As you may know, we were in Mexico recently, and I spent a lot of time during those two-plus weeks writing about and researching topics for the Programming Windows series. It’s hard not to be obsessive about this topic: the period of time I’m writing about now—the early 2000s—was the most exciting time to be a Windows enthusiast, culminating with the wild all-time high of the Longhorn reveal at PDC in October 2003.

As you might imagine, I often split my time between the topics I’m currently writing for the series and the topics that are just over the horizon. And while we were away, I started diving in and out of materials related to the Longhorn 2003 reveal. Among them, the PDC keynotes from that year and the prior two shows, from 2000 and 2001. Which I have watched, and read the transcripts from, again and again and again.