Talk:Microsoft Bob

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From an anonymous contributor: "Does anyone know of a place to pick up this misnomer of software?" -- Notheruser 00:32 19 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Google is your friend -- trlkly 05:25, 26 July 2007 (UTC)


i LOVE clipy. many times when i was in college 2 hours from deadline i needed to know how to do something or other to a border or a paragraph or margin in Word, i couldnt figure it out, so i would call up clippy and type in things like 'how the fuck do i put a header on every page' and clippy would usually point me to the right help file.

I love the Office agent. It's a very friendly looking interface that can ever be for help. Also, we used to enjoy the sight of the clippy snoring on the screen when one of our Professors gives a dull post-lunch presentation.
-- Sundar 09:49, Apr 6, 2004 (UTC)

I personally LOVED using Bob. I mainly had fun decorating various rooms but I also used the financial / checkbook balancing end of the software. It was way more user friendly than something like Quicken. I wish I could get it on my computer again so I could use it.


Contents

[edit] Comic Sans MS

Look closely at the logo - was this the first appearance of that godawful bane of typography known as Comic Sans MS? Slicing 21:48, 13 September 2005 (UTC)

Comic Sans MS was originally made by Vincent Connare for Microsoft 3D Movie Maker in 1994. It eventually made its way to Win95 OEM and the Plus Pack, but didn't make it into Bob. Comic Sans has more info on it. Jkonrath 14:56, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

Actually, if you look closely at the logo it appears to spell "Boob" (which may be a reference to the person who came up with the idea for Bob). The B's are in black and so the glasses sort of jump out of the yellow face as double o's.

[edit] Least Successful Product

That's a stretch! How about Microsoft Trains (the railroad simulator)

[edit] 'Microsoft Home'

Anybody got info about the Microsoft Home brand? MrD 30 June 2005 23:16 (UTC)


Just for note, MS BOB boxshot is available at ftp.microsoft.com. It's kinda funny, but I'm not like uploading it here. --tyomitch 19:43, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Hey, its "software everyone will use" :). Also, the person below is correct that Rover looks like he's from Hallmark software. Its CD calls it "Microsoft Greetings Workshop" and has a "Hallmark Connections" logo on it. Overall, my opinion is that MS couldn't sell the Bob technology, so it decided to stuff it down user's throats via Clippy. Sad to hear that Trains isn't successful. --Jason McHuff 07:50, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Rover

Rover was actually inspired by a program not made by microsoft but by Hallmark (the card company). Amazingly rover used to be a flying (superhero) dog until microsoft saw the dog hallmark (it was software that acted like publisher) had made and decided to buy it.

You are very confused, Rover wasn't a flying dog, it was Powerpup, an office assistant. And the dog of hallmark isn't Rover either, his name is Rocky. Rover was previous to Rocky and Rocky isn't made by Hallmark. You don't know what are you talking about!

[edit] Microsoft Bob article cited at Brazilian Terra Tecnologia website

This article was cited by the Brazilian language Terra Tecnologia article. See this link. Regards, Carioca 05:07, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

  • It was also cited as a source for this CNet article.--SeizureDog 03:47, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
  • Which as it turns out, is the same article in English. --SeizureDog 03:48, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bob in XP

Hey, Bob is not that bad. It even worked on XP, I tried it, but being a "16-bit task" made it unstable on a 32-bit nt-based OS and my computer almost crashed (it always does). --Coldplayer 22:29, 11 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Office Assistant Rex

The article says that Rover animations inspired the Office Assistant "Rex". But there isn't any office assistant called Rex. If you know who is it, please put a link here so I can see it, but I suggest to delete that information.

[edit] Let Bob be open Source!

I want Bob to be open source.Then developers could make their own versions!-Gogopenguin2

[edit] My 12 year old cousin

Many years ago I reinstalled my cousins computer. There had been a load of software on it. After the install Bob was missing as well as a load of other software.

I was surprised when my 12 year old cousin complained about me loosing Bob. It was the one thing she really liked.

So 12 year old kids know what they are talking about and thus Bob gets my total respect.

[edit] Chaos?

Was that really the cats name? --Trusader 20:49, 3 December 2006 (UTC)

Yes, Chaos was her name. She is a girl. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 190.28.78.143 (talk) 22:26, 15 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Assistant BOB or Associate Bob?

Assistant Bob reminds me of "Associate Bob" from the 1993 movie Demolitian Man. Complete with round face and glasses! Coincidence? The program was written just a few year after this (somewhat appealing to nerdy people) SF movie, and pictured Bob, the stumbling and corrupt assistant to a villainous ruler. Mahjongg 00:57, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Near Misquoting

This quote, [Microsoft Bob was one application] "we [had] undertaken ... where we decided that we have not succeeded and let's stop."[1] was taken from, "We've been fortunate. There is nothing that we have undertaken -- with a couple of exceptions like Microsoft Bob that I'll cop to in advance -- where we have decided that we have not succeeded and let's stop,"I think that's forcing the quote to take on a different meaning than what was originally meant to; the speaker was using the quote to praise Microsoft of it's achievements, save a few failures, not to call Microsoft Bob a failure. I'm not disputing that it was a failure, I just think this is an unethical use of a quotation. JRNorbergé 13:08, 6 August 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Orby

Wasn't there another guide called Orby? I was looking up history on Microsoft BOB, and it listed an Earth-like planet thing called Orby as a guide. Correct me if I'm wrong. Armiris (talk) 20:57, 15 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Image

It looks like the image is running Bob on Windows XP (notice the XP taskbar at the bottom). Can't anyone get a screenshot of it running in it's natural environment? C'mon all you computer geeks... :) 69.95.238.85 (talk) 20:35, 16 April 2008 (UTC)