Windows 98 crashes during Gates' Comdex demo

From CNNL April 20, 1998 CHICAGO (CNN) -- Microsoft chairman Bill Gates tried to demonstrate his company's latest product Monday, but the product -- Windows 98 -- didn't cooperate. Gates was demonstrating the newest version of Microsoft's Windows operating system when it crashed during his presentation at the Comdex Spring 1998 Convention. The software is supposed make computers simpler to use.    Trying to impress the 4000-member audience with the most user-friendly aspects of the technology, Gates instead caused the computer running his demonstration to crash. It happened when an onstage assistant tried to plug in a "plug-and-play" scanner that turned out to be more like "plug-and-pray."

"I guess we still have some bugs to work out," said Chairman Bill, breaking into a sweat. "That must be why we're not shipping Windows 98 yet," he said. Gates was referring to the fact that Windows 98 was originally scheduled to be released last year, but has been rescheduled to ship to retailers on June 25. Gates moved to another computer to complete his presentation, which was demonstrating how Windows 98 will be simpler to use. God waits long but punishes fitting the crime! After this was reported in alt.fan.bill-gates, here was one response" "Geez, you guys don't no nothin' about MS software. Win98 crashes much faster than Win95. That's a big improvement in my book."

Innocent experiment: several hundred people dead.

From the Japan News Network: Several hundred people die, in Tokyo Japan, while connected to their computers, via a local network. All persons were taking part in an experimental project, which went awry. According to reports, it appears that these persons allowed their bodily functions to be controlled by the software on their computers, via a special series of electrodes hooked to their bodies. The program, was originally designed to be used to control erratic heart rhythms in patients suffering from heart disease. However, several computer users found that the software could be connected to other computers on the network, running "virtual reality" software, and cause the user to experience an out of body feeling, for time periods up to several hours. From information provided by outside sources, it appears that this group of several hundred persons, had setup a large local, network, which anyone could connect to, within a specific region. Over the past weekend, the numbers of persons connected continued to climb, and it shows that at one time, there were well over one thousand people connected. Several of which had been connected for 5 to 6 days.

Suddenly, around 2:30 in the morning of March 30, 1998, one portion of the network failed, which had a domino effect on the entire network. Any persons that were fully connected at the time, could not escape, and all died from heart failure at the exact same moment.  Authorities are unaware of the exact total number of deaths, since more bodies are still being discovered. However, at last count, the total number of fatalities was exceeding 300 persons. One young man, in his early 20's, who had just disconnected himself from the computer, a few minutes before the system crash said he knew there was some sort of problem on the network, which is why he disconnected himself. He said he was thankful to be alive, and went on to say the the last few images that he saw on his computer screen, showed that there was a major system crash, due to a flaw in the Microsoft Windows 95 operating system, being used to run the experiments. The information given by him to authorities, proved that the computer failure was indeed caused by a failure in the Microsoft Windows 95 software, and investigators have determined that every computer linked into the network, would not restart, and all traces of data were entirely erased from all computers connected at that moment. Further investigations are pending.

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