Windows 95/98

Windows 95 is the moment the computer stopped being a tool for specialists. There was a Start button, a taskbar, and a Rolling Stones song in the advertising. Twenty-five million copies sold in five weeks, and the layout it invented is still, fundamentally, the one you're using now.

What people actually remember is the texture of it. That specific teal. The chunky grey window borders with the bevelled edges. Sounds that took a moment too long to play. Screensavers with flying toasters and mazes, running on a machine that couldn't do anything else while they ran.

Windows 98 sanded off the rough parts and added USB support, which mattered enormously and impressed nobody at the time. Between them, those two releases shaped what a whole generation thinks a computer is supposed to look like.

This collection leans into that aesthetic - the pixel-edged icons, the primary colours, the objects that used to appear on those idle screens, and the general feeling of a beige tower under a desk.

If you have any affection for the era when installing something meant a stack of floppy disks, these will suit your desktop nicely.