[smartscience]

Windows operating systems may themselves represent the 'pivot points' that wenc talks about. Every so often, a version of Windows seems to come along that gives you a genuine improvement over what came before - in my view Windows 98 SE, Windows XP and Windows 7 for example, which may represent the nostalgia valleys. Other intermediate versions seem to at best introduce new problems to replace the old ones.

Of course, it would be great to have the Risc OS experience while doing modern computing tasks, so I'm pleased to hear that the lessons it brought to the world have not been forgotten.

[Firehawke]

I'm inclined to agree, but I do think that 95 needs to be on that list as well simply because it was such a massive step up from the MS-DOS plus Windows 3.1/3.11 era. 98 itself was a bit of a misstep, but I do agree 98SE was the next major improvement point.

[smartscience]

Perhaps I'm a bit biased against 95 as I was happily using Risc OS at the time :) My memory of Microsoft from back then was that the Office apps could be quite capable, but the underlying OS was just something you had to put up with.