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We remember the good and forget the negatives. Like waiting 5 minutes for a 500k image to load, trying to configure jumpers on a sound card, or waiting multiple

We remember the good and forget the negatives. Like waiting 5 minutes for a 500k image to load, trying to configure jumpers on a sound card, or waiting multiple minutes to load a game (or the next level in a game...) The joys of today are just different from when I was a kid. I can bemoan that games can't truly have secrets and lore any more, which is true. But my son can craft an entire world in Minecraft and have his friends play in it while they chat and he can craft his own secrets and experiences for his friends. He focuses on the fun he can have today and cares not at all about the fun that existed before him.

queenkjuul 2y ago
My most distinct memories of Photoshop in the 2000s are of it crashing my entire system and trashing two hours of work. I don't even want to think what IDEs were like to work with in the 90s
LargoLasskhyfv 2y ago
There was nothing wrong with configuring jumpers on (sound)cards, if you knew what you did, and why other stuff was jumpered which way. In fact it was more reliable before 'plug & pray' turned into a working thing with PCI and good modern BIOS(for that time).
olyjohn 2y ago
I mean, that's fun that your kids can play Minecraft and build in it. But does that teach them anything about technology? Half the fun of having a computer back in the day was digging through the filesystem, mucking with settings and breaking things... looking at what was on floppy disks and CDROMs (I found Weezer's music video and a Pinball game on the Windows 95 CDROM, it was thrilling). You learned how the computers worked, and that was powerful. It enabled you to do so much more than just play games. You could view source, and suddenly you were a web developer. You could hit up Warez sites and get access to all the professional software that you couldn't afford. 10 year old me now, would have ended up playing with my parents smartphone, then getting sucked into endless feeds of shit, and actually learning nothing. I might have given up. There's no curiosity on the dominant computing platforms because you can't do what you want with them, you can only do what you're allowed to do. A pocket computer could be so powerful, and indeed they do a lot, but they could be so much more than a conduit for middlemen to take your money. Yes I know that ESP32s and Pis and lots of cool experimental things exist. And they are cool. But the initial experience of using a computer back in the day was what sparked my interest. Locked down iPhones and Android tablets let you run Apps. What a discouraging experience that must be.

queenkjuul 2y ago

My most distinct memories of Photoshop in the 2000s are of it crashing my entire system and trashing two hours of work. I don't even want to think what IDEs were like to work with in the 90s

LargoLasskhyfv 2y ago

There was nothing wrong with configuring jumpers on (sound)cards, if you knew what you did, and why other stuff was jumpered which way. In fact it was more reliable before 'plug & pray' turned into a working thing with PCI and good modern BIOS(for that time).

olyjohn 2y ago

I mean, that's fun that your kids can play Minecraft and build in it. But does that teach them anything about technology? Half the fun of having a computer back in the day was digging through the filesystem, mucking with settings and breaking things... looking at what was on floppy disks and CDROMs (I found Weezer's music video and a Pinball game on the Windows 95 CDROM, it was thrilling). You learned how the computers worked, and that was powerful. It enabled you to do so much more than just play games. You could view source, and suddenly you were a web developer. You could hit up Warez sites and get access to all the professional software that you couldn't afford. 10 year old me now, would have ended up playing with my parents smartphone, then getting sucked into endless feeds of shit, and actually learning nothing. I might have given up. There's no curiosity on the dominant computing platforms because you can't do what you want with them, you can only do what you're allowed to do. A pocket computer could be so powerful, and indeed they do a lot, but they could be so much more than a conduit for middlemen to take your money. Yes I know that ESP32s and Pis and lots of cool experimental things exist. And they are cool. But the initial experience of using a computer back in the day was what sparked my interest. Locked down iPhones and Android tablets let you run Apps. What a discouraging experience that must be.