retroNET - Vintage Culture/Websites/Software

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Websites, software, games, fads, memes, or any general happenings that used to occur or had originated on computers 20+ years ago.

This community is software and internet focused. For retro hardware discussion try [email protected]

Some Cool Links

Archive.org Software Library

BBS: The Documentary

Classic Websites: Random Page / Search Engine

cool-retro-term: terminal emulator mimicing old cathode displays

Neocities: webhost homage to Geocities

Web Design Museum

Webamp / Webamp Desktop / Skin Library: cross-platform re-implementation of Winamp 2.9

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7 Problems Y2K Actually Caused (www.mentalfloss.com)

submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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was anyone else disappointed that planes were not literally falling out of the sky on Y2K?

anyway, here are some real world examples of actual problems that did occur

I did like the Leonard Nimoy video with experts attempting to rate how bad things were going to be :)

and of course the Y2K survival kit commercial was unintentionally hilarious with the shattered glass and sirens going off in the background

did anyone here have to deal with issues caused by Y2K, or spend time preparing systems beforehand?

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[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

I was interning at a power company at the time and they were mostly worried about weirdos and militia trying to pull a stunt. I walked into Operations one day and there was the scariest man I've ever seen, in a black suit with a shoulder holster. He said his job was to keep an eye on things and get to know everyone. He looked like a Dashiell Hammett character and smiled all the time, especially when nothing was funny.

IT came around, pulled everyone's computer apart, and then sealed them back up with tamper-evident tape. And of course everyone asked me if their power would be ok and I legally couldn't answer. Clock hit midnight and nothing happened except Scarface wasn't around when I got back from holiday vacation.

We'd handled everything like a year beforehand but it was a weird couple of months.