Assuming y’all aren’t just fucking around, reading the comments here is actually really cool, tangentially interacting with people who have internet stories from well before I was born
I’m just from the dialup era, and I still feel old online a lot of the time, but then someone here is like “yeah, Berners-Lee invented HTTP just to make a website to mock me”
We are of similar eras. I just missed the days of building phreak boxes and it was always a bit of wonder to me.
While it’s harder these days for a litany of reasons I think it’s still in our collective interest to be bearers of stories, old and new, to the neophytes of the current generation.
I guess what I’m saying is, I am in your camp but to my kid’s generation we are still warlocks
Get into Lora (meshtastic/core). When I settle into bed I check to see if my solar powered nodes made any friends or if the heltec I keep in the car pinged anything cool.
I did a meetup a few weeks ago and its a cool smattering of younger folks and HAM folks who go wayyyyy back.
People talk about it being useful in an emergency, and sure, but mostly it’s just cool.
I got my first “home computer” in the days of the BBS’s when there was such a thing as a “long distance call”. Internet access was crazy expensive and not for the average geek. Back then it was a bit “underground”. There were professionals and there were passionate hobbyists. Most people didn’t have or need a computer in their lives. Things changed in the late 90’s boom. A cultural shift when suddenly everyone joined in. The geeks were no longer king
I remember getting a Hotshot/286 card which allowed me to upgrade my 8088 to a 286. I don’t even remember what programs I used back then but I’m sure they ran a lot faster after that.
IIRC correctly, the card was normally around $400 but I managed to get one for $150 and I was so proud of my dealmaking.
i just remember we had 2 games: King’s Quest 4: Rosella’s Peril and Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego, but we could only have one installed at a time.
A friend of mine had a Commodore 20 with no tape drive. Not only could we only have one game at a time installed, but also we had to manually type in the code for the game each time.
Assuming y’all aren’t just fucking around, reading the comments here is actually really cool, tangentially interacting with people who have internet stories from well before I was born
I’m just from the dialup era, and I still feel old online a lot of the time, but then someone here is like “yeah, Berners-Lee invented HTTP just to make a website to mock me”
We are of similar eras. I just missed the days of building phreak boxes and it was always a bit of wonder to me.
While it’s harder these days for a litany of reasons I think it’s still in our collective interest to be bearers of stories, old and new, to the neophytes of the current generation.
I guess what I’m saying is, I am in your camp but to my kid’s generation we are still warlocks
So much of the wonder of computers and networks and just… all of it has been abstracted away
So many people just have phones or tablets as the majority of their computer experience
Get into Lora (meshtastic/core). When I settle into bed I check to see if my solar powered nodes made any friends or if the heltec I keep in the car pinged anything cool.
I did a meetup a few weeks ago and its a cool smattering of younger folks and HAM folks who go wayyyyy back.
People talk about it being useful in an emergency, and sure, but mostly it’s just cool.
I got my first “home computer” in the days of the BBS’s when there was such a thing as a “long distance call”. Internet access was crazy expensive and not for the average geek. Back then it was a bit “underground”. There were professionals and there were passionate hobbyists. Most people didn’t have or need a computer in their lives. Things changed in the late 90’s boom. A cultural shift when suddenly everyone joined in. The geeks were no longer king
When we upgraded from the Atari whatsit box to a 286 it was amazing
I remember getting a Hotshot/286 card which allowed me to upgrade my 8088 to a 286. I don’t even remember what programs I used back then but I’m sure they ran a lot faster after that.
IIRC correctly, the card was normally around $400 but I managed to get one for $150 and I was so proud of my dealmaking.
i just remember we had 2 games: King’s Quest 4: Rosella’s Peril and Where in the World Is Carmen Sandiego, but we could only have one installed at a time.
A friend of mine had a Commodore 20 with no tape drive. Not only could we only have one game at a time installed, but also we had to manually type in the code for the game each time.