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(Leaving aside the obvious Usenet) Gopher. GIFs. Webpages hewn out of raw HTML by amateurs. The time before 56.6 modems were ubiquitous. Walking away while a we

by ethbr0 5y ago

(Leaving aside the obvious Usenet) Gopher. GIFs. Webpages hewn out of raw HTML by amateurs. The time before 56.6 modems were ubiquitous. Walking away while a webpage loaded. Everything text based (MUDs, IRC). University computers offering you power you could never afford at home. Leaving downloads running overnight. The wild diversity of non-Ethernet networks. Physical computer retail stores. ICQ. Self-hosted persistent gaming servers. Napster being new.

asdff 5y ago
One thing that is better is that the university computers are xeon hpc clusters now and you can ssh to it from anywhere with anything.
- 0x456 5y ago
  Eventually, a grumpy old man* will show up and mention teletype and time-sharing. Someone else will incorrect him saying cloud computing is different. I'd love to hear Peter Norvig and Bill Gates talk it over. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6Ztdp70peU&t=115s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6Ztdp70peU&t=115s
  - asdff 5y ago
    It's still nothing like today. I could connect to the cluster with my phone in a gas station bathroom if I wanted to. Imagine telling people from the 1970s the sheer amount of computational power I can trivially call up today over the course of a bowel movement on the side of the road.
tgtweak 5y ago
I guess we're just going to gloss over how much of a terrible thing Novell Netware and Lotus Notes were to sysadmin :D
- smhenderson 5y ago
  What you call terrible I called job security.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  Oh, so many things were terrible, but it was definitely different. And quaint. I remember seeing my first digital photograph (a blurry, dark scan of a wine bottle label) on the web and being mesmerized. Because before that, web images were exclusively computer art.
anthk 5y ago
Gopher, MUDs and IRC are still alive. I roam around Cybersphere at least daily or every two days. The possibilities in a MUD are much wider than, for example, Cyberpunk 2077.
gremloni 5y ago
Hewn? As in shaped out of a piece of wood. Great word to use in this context, bravo.
- ethbr0 5y ago
  It seemed apropos to the experience of writing HTML. Development now is so smooth. Then? Fire up your chainsaw.

by ethbr0 5y ago

asdff 5y ago

One thing that is better is that the university computers are xeon hpc clusters now and you can ssh to it from anywhere with anything.

0x456 5y ago
Eventually, a grumpy old man* will show up and mention teletype and time-sharing. Someone else will incorrect him saying cloud computing is different. I'd love to hear Peter Norvig and Bill Gates talk it over. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6Ztdp70peU&t=115s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X6Ztdp70peU&t=115s
- asdff 5y ago
  It's still nothing like today. I could connect to the cluster with my phone in a gas station bathroom if I wanted to. Imagine telling people from the 1970s the sheer amount of computational power I can trivially call up today over the course of a bowel movement on the side of the road.

tgtweak 5y ago

I guess we're just going to gloss over how much of a terrible thing Novell Netware and Lotus Notes were to sysadmin :D

smhenderson 5y ago
What you call terrible I called job security.
ethbr0 5y ago
Oh, so many things were terrible, but it was definitely different. And quaint. I remember seeing my first digital photograph (a blurry, dark scan of a wine bottle label) on the web and being mesmerized. Because before that, web images were exclusively computer art.

anthk 5y ago

Gopher, MUDs and IRC are still alive. I roam around Cybersphere at least daily or every two days. The possibilities in a MUD are much wider than, for example, Cyberpunk 2077.

gremloni 5y ago

Hewn? As in shaped out of a piece of wood. Great word to use in this context, bravo.

ethbr0 5y ago
It seemed apropos to the experience of writing HTML. Development now is so smooth. Then? Fire up your chainsaw.