them to produce their own chips. As noted by CNBC, ASML's most advanced photolithography machines can be the size of a double-decker bus and cost as much as $400 million each. Without ASML's machines, the world's semiconductor manufacturing capability grinds to a halt. ASML beats, but 2026 comments worry investors Thanks to the rise of artificial intelligence, chipmakers are pumping out more advanced chips than ever—chips that require the EUV photolithography machines that ASML offers. Given that, it's little surprise that ASML exceeded investor expectations in its most recent financial quarter. Today, the company announced its Q2 2025 results, in which it reported: €7.7 billion (about $8.9 billion) in net sales €2.3 billion (about $2.6 billion) in net income Gross margin of 53.7% Earnings per share of €5.90 (about $6.85) To put those net sales and net income figures into greater perspective, CNBC notes that analysts were expecting net sales of €7.52 billion (about $8.7 billion) and net income of €2.04 billion (about $2.3 billion). In other words, ASML handily beat expectations. The company also reported net bookings—a metric that indicates customer demand—of €5.5 billion (about $6.3 billion), of which €2.3 billion (about $2.6 billion) is for its most advanced EUV photolithography machines. Analysts had been expecting net bookings of €4.19 billion (about $4.8 billion). Why is ASML stock falling? However, despite the welcomed Q2 results, ASML's stock price has plunged in premarket trading after the company announced its latest financials. That fall has to do with two main factors. First, ASML's Q3 forecast disappointed investors. The company said it expects to post total net sales of between €7.4 billion (about $8.6 billion) and €7.9 billion. It also expects its gross margin to be between 50% and 52% for the period. The company also said it expects its full fiscal 2025 total net sales to equate to an increase of 15%. As noted by CNBC, analysts had been expecting Q3 net sales to be around €8.3 billion (about $9.1 billion). ASML's 15% growth forecast for full-year sales was also lower than what it had previously forecast. However, the second factor may be the primary reason for ASML's share price decline this morning—comments made by ASML executives regarding its 2026 outlook. Announcing its Q2 results, ASML CEO Christophe Fouquet touched on expectations for 2026. 'Looking at 2026, we see that our AI customers' fundamentals remain strong,' Fouquet said. 'At the same time, we continue to see increasing uncertainty driven by macro-economic and geopolitical developments. Therefore, while we still prepare for growth in 2026, we cannot confirm it at this stage.' In other words, ASML's CEO is admitting he does not know if the company will grow in 2026. His comments suggest that the main uncertainty surrounding its growth potential are related to President Trump's tariffs. ASML is a foreign company that sells a significant amount to American companies, yet it does not have widespread operations in America, making it a potential target for retaliation from Trump and his goal to bring manufacturing back to the United States. Fouquet did not say there would not be growth, but given the tariff uncertainty, he seems to feel it's more prudent to prepare investors for that possibility. But that's a cautionary message investors have not taken well. As of the time of this writing, ASML shares are down over 7% in premarket trading to $764 per share. Yesterday, shares had closed above $823. As of yesterday's close, ASML shares were up over 18% since the beginning of the year. This post originally appeared at to get the Fast Company newsletter:
Fast Company
16-07-2025
- Fast Company
Windows 95's look and feel are more impressive than ever
Every so often, Microsoft design director Diego Baca boots up an old computer so he can play around with Windows 95 again. Baca has made a hobby of assembling old PCs with new-in-box vintage parts, and so his office has become a kind of shrine to Windows history. Still, Windows 95 stands out, he says, because of how easy it made computing for everyone. Many of its foundational concepts, such as the Start menu and taskbar, are still core parts of Windows today. 'Windows 95 introduced a lot of these really clear, really durable metaphors of how computing could be simpler for customers,' Baca says. He's not alone in finding ways to appreciate Windows 95 again. Almost 30 years after the operating system's release on August 24, 1995, you can run a fully functional version as an app on your computer (even if it's a Mac), make Windows 11 look like Windows 95 with third-party software, or follow countless TikTok tutorials on giving your iPhone a Windows 95 aesthetic. There are YouTube playlists with nothing but remixes of the Windows 95 startup sound —famously composed by Brian Eno —and there's an entire musical subgenre that uses Windows 95 aesthetics as a visual component. Some of this is just cheap retro nostalgia. But the people who worked on Windows 95—and those who still appreciate it—offer another explanation: It really was designed to be simpler, and it succeeded just as people were buying PCs for the first time. When we look back now, it's a reminder of how computers primarily served their users, not the other way around. Taking design seriously Windows 95 succeeded in part because it was the first Microsoft operating system that actually put designers in charge of the design. Under pressure to compete with the user interface of Apple's Macs, Microsoft assembled a design team and made usability testing a big part of the development process. 'It was the first time at Microsoft that the design of the product wasn't completely driven by the engineers,' says Virginia Howlett, who led the Windows 95 design team. 'It was a real team effort between research and design and engineering.' A painter by training, Howlett had joined Microsoft as a print designer and consultant on computer-based training software. But she wanted to get involved with Windows after seeing version 1.0, which launched in 1985 as an add-on for MS-DOS and didn't prove to be a hit. The smattering of colors in odd places—for instance, bright red scroll bars that drew attention away from the actual content—left her aghast. 'Windows 1.0 was this massive missed opportunity,' she says. 'It just sort of hurt me so badly how poorly it was designed.' In 1990, Microsoft shipped Windows 3.0, the first version to catch on in a big way. Howlett and her team contributed to it and 1992's Windows 3.1, but in a limited role that basically involved designing icons and color schemes. In Windows 95, by contrast, the designers were directly involved with figuring out the best way to do things and how to present them to users. 'In Windows 3.1, we were helping with how it looked. In Windows 95, we were helping with how it worked, as well as how it looked,' Howlett says. Meanwhile, improvements in PC hardware allowed Windows 95 to pull off some new tricks. It was designed with 800-by-600-pixel resolution screens in mind—up from the earlier video graphics array (VGA) standard of 640 by 480—and by default it supported a color palette of 256 colors, up from 16 in Windows 3.1. Those advancements helped Windows 95's designers give the system a more three-dimensional look. 'We used shadows and edges to note all the boundaries,' says Chris Guzak, a Microsoft engineer who worked on integrating much of the design work into Windows 95. 'When those show up in the interface today, you're, like, 'That's old.' But then, it was such a cool thing.' The limitations of mid-1990s computers had an impact as well. Windows 95's default color scheme—all royal blues, medium grays, and the occasional splash of teal—stemmed from the restricted color palette available with graphics cards of the era, and the lack of animations relative to modern computers reinforced a sense of quickness and simplicity. 'I think because of this minimalism, and really minimal animation, it was a lot quieter of an interface compared to what we have today,' says Suzan Marashi, who worked on the Windows 95 user interface team. Competing with Apple The motivation to make Windows 95 more approachable came in large part from Apple, which had licensed parts of its own graphical user interface to Microsoft for Windows 1.0, but sued over additional elements that Microsoft added in later versions. Apple eventually lost the case, but Guzak recalls 'a heightened sense of competitiveness' from Microsoft's leadership at the time. 'There really was a sense that we needed something that people could use, that would be accepted, that people could figure out,' he says. Many people were still in the process of learning to use a computer: Even in October 1995, a Times Mirror Center study reported that only 36% of U.S. households owned personal computers. This was also a time when Microsoft was approaching its peak as a consumer-centric company. It spent $300 million on marketing for Windows 95, encouraged retailers to hold launch parties, and had Jay Leno host its own enormous and well-publicized launch event on its Redmond, Washington, campus. Friends actors Jennifer Aniston and Matthew Perry even starred in a video guide to showcase the operating system's new features. Consumers lined up at computer stores at midnight to get their hands on the new operating system, presaging the later day-one frenzies over early iPhones. Paul Thurrott, an author and a longtime technology reporter who covered Microsoft, says all these factors came together at just the right time. Apple's own software had started to stagnate—the Mac interface was still largely black and white at the time —and even Mac enthusiasts begrudgingly acknowledged that Microsoft's designs were catching up. 'I think that was the version where they actually had something that made more sense than the Mac did from a UI perspective,' Thurrott says. Reliving the old days Re-experiencing Windows 95 today is easy. Just download the Windows 95 Electron app on any Windows, Mac, or Linux machine, and you can use a version of the classic operating system that runs entirely inside its own app window. Felix Rieseberg, a software developer who currently works on the Claude AI desktop apps for Anthropic, first released the Windows 95 app in 2018, mostly to demonstrate what's possible with web technologies. But over the years, he's updated it with new features, including a way to transfer files to and from your actual computer and a version of Internet Explorer that loads old versions of websites from the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. While Rieseberg says the app was originally supposed to prove a point about the power of JavaScript, it also winds up saying something about how modern software has devolved. The Windows 95 app's Start button pops up instantly when you click on it instead of requiring a split second to appear, and the preloaded version of Excel loads faster than the one that runs on Windows 11. 'It's remarkable how much you can do inside the JavaScript of [the Windows 95 app] in a way that feels very quick,' he says. 'Especially with Word and Excel, it's very powerful in there, and it covers so much of what people want to do in their life.' Rieseberg has no way of tracking how many people use the Windows 95 Electron app, but notes that it has more than 22,000 stars on GitHub. That puts it in the top 1,000 GitHub projects of all time. 'I get a lot of emails from people saying thank you, which is, of course, funny because I'm full-time working on software, on big apps with millions of users,' he says. 'And this little weekend side project has gotten more thank-you notes than anything else I've ever done.' The software maker Stardock has noticed a similar response with its WindowBlinds and Start11 programs, which allow people to customize modern Windows menus and windowing systems. Both offer a 'Classic' theme, which in tandem can approximate the feel of using Windows 95 on a modern PC. Brad Sams, Stardock's vice president and general manager, says that the announcement of its classic theme is a top driver of traffic to WindowBlinds's product page and of subsequent sales. 'The market has responded exactly how we would expect for that kind of nostalgia,' Sams says. 'The simplicity of Windows 95, the basic color scheme, the very direct navigation modeling . . . people just enjoy a simpler experience, and I think that's what's driving some of this, right?' The next 30 years Three decades later, Microsoft has reasons to be thinking about Windows 95 again. For one thing, Windows 11 was an attempt by Microsoft to bring some simplicity back. The company stripped down the Start menu with a new design—albeit one that longtime users bristled at—and it continues to move more menu items out of its old control panel and into a more modern Settings menu. 'Windows 11 is in many ways as close as we've gotten to 95 from a simplicity perspective,' Thurrott says. But now, Microsoft also believes it's building some new foundations for Windows around AI, not unlike how Windows 95's designers established the patterns that we still use today. Marcus Ash, Microsoft's corporate vice president of design and research for Windows and Devices, describes it as an effort that spans the entire company. 'We look at AI as Microsoft's opportunity to talk to our customers, learn from them, and build a Microsoft-like model for how this is shaping up—and Windows is the delivery vehicle,' Ash says. It's a lofty goal, but in some way it underscores why people appreciate Windows 95. The modern Windows experience—and the experience of all major computing platforms—is one in which you're constantly on guard against the company that made it. If you're not careful, Microsoft might replace your default browser and search engine with its own. If you don't opt out of AI features in Office, you might wind up paying extra, whether you use them or not. Even just playing solitaire—one of the original, simple joys of classic Windows versions—now means getting constantly bombarded with ads. While the idea of Microsoft inventing a new foundation for computing was once exciting, now it's also a bit unnerving. Windows 95's design reminds us that computers, even when they were less sophisticated, were at least unquestionably on your side. Those who design software now are likely familiar with the term ' dark pattern,' which refers to all the ways that software can get you to act against your best interests. Howlett, the Windows 95 designer who's since gone back to her roots in painting, says she'd never even heard of it. 'It was a kinder, gentler time—before we were trying to manipulate people,' she says.
