Anyone who remembers August of 1995 will probably also remember the relentless promotional campaign that accompanied the release of Microsoft’s amazing new operating system, Windows 95. How times have changed. Apple was in the doldrums then, Microsoft was everywhere, and the name “Bill Gates” was on everyone’s lips. With a net worth of $76 billion, Gates is still the wealthiest man in the world (at least as of last March), but there’s no doubt that Steve Jobs passed Gates in some kind of global coolness billionaire metric sometime around the release of the first iPhone. Is Microsoft still even in business? It’s not always clear.

The cute and dorky status of the boxy messages emitted by Windows 95 constitute the cornerstone of a marvelous new website created by Neil Cicierega called, with great deadpan misdirection, “Windows 95 Tips, Tricks, and Tweaks.” That title doesn’t get you anywhere close to the site’s actual content, which is a series of disturbing screengrabs displaying messages from your last discarded Windows 95 machine, which has been developing a conscious mind since you last paid attention to it. Windows 95 now has the approximate personality of an obsessive stalker/serial killer, and its only quarry is you. Not to worry, I’m sure it’s harmless.
 

 

 

 

 

 

 
via io9