How do you know? It certainly did long term damage to the brand.

The demo didn't. A decade of crashes in the field did.

> The demo didn't

How do you know? People still remember it 20 years later.

First impressions do count and the BSOD surely would have done at least short-term damage to the product & brand reputation.

Windows 98 in fact.

USB stack error I seem to recall, can't remember if it was a scanner or a printer they plugged in.