Some moments are culturally defining. They pave the way for a generation of consumers. People of my parents generation still remember the Beatles appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show. I recall long lines to see the movie "Jaws," which gave A-movie status to scary B-movies. Many young adults of this generation will recall iPhone's June 2007 launch. Some moments define us. So it was this day 15 years ago. Windows 95 launched to long lines at midnight on Aug. 24, 1995.
Microsoft had the right product at the right time. The planets aligned just so. Windows 95 was by no means the best PC operating system of its day. But it was good enough, usable enough, cheap enough and marketed well enough -- and the personal computer was mature enough for the mass market.
Windows 95 made geeks cool, too. Suddenly the seemingly unhippest of all people, Microsoft cofounder Bill Gates, was a rock star and business genius. Microsoft left IBM at the OS/2 altar -- abandoning the 32-bit operating system the companies codeveloped -- and shacked up with pseudo-32-bit Windows 95. A decade-and-a-half later, OS/2 is all but forgotten, while Windows defines the very essence of personal computing.