The Good ol' days
- Thread starter Chrisc
- Start date
Yep definitely, I'm glad i came off it years ago
Soldato
I have these kind of conversations with people and some forget just how different things were years ago. Programs that came on a vast array of about 24 floppy disks, sometimes with a serial dongle you had to plug into the PC to use them, before licence keys. And when you had to shut the PC down, then about 30 minutes later once it had finished that, you had to actually turn if off (remember "It's now safe to turn off your computer"?). Turning the PC on and going to actually make a cup of tea or some other chore while it was booting up (I actually remember one time where I mowed the lawns). 56k dial-up, having to come off the house phone to do your nightly browsing on all of four websites. The endless onslaught of pop-ups you used to get (no popup blockers in them days remember), I remember while browsing the net a pop-up window frame would appear, most of the size of the page you're looking at, then the advert itself would load one line of pixels at the time, and it took about 10 seconds to load one line. And it had to load fully before you could close it and resume what you were doing. Then a few minutes later another frame would appear.
I just couldn't get over the first time I ordered something from Amazon, in about 1998 or 99. I could order from this vast online catalogue and they'd arrive in the post a couple of days later! Unbelieveable. I remember thinking one day you'll be able to buy everything like this...
I just couldn't get over the first time I ordered something from Amazon, in about 1998 or 99. I could order from this vast online catalogue and they'd arrive in the post a couple of days later! Unbelieveable. I remember thinking one day you'll be able to buy everything like this...
Soldato
I remember buying stuff on ebay in the early days!
The seller would give you their name and address, you'd post them a cheque and your item would arrive 2-3 weeks later.
Soldato
News sites, more specifically places like Shacknews.com for my Quake updates, mods, etc. GameFAQ's, some IGN etc. Hardware review sites as well, Anandtech, Toms and a few others.
The WWW has changed a massive amount in the last 25 years.
The WWW has changed a massive amount in the last 25 years.
Wireplay, racking up a stupid phone bill until ADSL came along. Some awesome servers at the time Team Fortress, DOD and Counterstrike.
IRQ and Messenger and meeting some genuine top people and then some right weirdo's.
b3ta forums. Have not looked for yonks and only realised its still going! NSFW (no holds barred as posters pretty much photoshop anything so can be v.offensive). Some of the photoshopping efforts are really silly.
IRQ and Messenger and meeting some genuine top people and then some right weirdo's.
b3ta forums. Have not looked for yonks and only realised its still going! NSFW (no holds barred as posters pretty much photoshop anything so can be v.offensive). Some of the photoshopping efforts are really silly.
qxl
newsgroups - I remember messaging the IT admin at uni asking if he could add the prisoner cell block h newsgroup to the uni's list of replicated newsgroups they hosted (he did).
IRC
altavista
mono.org
top posting being a bad thing on mailing lists.
screaming.net - switch your phone to us and get free off peak dial up - think they had about 5 modems to accept incoming calls.
newsgroups - I remember messaging the IT admin at uni asking if he could add the prisoner cell block h newsgroup to the uni's list of replicated newsgroups they hosted (he did).
IRC
altavista
mono.org
top posting being a bad thing on mailing lists.
screaming.net - switch your phone to us and get free off peak dial up - think they had about 5 modems to accept incoming calls.
ICQ "Uh-oh", MSN messenger, Lycos chat, Compuserve (eeurgh), Wireplay forums and Gamespy.
My favourite memory of all was waiting nearly 2 hours for Half Life v1.0.0.9 patch to download on a 56k modem, a whopping 18mb.
I think that was the beginning of the end of my marriage, her family trying to call the landline and getting a constant engaged tone. Oh the arguements that ensued.. Ouch
My favourite memory of all was waiting nearly 2 hours for Half Life v1.0.0.9 patch to download on a 56k modem, a whopping 18mb.
I think that was the beginning of the end of my marriage, her family trying to call the landline and getting a constant engaged tone. Oh the arguements that ensued.. Ouch
Associate
Spent my time on Wireplay, Barrysworld and hanging out in IRC. Oh and trying to explain away the £200+ phone bill to the missus. Didn't work 
Soldato
Disagree here. I grew up in the 90s and the offline/online divide was still quite clear there, I had a similar online experience as you all describe. It's only really post 2000 where that definitively died. I would definitely consider my age bracket the last that had a 'real' childhood.
Associate
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Totse being one of my old faves (don't worry its been down for at least a decade), had some crazy stuff on there*, including instructions on - making explosives/accelerants, novel ways to torture animals, breaking in to ATM/gambling/vending machines/liquor stores (i think most of this stuff was the anarchists cook book lmao....)
*never did any of it but was an interesting read
Soldato
Most of my evenings in the late 90's involved Exite chatrooms, http://www.angelfire.com/wa/deangl/newvp.html
Napster, and searching for winamp skins. Those were the golden days, and nothing has come close to replicating Excite Chat, it was so adaptable, and a fantastic bunch of people on there, i'd love to see it back again.
Napster, and searching for winamp skins. Those were the golden days, and nothing has come close to replicating Excite Chat, it was so adaptable, and a fantastic bunch of people on there, i'd love to see it back again.
Associate
- Joined
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- 1,990
Also, team fortress classic when I was about 14, via gamespy. Got invited to join a clan which was pretty organised (scheduled practice/matches with other clans, would be questioned for missing them etc. Although they were lenient with me as they knew I was young.)
Was playing on a pentium 233 mmx (possi ly my dad's later P3 600MHz) with onboard graphics at around 2-5fps
so was only aloud to play grenadier
Was playing on a pentium 233 mmx (possi ly my dad's later P3 600MHz) with onboard graphics at around 2-5fps
so was only aloud to play grenadier I remember in the early days of ordering stuff online and having parcels delivered people would kind of tut about it like you weren't making good use of money, now everyone has endless numbers of Amazon parcels being delivered.