BSOD: It was 20 April 1998 when Bill Gates and Chris Capossela climbed to the stage of the COMDEX conference in Chicago to showcase one of their greatest innovations Windows: the support plug and play.
The innovator then technology plug-and-play guaranteed that anything connected peripherally to a Windows PC would work without any special setup.
So to demonstrate the revolutionary plug-and-play functionality in Windows 98, Capossela connected a scanner to a computer running functional the company's. Bill Gates was next and smiling, showing off the operating system that will change the world. He had no idea what was coming next…
Capossela explained the process “the new device will load the appropriate drivers. You will notice that this detector generates… ”and stops suddenly. BSOD….
Bill Gates continues to smile, watching a blue screen appear as Capossela shouts "WHOA!"
Without a doubt it is the most famous WHOA! in the history of computing. Gates doesn't stop smiling, but he realizes what has happened. He knows he has to fix the situation somehow, especially since the entire audience is in fits of laughter. Capossela doesn't know what to say about some seconds.
"That is why we are not releasing Windows 98 yet," he says, observing the moment of silence and how shocked Capossela was.
But in the end, everything turned out well for Microsoft, and Windows 98 was one of the best versions of Windows ever released, with around 25 millions sales only in the first year.
And as The Register mentions, Chris Capossela survived Gates' wrath after the official BSOD presentation. He is still at Microsoft and works as Chief Marketing Officer.
Watch the video: