It also felt so much different to use a computer. Like, even my computers in 1996-97-98 felt like a different sort of beast. The software was very self-containe

It also felt so much different to use a computer. Like, even my computers in 1996-97-98 felt like a different sort of beast. The software was very self-contained, and even as late as 2000 you could use a computer exclusively offline and never really feel like you were missing much. Like, encyclopedias came on CDs (sometimes a pack of CDs lol. I remember having colliers in a 4-disc set). Games had great single player modes and local lan options - and didn't require an internet connection to play. There were lots of simple little toy programs and games, too. None of it required internet connections. In a way that permanence was nice. If you pull out a 90s computer and load it up with 90s games, you still get the exact same experience you did back then. I think that's part of the appeal of people collecting vintage computers - I even seen teenagers enjoying that these days lol. But yea, connecting to the internet felt a little like a ritual and the content felt like it had so much more flavor. Like, people writing silly things on a geocities/angelfire/members.aol site, joining a webring, creating pages with tacky backgrounds and flashing gif accents. It was more fun to find out what funny fantasy world AquaHorse1998 was writing about on their angelfire site, than to see boring pictures of a dog on Facebook that Jenny from Ohio posted. (And it's the same person lol)