The Windows 98 demo where Plug and Play chose violence
Windows 98 crashed to a blue screen live on stage with Bill Gates at COMDEX
The market's verdict: -2.0% on MSFT in the week after.
What actually happened
At Spring COMDEX in Chicago on April 20, 1998, Bill Gates was showing off Windows 98 and its Plug and Play support when demo assistant Chris Capossela plugged in a scanner. The machine blue screened in front of the cameras, and the audience laughed at the one product whose entire pitch was that this does not happen. Gates offered that this must be why they were not shipping Windows 98 yet. Windows 98 shipped two months later, on schedule. The clip has outlived every version of Windows since.
This one is well documented.
Links
↳ caused by Windows 98 pre-release demo build
Timeline
- Apr 20, 1998 Confirmed First reports came in.