Windows 95's 'Naked Baby' Hologram: A Collector's Item
Windows brings out the Rorschach test in everyone
Raymond Chen recalls how a government complained that the Windows 95 box hologram depicted a naked baby, forcing Microsoft to redesign it. The original hologram, showing a shirtless infant, became a collector's item. Chen also mentions other subliminal complaints about Windows 95 and XP, including a wallpaper resembling buttocks and a user icon resembling Hitler, questioning the mental state of beta testers.
If the baby in your hologram isn’t wearing a shirt, you have a genuine collector’s item.
- srvmshr
Raymond Chen's articles are true wealth of contemporary tech-lore. My favorite is the one where a user reported error on Flight Simulator map [0] and it escalated all the way up to Bill Gates & the then chief of FS division.
[0] https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20170418-00/?p=95...
- stefs
years ago my father got a decomissioned, wiped clean notebook from work and asked me to set it up for him. i didn't want to shell out a hundred bucks for windows, so i suggested trying linux (ubuntu) and he agreed. "intrepid ibex" was installed without issues. a few weeks later i asked him if everything was ok and how he liked it, and he had no complaints, except one: he didn't like the edgy skull on the desktop wallpaper: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubuntu_version_history#/media/...
- yreg
This article includes the photo of the (clothed) hologram (it's the third image).
https://hardcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com/p/038-design...
- marklar423
To me, the funniest part of this is:
> We had to change them all
- eska
The wallpaper in question: https://windowswallpaper.miraheze.org/wiki/Red_moon_desert
I suppose it looks like buttocks?
- nehal3m
"The original wallpaper for Windows XP was Red Moon Desert, until people claimed that Red Moon Desert looked like a pair of buttocks."
That's not what 'this looks like ass' means.
- blkhawk
I find it worrying because being super sensitive to stuff like that is usually red flag that the person is kinda into it - Senators in Bathroom stalls and all that (bonus if you get the reference).
But I think the person who directly contacted Microsoft about this was probably not the person who noticed it and brought it up on the Government side just the Person who was tasked with communicating about it so its good they remain nameless.
- mrosenbjerg
Raymond Chen is my favorite MS blog writer