Look at that.
I wish I could still buy controllers for that price!
Tuesday Top Ten: Best things about computing in the 90’s
Few would argue that the raw, clunky, disorganized mess that was using a computer and the internet in the 90’s is better than the Google indexed ,hash tagged and cloud stored world we live in today. But that gritty frontier of the 1990’s tech world was pretty friggin amazing at the time.
Here’s my Top Ten best things about computing in the 90’s. Some of these things have evolved and are still around today. Many of these ideas and technologies are obsolete now and serve only as a memory of what we thought was the pinnacle of human achievement at the time.
Got any awesome memories of staying up until 2AM on your Packard Bell? Post it up in the comments!
10. Screensavers: When you got a new computer in 1996 there were two things you did immediately. See what games were on it, and set your screen saver. Screensavers were actually useful pieces of software back in the day, because they allowed you to keep your monitor on and prevent “burn-in”. Now a days with LCD, I have my monitors set to just turn off after a few minutes. But with CRT screens every time you turned it on, you had to wait several seconds while the screen faded into full brightness.
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There’s so many iconic screen savers I can remember. Flying Toasters, 3D Pipes, Stars, and of course, customizable scrolling text. Nothing more fun than setting a screensaver password on somebody’s computer and the only way that can figure it out is by solving the riddle you left for them on their screensaver!
9. Free AOL Disks: I will admit. Our first footstep on the internet was thanks to a free AOL 3.5 floppy promising 40 free hours or something like that on our 9600 baud modem. By the late 90’s AOL was begging for new users offering 700+ free hours. The service itself was of course crappy and limited. But all those Free CDs came in handy as coasters, and the free floppys were actually useful for formatting and storing your files on.
8. LAN Parties: These were awesome for me because I was a console gamer pretty much exclusively. And of course there were some great games, and great multi-player games on consoles. But the problem with those were you were always sharing a screen with your competitors. At a LAN party you had your own rig all to yourself, which you used to wreak havoc on your opposition.
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Or in my case: Spend 20 minutes trying to figure out why you can’t find the server, then spend 10 minutes trying to tweak the graphics settings of the game you just borrowed so it can run on your crappy PC, then spend the rest of the night getting owned in a game you have no idea how to play. At least some things haven’t changed since the 90’s.
7. Search Engines: This could make the list of best AND worst things about computing in the 90’s. Compared to modern search engines, the available options in the 90’s SUCKED. BUT… it was the only way to discover content without going directly to the URL.
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Problem was ye olde search engines were almost entirely keyword driven. Which meant any jerk off selling insurance can just fill the META tag of their website with buzz words, and you pop in searches for all sorts of randomness. On top of that, these search companies would sell search term rankings for cash. So to find what you are really looking for you had to filter through pages of irrelevant and sponsored results.
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Searching in the 90’s was a practice of mixing and matching Excite, Lycos, AltaVista, InfoSpace and numerous others along with a carefully crafted search term that wasn’t too generic, but not too specific.
6. Burning CDs: CD Burning changed forever how I used my computer. Suddenly I could start hoarding files. Which was important when took about 5 minutes per megabyte to download. You see storage used to be a scarce commodity. Floppys were too small. And hard drives were expensive. There were thumb drives, but at 64MB sizes… they weren’t really cost effective either.
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But CD burning all of a sudden opened up affordable storage options. I could store hundreds of songs on a single CD, or all of my Helen Hunt photos! And burning a full CD only took 20 minutes at 4x Speed.
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If you got your first CD burner in the 90’s it was probably an external drive and probably cost anywhere between $100 and $400. Because your Pentium 133Mhz probably didn’t come with one, and opening up the case and adding one was a big scary thing.
5. GeoCities: For a lot of people GeoCities was their first home on the world wide web. It certainly was mine. It started out just as a collection of stuff I was interested in, and ended growing to what eventually became the 3rd largest Helen Hunt site on the web. Haha.
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GeoCities was laid out in a conceptually unobtrusive fashion as most early websites were. As a community where people “homesteaded” in different cities centered around different interests, and within those cities were city blocks. Each block had 100 available addresses. So if you wanted to think about it, you lived in a community, on a certain street with a certain address, and you used that to tell your friends where to find your website.
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I still miss my old GeoCities site and wish I would have saved from stuff from it. It was where I learned HTML and would probably be a blast to look at today.
4. Niche News Sites: When I found out that there was a news site was dedicated entirely to Nintendo news and updated on a daily basis, I knew that the internet and I would from that point forwards always be friends. No matter what you were interested in, there was a website out there focusing exclusively on that.
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The reason it was so mind-blowing was that before that, magazines were the medium that catered to those niche audiences. You’d get updated monthly, or even bi-monthly. And other than a “letters to the editor” section, communication was pretty much one way. But with these websites, there were whole communities of like minded individuals that orbit around the content. The perfect place to find some outside encouragement for your pickle collecting habit.
3. ICQ: I know a lot of my friends used IRC, but I was ICQ all the way. It was simply a chat client. But one of the first with tons of features packed in. You had your contact list, but I’d pin my most frequent contacts to the edge of the screen so they were always on top. I spent countless hours chatting with classmates, and friends I’d made on the net. I stuck with ICQ until the bitter end. Ultimately the spam killed it for me.
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That “Uh-oh!” sound you’d get when you got a new message, I’ll never forget.
2. Web based e-mail: E-mail itself was a marvel in the early 90’s, but for me, web based mail finally gave me my own mail box. And one that was safe and protected from everyone else that shared the same computer in the house. Of course ISPs offered a crummy POP account, but it was always limited by space and attachments. Plus when someone sends you one message with a huge attachment, you have to wait 5 minutes for it to download before you can read the other 25 messages. Web based mail was genius at the time and something I still couldn’t live without to this day.
1. Just Being There: Okay, so computing in the 90’s was slow, clunky, un-organized and generally pretty ugly. But the best part of computing in the 90’s was just being there to experience all the changes. It was a completely revolutionary new way of communicating with people. It was a time where computers were moving from something that primarily hobbyists and business people used, to something that was a fixture in daily life. Computers were morphing from being a tool, to a portal.
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The internet was truly like a new un-cultivated frontier, and the boxy technology of the 90’s were the covered wagons that we used to traverse it. A place for you to homestead your own little patch of it and be whoever you wanted to be. To explore, contribute, consume, and discover.
Battle of the Browsers
Here’s a little video to get you ready for tomorrow’s Top Ten:
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHb6M03Ft84″>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HHb6M03Ft84]
Time Machine
This is one of my “accidental” scores off of eBay. Won it for 99 cents. And let me tell you it was worth all 99 of them.
I never owned this game, but I remember playing it. I don’t recall whether it was renting it, borrowing it, or playing it at a friend’s house. One thing is certian though. I haven’t played NES Pinball for at LEAST 20 years.
I cleaned up the cartridge a bit. It was pretty obvious this cart led a tougher life than most of mine that are still in my collection. It had grease and gunk all over it. And some sticker residue from a garage sale or bargain bin somewhere. It cleaned up okay, but I definitely wouldn’t call it “Like New” as the eBay listing explicitly stated. Oh well. Not going to make a big deal over a really common game that only cost $1.00.
My NES hasn’t seen much use lately. Really who’s has? But it took a minute or two of blowing in the cart and massaging the position of the cart just right into the system. First several attempts the sound was great, but the screen was gobbly gook. Ironiclly, it brought back a lot of memories of the old NES days and all the little tricks you had to do to get a game to play right. Seems like everybody had their own method. Mine is to push the cart in only BARELY as far as you need to to push the game down. Works most of the time.
But anywho, after getting the game to work, I started playing and it’s quite to contrast to the games I’ve been playing, like Skyward Sword with the motion controls, or the 3D screen of the 3DS. This is one of the more straight foward games, even by NES standards. It is what it is. Pinball. And it plays remarkably well. There’s “Game A” which is kinda like easy mode, where the ball moves a bit slower. What you want to play is “Game B” where the ball moves a lot faster, and feels a lot more like real pinball. It’s a simple game, so there’s not much to say about the gameplay other than, it’s very polished.
I like it just because it’s so basic. Like if you took today’s games and stripped them down of all the graphics and technology, and got to the core of what made them fun, you end up with games like this. With simple ideas and polished gameplay. This game is fun to just sit and try to beat high scores. No achievements. And heck, your high scores even disappear the moment you turn off the game. But it’s games like this that just take me back to when I was 7 years old and stuff like this was brand damn new and awesome.
Definitely as close as it gets to a real life time machine.
09.22.11Through the years
Here’s my gaming setup through the years. Luke has so much catching up to do!
1987ish?
This setup started around 1997 and this picture taken in 2002. Including the gaming systems, I still have a few pieces in use today.
2004 saw a significant upgrade in the sound system.
2006
2008, new TV!
2011, the most recent incarnation.
09.4.11
I’m Still Just a Kid
Well one of the things I was worried about was that after Luke got here, I wouldn’t have time for “the old me”. You know the geeky, obsessed nerd that I am. That’s entirely not true. If anything I’ve learned that if I’m going to sit down and do something, just make sure I’m easily interrupt-able. Running GW missions with friends probably isn’t the best idea anymore since nobody wants to stand around in Yak’s Bend waiting for me to finish changing a dirty diaper. But playing some N64 is super easy, because you can just pause it whenever.
Been playing a lot of Nintendo 64 lately.
I’ve actually been playing a lot of N64 over the past few days. I ordered a replacement thumbstick for my worn out green controller. While not exactly as advertised, it’s a very nice replacement. More like the GameCube version on an N64 controller. It was only $8, so I’ve been putting it through a Mario Kart torture test over the past two days. It works well enough, I’ve been able to tie one of my old records, and now have a mild case of Nintendo Thumb. So far it’s holding up pretty well.
I can’t wait to introduce Luke to a bunch of this stuff. Although I know that when he’s older, all the games are going to be so much cooler, that his interest in this old stuff probably won’t be that great. Though the nephews were over last weekend and had a blast playing the old N64.
I’ve spent a lot of time on eBay lately looking at cheap stuff to fill in my collection. I’ve got this hairbrained idea that I know enough about this stuff to be able to find good deals and could buy low and sell high. Not enough to make a ton of money, but enough to support my gaming habit. Haha! Andrea’s not too enthusiastic about the idea though. I guess that’s understandable.
I just see a lot of cool stuff on there. Like brand new original N64 controllers (which are regularly going for $100 a piece now! Geeze). I definitely couldn’t justify taking hard earned money to buy one, but if I had play money from selling crap on eBay might make it easier to pull the trigger. I realize most folks have a LONG list of stuff they’d rather spend a Benjamin on but that’s the stuff I get a kick out of.
So I decided to focus on what I DO have instead. Which is a pretty nice collection as it is! I stumbled on a new website, called Backloggery.com it’s similar to IGN’s old collection feature, but it helps you keep track of not only what is in your collection, but the games you’ve beaten and the ones you haven’t. It’s very retro themed, and a fun way to organize my games. So far 105 games owned, 35 unbeaten, and 35 on my wishlist.
Since I’ve been so recently entrenched in my gaming vice I decided it was time to go ahead and finally unpack a bunch of my Nintendo stuff from when we moved it. I set it up all nice and neat in the basement.
Nintendo and Friends. We're both crazy.
Ready for multi-player action, but all my friends grew up. Haha.
So I’m definitely enjoying the holiday weekend. Tomorrow I’ll be outside getting the Oldses shined up since it’s going to be another nice day. Maybe after that my Nintendo Thumb will have recovered to the point I can lay down some times again! Haha.
08.19.10Marble Madness
Hells yeah!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k154KxQ2Sw8]
That is all.
06.27.10A Look Back: World Driver Championship
By now I have been hopelessly consumed by gaming, and specifically the N64 for almost three years. I was also full swing into the internet and considered myself “well informed” on all things gaming, and an aficionado on all things Nintendo. Yup, that’s right, I was a Nintendo fanboy in every sense of the term. I mention this because at the time (as a fan of racing games) the best racing game was Gran Turismo. Unfortunately for me Gran Turismo was exclusive to the PlayStation gaming console.
Could I have bought a PlayStation? … let me re-phrase that. Could I have afforded a PlayStation? Sure I had a part time job, I could have saved up the money in a month or two. But could I have bought a PlayStation? Resoundingly NO! As dedicated to Nintendo as I was at the time, the thought of giving Sony a single dollar was almost repulsive. My allegiance to “the Big N” was unwaivering. Even Nintendo’s slogan for the late 90’s was “Get ‘N’ or get out!” And if I couldn’t have Gran Turismo, fine, I’ll just spend my time playing stellar triple-A titles like Ocarina of Time, GoldenEye, Mario Kart… and I would be JUST fine.
However… as a fan I the racing genre I followed the devopment and release of this game probably closer than most would. It has it’s similarities to Gran Turismo: realistic physics, great graphics, detailed environments, etc. It didn’t have the licensed cars though, so what was obviously a Mustang in the game was named a “Stallion”. No sweat though. It was a driving game coming from Boss Studios. I had complete faith in the final product.
While at times my favorite developers don’t live up to expectations, Boss Studios truly came through for me with World Driver Championship. As you (probably don’t) remember, they released another favorite game of mine: Top Gear Rally. This game was every bit as fun, while still being a completely different kind of driving game.
I’ve looked forward to this re-review for a while as I loved the game so much back when it was new. I picked it up recently to discover that the game has actually aged fairly well compared to some of these titles that just are painful to look at. Fun to play and bearable to look at. Looks to be a fun game to re-experience indeed.
In all honestly the graphics are pretty darn good. Certainly pushing the limits of the N64. To up the ante even a bit further there is the normal full screen mode, but also a Hi-Res Letterbox mode that you could select. This offers a sharper picture at the expense of the black bars at the top and bottom of the screen. There’s no other performance hit that I could tell so I prefer the hi-res mode.
The game has a very loose character progression, in that you win more races, move up in the ranking and get offered better jobs. For the most part you could end up driving whatever you want as you move on, but there’s a few moments in the game that if you choose to drive for a certain team, you’ll block off a path for ever driving for that team’s arch rival. It’s a nice subtle change from just moving from one car to the next faster car mindlessly.
But what makes all good driving games? Good driving! I use the term “driving game” because really it is more that than racing. The computer cars do offer a nice challenge, but for the most part they are just part of a glorified time trial. The don’t really race against you as much as they run around the track at a certain pace. Still on the tougher courses they can be breathing down your neck, or be the difference between gold or silver.
The cars felt like real cars. They felt heavy and carried some momentum, not only around corners but over hills as well. What looks like a small bend on the map can actually be a tricky corner if set over the crest of a hill. The upwards momentum of your car can kill your downforce for a moment, long enough to slide you off the track if you’re not careful. The more you play the tracks, the better you get at knowing how to react to the environment.
I’d forgotten most of these tracks in general, but as I played more and more I started to remember which corners you had to take it easy on, and which ones you could hammer on through and the cars would stick despite feeling like you’re going a bit too fast. I guess that’s one of the things that made the experience so enjoyable. You really felt like you had to push the cars to their limits to achieve the fastest times.
The game is plenty long too. I didn’t get as deep into it as I once had, but deep enough to be able to appreciate some of the “remixes” of the tracks. Every track had at least two variations. They were the same for the most part, but one alignment might take you through a forest chicane, while another version lead you through 90 degree turns through a small village. Track memorization is still key, but changes enough that you aren’t a mindless zombie after just a few hours with the game.
As realistic racers go, this was the cream of the crop on the N64. And in my opinion STILL one of the better ones today. I had no problem getting into this game again and enjoying it all over again. In fact this re-review has lead me to appreciate some of its qualities even more and hope I don’t hesitate another 5 years to pick it up and do it all again!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o-5vowmuOoM]
06.20.10Morning Person
You know, for as long as I’ve been a night owl, I’m surly starting to appreciate the mornings. Here it is, Sunday 6AM and I actually set my alarm to get up this early. I let the dog out and sat on the back steps for a while, just enjoying what is bound to be the coolest air we’ll see today, and just listened to the birds and the crickets. Here on the main drag in Great Bend it just doesn’t get this quiet that often.
I noticed that all those things I swore would never happen to me as I got older just kinda happen. When I was a kid there’s no way I would have gotten up this early on purpose unless I had a very specific and necessary reason to do so. Nor would I look at the clock and think of 9:00 as “getting late”.
But we still have some youthful fun. Andrea hauled her desktop computer out to the living room yesterday and hooked it up to the HDTV to enjoy her new video card. We had to run network cords, power cords, audio/video cords all over the house to make it happen. It reminded me of the old LAN parties we used to have. Things like that I think you shouldn’t have to outgrow.
Web Nostalgia of the Day: excite.com
Current excite.com homepage.
Back when Internet Explorer and Netscape were duking it out, so were search sites like Excite, Lycos, and Altavista. I remember much debate over which search site was the best. Of course I always preferred the one that ranked my Helen Hunt website the highest at the time. Ha ha!
Search sites were truly awful back then. If you don’t believe me, head over to the current Excite.com website and search for anything you might search for today. Excite has updated their search algorithms as much as they’ve updated their homepage in the last 10 years is seems.
1999 Excite homepage from archive.org.
Of course in addition to searching, Excite was a mish-mash of all sorts of information and services. I used to have an Excite e-mail address, custom Excite homepage, and even used good old Excite Chat, also known as Virtual Places (VP).
VP was basically just a chat program that used webpages as the chat rooms. They had a bunch of specific Excite Super Chat pages with themed backgrounds for whatever your interest happened to be (though any URL on the internet could be a chatroom). And upon entering any of these rooms you were thrown into the jungle of random immaturity, heated arguments, and suggestive (or sometimes just plain explicit) chatting. I suppose the internet hasn’t changed much in that regard.
The part that makes it memorable for me though are all the little avatars folks would use. Tiny little images there were about half the size of a postage stamp that you could create and little speech bubbles would pop out of them as you chatted. You could move them around the screen. Usually to harass other users as you changed your avatar to something like “LOSER” with an arrow pointing at the avatar next to you. Then watch as they try to move away from you.
Of course Excite.com was a casualty of the “Dot Com Bust”. And once Google picked up steam, I know I for one left those old search engines behind and never looked back. But it’s interesting to look back and see how the online landscape has changed in such a short amount of time. Then we all pretty much consumed content that was created and placed in front of us. And now-a-days it’s all about user generated stuff like YouTube and Facebook. Stuff like the dancing baby and fart soundboards are relegated to e-mail forwards and internet obscurity.
But don’t forget those simpler times. When sites like Excite had EVERYTHING you’d EVER need!