by "Ash78, voting early and often" (ash78)
Published 12/14/2017 at 11:35
by "Ash78, voting early and often" (ash78)
Published 12/14/2017 at 11:35
No Tags
STARS: 3
Most of these “Back in my day” stories involve talking about life before the internet and how good everyone has it now. Now that we’ve got 20 years of prolific internet life behind us, it’s time to shift this. Anyone over 25 or 30 will follow this.
So...back in my day:
-You never, ever, ever gave your first and last name online.
-The most annoying advertising wasn’t clickbait — it was a popup for the X10 spy camera.
-Your friends were broken into two groups: the nerds using mIRC and the casual users on ICQ. And your parents, who preferred AIM.
-Teachers and professors would never post their notes online. You’d never come to class again.
-Personal websites were seen as cocky self-promotion and laughed about behind your back.
-Text messaging was free and nobody used it.
-Mapquest’s printed driving directions were the cutting edge of navigational tools.
-Nobody knew where you were, and it was nice. Tracking your cell phone required a subpoena.
Keep it going, oppo.
"For Sweden" (rallybeetle)
12/14/2017 at 11:51, STARS: 1
Back in my day, journalists did make ironic memes.
"Noah - Now with more boost." (antriebverliebt)
12/14/2017 at 11:57, STARS: 7
Back in the day, computers and their peripherals only came in one color: wood glue.
"Ash78, voting early and often" (ash78)
12/14/2017 at 11:58, STARS: 1
Oh, the hotness when Dell switched to black in the late 90s...rebels!
"MasterMario - Keeper of the V8s" (mastermario)
12/14/2017 at 12:01, STARS: 9
Back in my day, no one could use the phone if someone was on the internet.
"Tripper" (tripe46)
12/14/2017 at 12:03, STARS: 3
a/s/l?
"davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com" (davesaddiction)
12/14/2017 at 12:06, STARS: 0
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
"Deal Killer - Powered by Focus" (dealkiller-ii)
12/14/2017 at 12:06, STARS: 1
Back in my day, if you needed to look up information for a school report, you either dug out mom & dad’s 20 year old encyclopedias or got on your bike and went to the library. The you begged the librarian for help finding a book or two on whatever topic your teacher assigned for the report. Google was just a one with a hundred zeros after it.
"promoted by the color red" (whenindoubtflatout)
12/14/2017 at 12:09, STARS: 4
Back in my day, you asked Jeeves to find what Alta Vista & Yahoo couldn’t.
"TheRealBicycleBuck" (therealbicyclebuck)
12/14/2017 at 12:16, STARS: 0
Data was transferred by sneaker-net using magnetic media with the footprint of a paperback book.
Software was sold (or shared) on multiple disks, often bundled up in a large box or plastic baggies.
The best place to find like-minded people were BBSs and Usenet.
Since download speeds were so slow, downloading a single image took hours.
You had to remember to disable call-waiting before dialing into the internet. If you didn’t, a call from your mom would knock you offline and you had to start your downloads over from the beginning.
"Takuro Spirit" (takurospirit)
12/14/2017 at 12:17, STARS: 4
Back in my day, games came on multiple floppy disks, and didn’t take hours to download or require multiple updates to work.
"Noah - Now with more boost." (antriebverliebt)
12/14/2017 at 12:18, STARS: 0
so... futuristic... *gasp*
"Alfalfa" (alfalfa-romeo)
12/14/2017 at 12:19, STARS: 1
Back in my day, online gaming meant yelling at everyone from the computer not to pick up the phone when it rang once before your modem picked it up.
And then doing it again about five times before you were actually able to play your buddy in Red Alert.
And then it would likely disconnect again at the most crucial moment in battle.
"BigBlock440" (440-4bbl)
12/14/2017 at 12:21, STARS: 0
That’s a bit creepy/wierd/I don’t know thinking back on it.
"Tripper" (tripe46)
12/14/2017 at 12:29, STARS: 1
Definitely creepy/weird now, and probably then too, chat rooms in general are creepy.
"functionoverfashion" (functionoverfashion)
12/14/2017 at 12:54, STARS: 1
When I drove cross-country with a friend, he set up an AIM away-message before leaving... that he couldn’t change until he got home.
In college when I took my laptop in a school van on a ski trip and played illegally downloaded episodes of Family Guy, plugging the laptop into the van’s stereo with a tape adapter. Minds were blown, at the time.
"Chariotoflove" (chariotoflove)
12/14/2017 at 12:58, STARS: 0
Back in my day, we had to download our porn off of usenet groups and decode it.
"Chariotoflove" (chariotoflove)
12/14/2017 at 13:00, STARS: 1
-Text messaging was free and nobody used it.
Back in my day, cell phone calls cost per minute and text messages cost 10 cents each, so phone solicitors were more than just a nuisance.
"shop-teacher" (shop-teacher)
12/14/2017 at 13:25, STARS: 1
Back in my day, my dad called his car phone while I was borrowing his truck, and the sound of a phone ringing while I drove scared the piss out of my so badly, I damn near crashed the truck.
"interstate366, now In The Industry" (interstate366)
12/14/2017 at 13:29, STARS: 1
Ultima Online was huge.
Napster was where you went to download music.
Angelfire, Geocities, and Tripod were popular setup sites.
"Ash78, voting early and often" (ash78)
12/14/2017 at 14:21, STARS: 0
I was still paying per text 5 years ago (flip phone) so I disabled texting, only to learn how many people were texting me important information and assuming I had gotten it.
The earliest mass-market cell calls were around 35c/minute domestic. And SMS was definitely a freebie until they realized they could charge for it (mid-90s). It used to be a way to bypass a phone call by piggybacking on the cell diagnostics service (SMS). Obviously it got out of hand.
"Chariotoflove" (chariotoflove)
12/14/2017 at 14:24, STARS: 1
I blocked texting to stop those. I only embraced it when it came free with my data plans anyway (in the smart phone era), and I learned that it was the best way to get in touch with some of my employees/students. I never remember a time when texting was free, so I must have not been paying attention.
"Nibbles" (nibbles)
12/14/2017 at 14:26, STARS: 1
Back in my day, there was this neat thing we used to do. All the kids would gather in a central location, chat for a while - in person! - and then play games for days on end. It was called a LAN party
Back in my day that modem sound wasn’t a ringtone - it was a way of life
Back in my day, 16 colors was enough. Any more and your three-floppy game would’a been 16 floppies
Back in my day everyone loved going to high school. It was the only place in the county that had T1.
Back in my day, in order to play a game, we had to read a code that was printed in black on a dark-red card in order to launch the program. Lost that card? OH MAN MOM AND DAD ARE GONNA BE SO PISSED
"Nibbles" (nibbles)
12/14/2017 at 14:27, STARS: 1
Yeah? Well back in my day, no one could use the internet if someone was on the phone
"Ash78, voting early and often" (ash78)
12/14/2017 at 14:44, STARS: 0
Let’s put it this way. Nokia and Cingular weren’t exactly touting it their materials. Europeans used it constantly, but it took a long time to catch on here. I love it...usually.
"Chariotoflove" (chariotoflove)
12/14/2017 at 14:46, STARS: 0
I started out with a phone from Cellular One (back in the day, of course), but it was just because my parents wanted me to have it for emergencies. I never actually used the huge brick.