Under-explored in this article is the degree to which pre-NT/95 Microsoft (particularly BillG) was obsessed with NeXT, at least if you believe Steven Sinofsky:

https://hardcoresoftware.learningbyshipping.com/p/009-passwo...

> we were sat in a room thinking 'How do we design this to be different, so we don't get sued by Apple?' The Mac had a menu bar of text across the top, so we thought 'we can't go across the top, we'll have to go across the bottom

Funnily enough, a few of the Windows Chicago/94/95 builds do come with the taskbar set to top of screen by default: https://betawiki.net/wiki/Windows_95_build_90c

I want this taskbar: https://guidebookgallery.org/screenshots/qnx621/

So retro, so cool.