In 1980, just four years after being founded in a Californian garage, Apple was the biggest maker of PCs in the world. Computer giant IBM was not amused and fought back, launching its own PC in 1981. Though built from copy-cat technology, IBM's PC was an enormous hit and spawned many imitators, the PC clones. But PCs were still a pain to use. A revolution was needed to make them friendlier. Now view on.

Ladies and gentlemen welcome to the launch of Windows 95. Yes welcome Microsoftees nice to have you all here. But now let's welcome the chairman of Microsoft. Listen to this. This is a man, a man so successful his chaffeur is Ross Perot ladies and gentlemen...please welcome Bill Gates.

It's August 24th, 1995. In a suburb of Seattle in the Pacific Northwest, this is the biggest, noisiest product launch in the history of the personal computer. It's Windows 95 software - and Bill Gates is the star, chairman, chief nerd and spiritual leader of Microsoft. This is the latest step in Bill's dream to have his software running on every PC in the world.

Bill Gates
We wanted people to be able to appreciate how Windows 95 makes computing faster, easier and more fun. And for seven years it was a lonely, lonely crusade...this moves the whole PC industry up to a whole new level...

Wait a minute all this publicity is so Bill Gates can claim that Windows 95 is the latest and perhaps the most significant improvement in the PC since it was invented. He can say that his new operating system makes PC's nicer to look at and easier to use than ever before. They'll no longer be just for geeks and nerds they'll be so easy to use that even my mother will want one...but you know what - most of the id