20 Years Ago

[crazy canuck]

Internetz killed newspaperz

I saw an article that claimed hand held devices will save newspapers because things like blogs are too difficult to read whereas newspapers are already formatted properly easly use.

[Brazen]

In the late 90s we called them "Car phones"...cause most people used them in their cars...which is kind of ironic to think about it.

Even more ironically, one of the UK's most successful cross-brand mobile phone retail businesses is still called Carphone Warehouse.

[Brazen]

Much like Doctor Who, I have a fixed point in time around which to judge my tech. I graduated with an IT degree in 1989, the year Tim Berners-Lee invented the World Wide Web, thus rendering everything I'd learned obsolete. We did have access to the Internet at University, mainly via JANET, the joint academic network, but it was awfully clumsy to communicate. We used to have to send the results of programming assignments to the the computer block across the river to be printed and collect them a day or two later. We started off with DOS computers (IBM AT and XT) and keyboards, but Windows and mice were widespread by the time we left.

Computer games were pretty much a free for all - you could copy the disks for friends and install them to as many computers as you wanted. The original Leisure Suit Larry was doing the rounds at Uni. We also went from 5.25 inch floppies to 3.5 inch. Progess!

I started working for a mobile phone company in around 1998 (a lot of my job was testing fixes to the "Millennium bug") and was still considered an early adopter then. Phones had progressed from the "Rabbit" phones where you had to be within a couple of feet of what would now be called a micro cell to a proper cell network, but reception was still patchy outside London. The standard price plan offered unlimited free calls within London, so people ended up using their phones as baby monitors!

[Brazen]

Also around the time of Live Aid (1985) I was part of a charity endurance AD&D-athon called Dragon Aid. In one of the warm-up games I remember one of the team members playing a pre-email turn-based computer game where he'd meticulously type out then send over dial-up (phone handset in modem cradle) his next move.

[Syt]

20 years ago I was 18. I was slowly gearing up for my final exams at school about half a year later. I think I was interviewing for public administration apprenticeships/college at the time as well (which was delayed until after my military service after school). I missed quite a few classes that year because I could finally sign my own absentee notes (Sorry, was sick!). Still passed with an A, despite no effort whatsoever.

Tech wise I was enjoying my SNES and C64, and I think we had finally gotten a new VCR. I spent a lot of time with friends playing PC games on their machines (486/66 FTW!) and we got pretty good in creating boot disk menus to optimize drivers/memory usage for games. Phones were land line only, and our small town was still using four digit phone numbers after the area prefix.

It was the days when X-Files was the hottest thing on TV. MTV would still show mostly music videos, though non-music shows were creeping in - Beavis & Butthead, The Real World ... and I loved MTV's Most Wanted with Ray Cokes which was anarchic silly fun. It was also one of the few possibilities to watch any kind of program in English. TV showed everything dubbed (with the exception of subtitled British shows like Monty Python or Yes, Minister on the back channels).

Commercial TV in Germany was probably in its prime, bringing over hot shows from the U.S., while also developing their own formats with duds and triumphs - a rather creative period with new freedoms - that flow of creativity stopped some time in the early 2000s, I think, when the channels became more concerned with retaining viewers instead of gaining them.

As to music it was a dark age. Electronic beats heavy dance pop reigned on TV and radio. The Love Parade was main stream. If you didn't like the music, and preferred grunge, alternative, or metal you were a weirdo and had to pick the days of the week that you would go out, to avoid the Oomph-Oomph-Oomph music. I'm glad that the tables have turned when it comes to remembering the 90s; people forgot about the dance stuff and Nirvana, Pearl Jam, or old GnR are now "classic rock" (thanks for making me feel old).

The Star Wars expanded universe was still nascent. I still loved the Lone Wolf game books. And I wanted to be a fantasy writer when I grew up.

[CountDeMoney]

All things considered, I'd rather be in 1994 right now.

I wouldn't. I didn't really even know what sexuality was back then. Hell, I think I had just learned about sex.

It was a hell of a lot easier banging bisexual strippers two at a time back then.

[mongers]

Syt, thanks for that, a nice evocative read. 

Hey, you could still be pro-writer.

[Brazen]

Hey, you could still be pro-writer.

What about me, could I? 

[Syt]

Hey, you could still be pro-writer.

Haven't completely given up on it, still poke it occasionally with a long stick.

[Grey Fox]

In 1994, I was 10 years old. I enjoyed playing with my Gi Joes and NHL 93/94 on the SNES.

Oldmen.

[HVC]

In 1994, I was 10 years old. I enjoyed playing with my Gi Joes and NHL 93/94 on the SNES.

Oldmen.

I forgot about nhl 94. That was a great game. God bless you wrap around exploit.

[Josephus]

In 1994, I was 10 years old. I enjoyed playing with my Gi Joes and NHL 93/94 on the SNES.

Oldmen.

In 1994 I was 28 and playing NHL 93/94 on the SNES. No Gi Joes, though. My wife got those in the divorce.

[Grey Fox]

In 1994, I was 10 years old. I enjoyed playing with my Gi Joes and NHL 93/94 on the SNES.

Oldmen.

In 1994 I was 28 and playing NHL 93/94 on the SNES. No Gi Joes, though. My wife got those in the divorce.

I lost mine too

I still got my thousands of matchbox cars tho, my kids play with them regularly.

[garbon]

I think I still have a few of my action figures. They might even be in my current apt!

[Admiral Yi]

I was in grad school 89 to 91.  I remember a classmate telling me she was working on a project with another classmate who was in Russia via email and having virtually no idea what she was talking about.