6 ms·

love these posts, like those EVGA/VGA articles, reminds me of how cheesy, fun, and raw early personal computing was, flying toasters, GORILLA.BAS, having mom ye

love these posts, like those EVGA/VGA articles, reminds me of how cheesy, fun, and raw early personal computing was, flying toasters, GORILLA.BAS, having mom yell “sorry” from upstairs indicating in advance that you were about to be booted from your online game because she picked up the phone, getting a copy of Unreal with your AGP Voodoo card, what a fun era that was

sedatk 6y ago
People will remember these times with similar joyful feelings too. It's not that computing isn't fun anymore, it's us who stopped seeing the fun in things.
- dylan604 6y ago
  Yes and no. Not to be cliche, but times are different. Everything now is digital, so all of the fun we used to have with the analog stuff is just gone. You could open up an electronic thing and look at the parts, borrow the parts, modify/replace the parts, etc. Sure, some of these things were litterally the size of the desktop, but lots of learning was had by many a hacker.
  - nefitty 6y ago
    I fell in love with computers by wasting hours messing with Windows settings and internals. Thinking now, it doesn’t feel like there’s a lot of space for that sort of stuff in most people’s routines, especially if they’re stuck in a browsing wheel of boredom. My wheel right now is just Reddit and HN and back and forth, and it’s insanely difficult to unhinge myself from it.
    - badsectoracula 6y ago
      Just install some Linux distro (preferably not something like Ubuntu but something more "bare"/"raw") and start tinkering. I feel there are more tinkers into Linux nowadays than there were PC/Mac tinkers regardless of OS back in the 90s. Of course computers (including mobiles and tablets) became widely mainstream over the years so the percentage of tinkers dropped but the absolute numbers increased.
    - Uehreka 6y ago
      OK then, grab a Raspberry Pi 3B, 4B and Zero, pop open these docs for config.txt, and try and figure out how far you can push each of these tiny machines: https://www.elinux.org/RPiconfig https://www.elinux.org/RPiconfig Really though, the RPi's config.txt is exactly this kind of rabbit hole. I just got a Zero W today and now I'm thinking about if it's possible to underclock it enough to power it with a lemon battery via GPIO.
      - deleted 6y ago
        [deleted]
      - echoradio 6y ago
        If you do the latter, will you please write about it and share here?
        Uehreka 6y ago
        That was a joke. Was. According to this video I’d need a wall of lemons to get 5V with support for 300mA of current: https://youtu.be/a1D-fZP8qJk?t=205 https://youtu.be/a1D-fZP8qJk?t=205 So it may take some... adjustments... to get something like this to work, but I’ll see what I can do.
      - dylan604 6y ago
        I have more fun with Arduino type boards than RPis. For me, RPis are just fun to see where you can put a little computer, but I like all of the soldering, bread boarding, wiring, etc of the various shields in the Arduino realm. I get the best of both worlds with the analog/digital inputs, plus the programming in a very limited (requires some creativity) fooprint type of challenge. I haven't messed with the GPIOs on a RPi though, but now we're back to just programming in whatever unsconstrained/unrestricted way of a desktop. ??? we all like different things.
        jnwatson 6y ago
        The downside of embedded system is it eventually turns into enterprise hardware. A RPi is just a small cheap PC now.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Razengan 6y ago
    > Yes and no. Not to be cliche, but times are different. Everything now is digital What did your elders who grew up with books and radios say of the early computers era you’re fond of?
    - BiteCode_dev 6y ago
      There has never been as many books as today. A book still smells like a book. You can still buy beautiful books. In fact, I don't see the difference between the books from my youth and the books now as an adult. But the IT field is certainly very different. However, I don't miss the old modems, the hacks to get my maxtor working, clone CD and emule. I don't miss the floppy, black and white low res monitor, the clunky hardware and the slow or no internet. I like HD. I like thin laptops, WIFI, USB, bittorrent, and a usable linux desktop. I do have nostalgia for how the discovery of the old internet felt, the sense of community, the ethics and dreams. But it doesn't mean the current one is not awesome.
    - dylan604 6y ago
      My elders where in contstruction with fairly low pay for lots of physical work. So my elders saw my interest in electronics and afforded me every opportunity to do something not in the same line of work they endured. That included buying me books to further my studies. They also bought me electronic toys knowing that once I got "bored" with the toy, I would at some point be opening it up to see what made it tick. There are all sorts of electronics besides computers. A CPU is a very small shrunken sets of transistors that are too small for anyone to interact with other than through software (realistically that is). However, older "computer" devices used components large enough you could see and manipulate by hand. The traces on the boards were large enough you could physically scratch/break, and re-wire (reprogramming) causing the device to do something new. To the point, at some stage, stickers reading "No user servicable parts inside" became a thing so people would stop tinkering. That sticker has now been replaced with an apple shaped logo, but they pretty much mean the same thing now.
- luxuryballs 6y ago
  but it’s not as cheesy for sure, everything is all slick and polished and minimalistic, no doubt nostalgia is at play, but there was definitely a “Wild West” of computing back then that in my opinion has only been matched by the emergence of crypto, and an example of the difference might be like, now you can download unity for free and download a sample project and go to town, but back then having Qbasic hidden on your windows 3.1 install and finding the source code for a local multiplayer game ready to run, it’s just like... going to your local farmers market versus going to Whole Foods kind of feel, doesn’t feel like the makers are throwing in any hidden fun stuff anymore, everything is all corporate and streamlined rather than having a handmade feel lurking just under the hood

sedatk 6y ago

People will remember these times with similar joyful feelings too. It's not that computing isn't fun anymore, it's us who stopped seeing the fun in things.

dylan604 6y ago
Yes and no. Not to be cliche, but times are different. Everything now is digital, so all of the fun we used to have with the analog stuff is just gone. You could open up an electronic thing and look at the parts, borrow the parts, modify/replace the parts, etc. Sure, some of these things were litterally the size of the desktop, but lots of learning was had by many a hacker.
- nefitty 6y ago
  I fell in love with computers by wasting hours messing with Windows settings and internals. Thinking now, it doesn’t feel like there’s a lot of space for that sort of stuff in most people’s routines, especially if they’re stuck in a browsing wheel of boredom. My wheel right now is just Reddit and HN and back and forth, and it’s insanely difficult to unhinge myself from it.
  - badsectoracula 6y ago
    Just install some Linux distro (preferably not something like Ubuntu but something more "bare"/"raw") and start tinkering. I feel there are more tinkers into Linux nowadays than there were PC/Mac tinkers regardless of OS back in the 90s. Of course computers (including mobiles and tablets) became widely mainstream over the years so the percentage of tinkers dropped but the absolute numbers increased.
  - Uehreka 6y ago
    OK then, grab a Raspberry Pi 3B, 4B and Zero, pop open these docs for config.txt, and try and figure out how far you can push each of these tiny machines: https://www.elinux.org/RPiconfig https://www.elinux.org/RPiconfig Really though, the RPi's config.txt is exactly this kind of rabbit hole. I just got a Zero W today and now I'm thinking about if it's possible to underclock it enough to power it with a lemon battery via GPIO.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - echoradio 6y ago
      If you do the latter, will you please write about it and share here?
      - Uehreka 6y ago
        That was a joke. Was. According to this video I’d need a wall of lemons to get 5V with support for 300mA of current: https://youtu.be/a1D-fZP8qJk?t=205 https://youtu.be/a1D-fZP8qJk?t=205 So it may take some... adjustments... to get something like this to work, but I’ll see what I can do.
    - dylan604 6y ago
      I have more fun with Arduino type boards than RPis. For me, RPis are just fun to see where you can put a little computer, but I like all of the soldering, bread boarding, wiring, etc of the various shields in the Arduino realm. I get the best of both worlds with the analog/digital inputs, plus the programming in a very limited (requires some creativity) fooprint type of challenge. I haven't messed with the GPIOs on a RPi though, but now we're back to just programming in whatever unsconstrained/unrestricted way of a desktop. ??? we all like different things.
      - jnwatson 6y ago
        The downside of embedded system is it eventually turns into enterprise hardware. A RPi is just a small cheap PC now.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Razengan 6y ago
  > Yes and no. Not to be cliche, but times are different. Everything now is digital What did your elders who grew up with books and radios say of the early computers era you’re fond of?
  - BiteCode_dev 6y ago
    There has never been as many books as today. A book still smells like a book. You can still buy beautiful books. In fact, I don't see the difference between the books from my youth and the books now as an adult. But the IT field is certainly very different. However, I don't miss the old modems, the hacks to get my maxtor working, clone CD and emule. I don't miss the floppy, black and white low res monitor, the clunky hardware and the slow or no internet. I like HD. I like thin laptops, WIFI, USB, bittorrent, and a usable linux desktop. I do have nostalgia for how the discovery of the old internet felt, the sense of community, the ethics and dreams. But it doesn't mean the current one is not awesome.
  - dylan604 6y ago
    My elders where in contstruction with fairly low pay for lots of physical work. So my elders saw my interest in electronics and afforded me every opportunity to do something not in the same line of work they endured. That included buying me books to further my studies. They also bought me electronic toys knowing that once I got "bored" with the toy, I would at some point be opening it up to see what made it tick. There are all sorts of electronics besides computers. A CPU is a very small shrunken sets of transistors that are too small for anyone to interact with other than through software (realistically that is). However, older "computer" devices used components large enough you could see and manipulate by hand. The traces on the boards were large enough you could physically scratch/break, and re-wire (reprogramming) causing the device to do something new. To the point, at some stage, stickers reading "No user servicable parts inside" became a thing so people would stop tinkering. That sticker has now been replaced with an apple shaped logo, but they pretty much mean the same thing now.
luxuryballs 6y ago
but it’s not as cheesy for sure, everything is all slick and polished and minimalistic, no doubt nostalgia is at play, but there was definitely a “Wild West” of computing back then that in my opinion has only been matched by the emergence of crypto, and an example of the difference might be like, now you can download unity for free and download a sample project and go to town, but back then having Qbasic hidden on your windows 3.1 install and finding the source code for a local multiplayer game ready to run, it’s just like... going to your local farmers market versus going to Whole Foods kind of feel, doesn’t feel like the makers are throwing in any hidden fun stuff anymore, everything is all corporate and streamlined rather than having a handmade feel lurking just under the hood