The thing about that screenshot that has me curious is the shortcut to 7zip which, although it has been around for longer than I realised, no one really used until the 2nd half of the 00’s
Given the presence of 7zip almost definitely
Which makes it kinda more interesting tbh—did someone at Ars set this up to take a screenshot of ICQ? Getting a windows 98 VM set up with all that other stuff just for an article image seems like a lot of effort for a journalist who probably needs to get a few articles written a week.
If it wasn’t Ars, who was it and why did they set up a somewhat period-accurate windows 98 VM and then take a screenshot of ICQ out of everything?
Maybe I’m thinking too hard about this
Honestly I thoughr about doing it after suggesting that it might have been a VM. Maybe it was someone like me.
Maybe someone in the art department keeps a Windows 98 VM setup specifically for these tech obituaries for programs and services people thought were long dead. I don’t think I’ve used AIM/ICQ/MSN Messenger since around 2007/2008, and it was because it had become pretty dead.
