If you assumed Windows 95 was long gone, you might be surprised to learn that it’s still powering everyday operations in unexpected places. On a farm near Düsseldorf, Germany, the 30-year-old operating system is at the heart of a massive egg-sorting machine, continuing to run flawlessly after decades of service. For a piece of software that officially launched in August 1995 and has just celebrated its 30th anniversary, its resilience is nothing short of remarkable.
The egg sorting machine, which measures about 40 by 40 meters (roughly 131 by 131 feet), is responsible for processing an impressive 40,000 eggs per day. It sorts them based on size, weight, and origin before neatly packing them into boxes of six or ten, ready for supermarket shelves. The computer running Windows 95 doesn’t do the physical sorting—that part is mechanical—but it does handle the critical data logging and tracking tasks, ensuring that all eggs are accounted for and that records are accurate. The system even relies on an equally old Brother printer, still compatible with Windows 95, to produce printouts.
The farm’s owner, Peter Huber, explained that the machine has been incredibly reliable for decades. “Windows 95 has been running smoothly ever since this thing was installed here. If something hangs somewhere, I just reboot. And then it boots up again on its own. It runs more smoothly than newer programs,” he said. For him, the stability of the system outweighs any urge to replace it, especially since new egg-sorting machines cost as much as a house and don’t add much more functionality.
However, there’s a catch: the programmer who originally wrote the software is no longer around to update or patch it. If the system were to fail completely one day, Huber would have no way to replace the software and would be forced to record the results manually. Still, for now, the farm continues to depend on its sturdy combination of Windows 95, legacy hardware, and a dash of luck—showing that sometimes, older tech can still get the job done better than its modern counterparts.
