I was so sensitive to microseconds at the end of this that it really broke a logjam in my own work. I got completely into this world of tiny, tiny little pieces of music. >'I thought this was so funny and an amazing thought to actually try to make a little piece of music. >'The thing from the agency said, 'We want a piece of music that is inspiring, universal, blah- blah, da-da-da, optimistic, futuristic, sentimental, emotional,' this whole list of adjectives, and then at the bottom it said 'and it must be 3 1/4 seconds long.' And I really appreciated someone coming along and saying, 'Here's a specific problem - solve it.' I'd been working on my own music for a while and was quite lost, actually. > The told the whole Windows 95 story in this 1996 interview with Joel Selvin: 'The idea came up at the time when I was completely bereft of ideas. In 1995 he was using: Three DX7s, one TG77 and a Prophet VS, according to this Future Music interview.

> In 2001, MS-hater post-rock band Trans Am released Let's Take The Fresh Step Together, which is the Microsoft Sound timestretched to 51 seconds. > Brian told XFM that he was paid $35,000 for the sound. Windows 95 sold 110 million copies in just two years. > Brian Eno has produced six U2 albums, which have sold 70 million copies worldwide. He once urinated in Marcel Duchamp's 'Fountain'. I'm pretty sure that this is the one (it sounds Eno-ish with delayed pianos). >There are various different versions of 'The Microsoft Sound'. A tiny slice of that money went to Brian Eno, who recorded the startup sound on a handful of ageing synths in his studio. Ten years ago, Microsoft spent $300m launching Windows 95 (just under $3 per copy sold).

Windows nt 4.0 startup sound