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The sound of Windows 95 about to disappoint you added to Library of Congress significant sound archive
Along with Celine Dion and Elton John - plus some good music too
...
And here’s what The Library of Congress had to say about the significance of the Windows boot chime:
The 1990s witnessed the beginning of ubiquitous use of personal computing that is a familiar aspect of the world today. This revolution gained significant momentum in August 1995 with the release by Microsoft of the Windows 95 operating system. This iteration brought more of the computer’s operation under a graphical user interface (GUI), making a home computer more accessible to a non-specialist audience of consumers.
To mark this and other improvements, Microsoft chose to incorporate a brief start-up sound that would play when Windows 95 booted up. The company chose the ambient music creator and prolific music producer Brian Eno to compose this sound. Eno, now a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, has also been a pioneer in the creation of ambient and electronica music. Eno delivered 84 sound elements to the Microsoft designers, who ultimately selected a sound almost twice as long as requested but which they felt conveyed the sense of welcome, hopefulness and progress that they envisioned. //
The OS was, however, often unstable. Users hearing the sound now deemed historically significant will likely have memories of hearing it more often than they wanted to – and often at inconvenient moments.
