The 90s Nostalgia Thread

I think mine was Windows 95 well it's the first I remember, I remember my big brother taught me to play Lemmings on it and playing some weird math game that involved a dog, fighting aliens, you had to do arithmetic to defeat (though that one might have been early 2000s)

Anyone remember USENET? Anyone use USENET?

I used to participate in a couple of newsgroups, including alt.callahans, alt.books.tom-clancy, alt.books.heinlein, and alt.games.wing-commander, but kinda drifted away from that years ago, and don't even have usenet access at the present other than occasionally going in via Google Groups (blech).

I feel young now (or no because I was still learning to read and write ^^;)

I understand Usenet as being a plaintext pre-BBS discussion system. But I see it being touted as a secure, high-speed download platform and I have no idea how one becomes the other.

It was always a mix of things. Don't forget, part of Usenet's function was to be almost like a cloud before that concept ever got a name. It was also the precursor to such things as Torrent during a time when download speed and bandwidth were major issues in surfing.

It's structure also helped formalise fora and chatrooms. Both the digital and the cultural aspects.

@Taira Mai: At least your first computer had a HDD. My family's Amstrad CPC 6128 didn't.

Psh. The Amstrad was rather a step up from my Specky. But, hey: not the 90s.

My first laptop, however: that was 90s. And, it was monochrome. Windows 3.11 — more floppy disks needed to install Word than you'd believe.

Yeah, places were touting it as a faster alternative to torrents.

Usenet could have binary files posted to it via binary to text encoding. However for a 500 KB picture that could mean chasing Part 1/9 depending on the software used. And TROI.JPG could be a nice pic of Marina Sirtis or a pic of Troy, New York.

FTP and GOPHER, oh gods, chasing down DOOM.WAD files and getting software. "Sneakernet": using bundles of floppies to trade files. Remember those AOL floppy disks? A great way to get a free floppy.

Ah Computer Shopper, 7 pounds of pure computer shopping fun....

AOL on a floppy? Sounds a lot more useful than the infamous CDs.

Oh it was, a great way for boys to save the pr0n. I made a mistake when I borrowed a friend's floppy so we could finish our history project and I saw my first furry pr0n.

Wrong AOL floppy, there were no files on the American revolution but I learned who "Doug Winger" was...

... followed by lots of "I just wanted to see what the fuss was about" from my guy friend.

And no, before a certain imageboard and before friendship was magic, furries were a thing. There was even an informal club at my college. Yes there are Furry Fandom hipsters...

edited 21st Sep '14 11:08:12 AM by TairaMai

They said Windows 98 could run on 16 MB of RAM.

Well to its credit it technically could, but I'll never forget the sounds that Quantum Fireball 1080AT drive made while trying to do the simplest task.

Much like how Vista's minimum specs weren't really adequate.

No minimum specs are accurate. Always shoot %50 above what the programmers recommend.

Microsoft seems to follow that "shoot for the moon, if you fall you'll hit the stars" advice. And like all hollow platitudes, it's bullcrap.

Microsoft got into the habit of saying "yeah, this will work" because they really took off in the 90's. Windows 3.1 could work if you got programs and hacked your config.sys and win.ini files. There was a nice piece of software called "PC Tools for Windows" that fixed a lot of things wrong with Win 3.1.

But Windows would still eat it's registry file.

Programs would crash, files wouldn't load with their proper program. It'd go from 32 bit colors (nice) to 16 (crap) or 8 bit colors (utter shit). Video and audio drivers would refuse to load because the registry entries were written over and Ret-Gone by another program or Windows itself.

Oh yeah, Bill Gates's brain trust had to scramble to add TCP/IP support because that "internet thing" was really catching on.

Windows 95 was the ugly, ugly bastard child of marketing and too much enthusiasm. It was a new shell over DOS. DOS was getting long in the tooth when Windows 95 came out. Plug and Play became Plug and Pray: the hardware and software had a habit of not agreeing on who was in charge.

Then MS took support away for DOS. Sure you could get a command prompt back to DOS in windows 95, but older DOS versions that worked fine were no longer supported.

And the Windows 3.1 issues were never really fixed with windows 95 (or eve Windows 98, I had to use various registry hacks and even backup .reg files to fix the times 95 or 98 ate itself).

Things were fine when the hackers and DIY crowd got to work.

Tucows, CNET, download.com, those were the days when you could get freeware without spam, malware or fears that some hax0r from Upper Lower Slobovia now had your credit card number. There were a few A-holes who gave out demos that weren't labeled as such. Only after you installed the program did you find out that it had X days of use and then it would lock up unless you paid them via snailmail. Once cool guy just wanted people to read "COVEN: A NOVEL" (sic), you had to scan a copy of the cover, send it to him and he'd give you the key as if you paid.

But searching was a gawdfull pain.

You had to type exactly what you wanted and use "+" or "-" to screen out the B.S. Altavista et al were very Literal-Minded: they gave you EXACTLY what you typed in.

edited 3rd Oct '14 3:52:08 PM by TairaMai

Let's see, computer games I played in the 90's. I remember a CD-ROM called Aviation Adventure, which was apparently part of a series called Knowledge Adventure, though I don't know what other games were in the series. It was all about planes and stuff, with a flight sim, a game where you played as a paper airplane flying in a house a quiz and a bunch of other stuff. I also had a copy of The Magic School Bus Explores The Ocean. I also had a copy of King's Quest VI, the only game in the series I owned. I could never get very far in it, in part because I was stuck at the Cliffs of Logic and didn't know you were supposed to look in the manual for the answers to the copy protection puzzles. Oh, I also played TIE Fighter which was my first exposure to the Star Wars franchise. As a result of that I spent a good deal of time thinking the Empire was supposed to be the good guys.

As fara as pca goes...

Animaniacs

Monster Truck Madness 98

Batman the Caped Crusader: a point and click mystery game with art puzzles?

Hot Wheels stunt track driver (STD)

LEGO Island 2

None Really worked though because of extremely low memory thrift store spiecals.

Lego island was the bomb

I'm gonna talk for a bit about a 90's show that was incredibly awesome but was terribly under-appreciated.

Roswell Conspiracies: Aliens, Myths and Legends aired in 1999 and dealt with a group of MIB inspired guys operating out of Roswell as they deal with aliens that live on planet earth. It sounds like the same premise as Men in Black but in truth it skews closer to Stargate SG 1. Every mythological creature from earth's legends, such as werewolves, vampires or banshees are actually aliens that have migrated to earth. For example the Lychanthropes are a species of wolf-looking aliens that can disguise themselves in human form. Like SG-1 the show has a blend of both episodic storytelling and several story arcs operating simultaneously. It was well written, had some great plot twists and works its way toward an epic conclusion. I actually recommend NOT going to the TvTropes page and looking at spoilers because it will ruin the late game story points and spoil the finale.

Sadly it's hard to find anything about the show as the name Roswell Conspiracies is horribly generic, and the show never reached the popularity it deserved, but I have been able to find a place that has all forty episodes grouped in one place. If the notion of a Men In Black crossed with Stargate sounds at all interesting to you, or if you are looking for a tight, well-paced action show with a good conspiracy myth arc I implore you to take a look at Roswell Conspiracies.

Watch it all here: http://www.animetoon.tv/the-roswell-conspiracies

edited 1st Nov '14 3:08:02 PM by WillKeaton

I'm getting an Americas Most Wanted feel from that dude

The older dude in the suit with the perpetual scowl? Yeah, that's Rinaker. He's the leader of the Alliance, the human coalition dedicated to protecting humankind from aliens. He can get quite, shall we say, enthusiastic about his job. Like the one time the main character found out that what they thought was a military base was in fact a hospital for aliens. Rinaker wanted to blow it up anyway. He also has the habit of putting the mission ahead of the well-being of his operatives, nearly getting them killed on more than one occasion. This leads to all of his employees muttering the phrase "Thank you General Rinaker" whenever they find out he's screwed them over in some way.

Anybody remember Big Guy And Rusty The Boy Robot? Yet another good show from the late 90's.King Of The Hill fans will note that Rusty is voiced by the same voice actress as Bobby.

Read the first page, skipped to here, so I do not know if it's been mentioned:

I've been watching In Living Color replayed on FXX recently. It surprised me that any station would take it up again because... it is SOOOO 90s! I remember watching its original airing with my Dad. My family is painfully, painfully White, too. Good sketch comedy was good sketch comedy... and it's kind of funny to remember that this show as where so many people got their start. It's just watching it again... it's not just dated political humor, the entire STYLE of the show, including the opening credits, the hair, everything is just... 90s!

So much fun.

Someone said something on the first page that I completely agree with, it also ties into the above show as In Living Color had a lot of political humor:

Yeah... I miss that.

I STILL use Usenet. At least, I'm pretty sure it's Usenet. It's, like, usenet oriented. Newsgroups and all that. Same technology.

Ah FTP and Gopher, and Telnet! Backk in the days when 8n1 meant something, Kermit and Zmodem were a thing....

~takes old lady pills~

FTP is probably still the best way to upload to a web server. I've used it a lot to manage websites.