My family's computer in the late 1990s was a Packard Bell. It came with Windows and a second operating system called Navigator made by Packard Bell themselves. Packard Bell designed Navigator under the belief that people didn't know how to use computers at the time. They thought that people were scared of things like 'menus', 'dropdown boxes' and 'icons'. People needed an operating system that looked like the things around them, something they could easily recognise - the rooms of a house, for example.

So Packard Bell made an operating system that was a virtual house, and they called it Navigator. You could walk around it (or 'navigate' around it I suppose) and go to different rooms. If you wanted to do some work, you had to go to a virtual office, where you'd find programs like Calculator and Microsoft Word waiting for you on a virtual office desk. Or if you wanted to play games, you went to a virtual play area where there were games on shelves.

If all this sounds really cool, that's because it was. I loved that house, even though it wasn't real. It was beautiful. It had timber floors, floor-to-ceiling windows, high ceilings, a rail-less staircase, and tasteful furniture. The ground floor was open-plan. Sunlight came through the windows and lit the house in interesting ways. The house was airy, spacious, and calm. I was only aged eight, but I could already tell the difference between the aesthetics of the virtual house and my family’s home. My family’s home was cramped and depressing, whereas the virtual house was sleek and new. I learned that your house doesn't have to be small and cramped. Instead, it can be rejuvenating and relaxing. A place to set your soul free.

Then, a few months later, my dad discovered Windows 95. It has been on the computer all along but hiding, like a hibernating bear. My dad decided he liked Windows 95 and so he 'woke the bear' by making the computer boot to Windows on startup instead of Navigator. And so ended the days of the Packard Bell Navigator in our house. We could still access it, but you had to click on an icon to open it, and that was too much like hard work.