There was no formal process. No dailies, no backlog. Deliverables were a date circled on a calendar. It was still all bullshit and lies. No emails, no smartpho

There was no formal process. No dailies, no backlog. Deliverables were a date circled on a calendar. It was still all bullshit and lies. No emails, no smartphones. Support people had pagers. But you weren't expected to fix world-serving infrastructure remotely. If it failed during the weekend, you'd most likely fix it on Monday. Unless something bad* happened. There was no Internet, unless you were in academia. Knowledge came from books, magazines and from what you remembered if you didn't have these with you. Having a good network (the human kind) was essential. Although some hermit types made it very far alone... some descended into madness. There was no Linux. A lot of software was expensive. Most software you could pirate if you knew the right people or had an account on the right BBS. "Shareware" was a where value was. You knew nobody would come after you if you never posted a paper check to the guy who made it to get a license. Most viruses were not subtle. They would piss you off and trash your stuff. You had to reformat. You learned quick to have copies. On the "sneakernet", floppies were king. Backpacks full of plastic. Systematic copy sessions between friends. Swapping sequenced media had a rhythm of it's own. A good excuse for drinking. Hardware was expensive and evolved fast. That new 486 was _impressive_. People gathered around it to see it compile and do "3D" TWICE as fast as the fastest 386 before it. Moore's law in full effect. If you had the latest shit, you could boast about it with _numbers_. Not just some new color. I knew people who printed pieces of code to study on the bus. Printers were way more important than they are now. They still haven't died and that's too bad. I hate printers. *I was the guy with the pager that had to leave the bar at 2AM to feed printers. Fuck printers.