Retro Computing: Packard Bell Navigator

I know that I used Packard Bell computers back in the 90s but never owned one myself. I never even owned a Windows 3.11 PC as we couldn’t afford a home computer until 1996 and by then we were able to get one with Windows 95(sexy!). This video shows a program that Packard Bell PCs came with that would let you view your Windows applications in a different way.

It is too bad that things like this didn’t continue. Apparently, Microsoft hated that Packard Bell PCs included the Navigator software and threatened the company with higher prices on Windows 95 if Packard Bell continued adding navigator. Had Microsoft acted differently, we might have ended up with more creative looking skins for our operating systems today.

[Hackers] is one of my favorite movies. And I know it has its share of haters out there but I was hoping at some point people actually would try to create a virtual shell for Windows similar to the user interface in Hackers. I don’t think that ever actually happened though.

Anyway, I thought this was worth sharing for those in a nostalgic mood. While also going down this rabbit hole, I stumbled onto WinWorldPC.com, a site that archives old operating systems and applications. They’ve actually got [Packard Bell Navigator] there.