Dial-up internet (and I’m only in my 20s!)
I used to like hearing the modem scream into the void
┬┴┬┴┤ω・) be honest
I’m, uh… only in my thirties !
Hang up the phone, I’m downloading a song and I have 15 minutes left!
Hunter-gathering
Where do you gather your hunters?
The App Store not being filled with predatory trash
The nightmare PS2 dirty disc screen, and mainstream multiplayer games without anticheat rootkits
Edit: mainstream
Oh that boot sound and hoping you’d make it past… Mostly on PS1 but I still had some of it on 2.
Yes! Why can’t I play every game like I played Runscape?
Blowing into cartridges before putting them into the console and optionally pushing them to the side or some other voodoo hoping the game would start.
A peaceful childhood.
Having to wind back a cassette or vcr with a paperclip or spoon if the strip got tangled, or even just having to wait for the player to forward/rewind
Social media not being the focus of every government, advertising agency and activist organization in existence.
When bigger tech companies were cool.
When everything worked solidly and without bugs
When was that? I’m nearly 40 and don’t recall that ever being true.
Literally like four years ago
Most products have always had bugs in them, though.
Rushing to the boombox when you hear your new favorite song, to record it to cassette
Wow, am I a geezer already?
Is that the first step to becoming Geezer Butler? Or do you have to be butler first?
The internet in it’s heyday, when it was a genuinely thrilling place to find information, and quite a lot of weirdness, and before it was swamped by corporate interests.
I remember starting out with gopher and a paper print out of ‘The big dummies guide to the internet’ which was a directory of almost every gopher and ftp site (pre web) along with a description of what you’d find there. Then the web came along and things got really good for a while. Once big corporations got involved it all went down hill.
If you like gopher, you’re gonna love Gemini: https://github.com/kr1sp1n/awesome-gemini
I’ve been keeping half an eye on it for a while, I should probably give it a go again.
in its* heyday
Carrying over heaps of computer equipment (including the mega CRTs before their demise) to your friends house for an all night LAN party that you guys had been prepping for. Then having a blast while parents look at you funny for being into computers.
Oh, and seeing a new BBS at a bus stop that you’d need to go dial into and check out.
I’m commenting too much in these replies because I remember too much, but I’m going to share one last anecdote. For a while I had a case with a bolted on handle to bring to LAN parties. Then I read in a magazine where people were building computers into hard shell backpacks to take back and forth and that changed the game. If I had to guess that was 98 or 99.
Those things were super expensive at the time. I took a seasonal second job to buy one and mount my system in it. The cooling was garbage but I sure thought I looked cool dragging it to LAN parties.
In 2004ish I set up a dial up server so my dad and I could play Battle for Wesnoth. We lived across the country from each other and neither of us had reliable broadband available. However, he had free long distance calling so it was (and remains) a way to keep in touch and hang out without actually having to talk to each other because we’re both terrible at that.
I really enjoy these types of anecdotes. Was the case with a bolted-on handle military themed? My buddy had one of those!
Not on purpose, but it did look like an extra large ammo can by accident. I had green and black spray paint so I painted it green with black stenciled letters on the side.
Beautiful. That’s exactly what I was imagining!
Oh, no, whatever you’re imagining it was much worse. However, I will always love it. I’ve built a lot of ugly but functional things in my life, but that’s probably the first significant one.
Walking in to an honest-to-god Toy Store as a small child.
R.I.P. Geoffrey
Calling your friends house, and asking if they were home and could talk.
Snow days
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That feeling of hope as you listen to the radio during breakfast as they read out the names of which local schools are delayed and closed. Even more the excitement when your school changes from delayed to closed.
If not for climate then because of remote learning.
Cleaning out a ball mouse.
My 14 year old son recently picked one up out of this big pile of old computer treasure I was given by a client and said “What’s up with this mouse?”
Trackballs still need to be degunked though and they are alive and well (and superior imo)
As an old school retro enthusiast I can assure you a good laser mouse is leaps and bounds better than a trackball any day easily. I still love the track ball though because I was there gandalf. I was there 3000 years ago.
Couple this with defrag, a nice relaxing time.
