this post was submitted on 16 Mar 2024
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[–] [email protected] 169 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (15 children)

Once a person left the house, you couldn't reach them unless you know where they will be and called that place.

[–] [email protected] 96 points 5 months ago (7 children)

I never really thought of it this way before, but we really shifted from calling places to calling people.

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[–] [email protected] 145 points 5 months ago (10 children)

It is now safe to turn off your computer

[–] [email protected] 29 points 5 months ago (5 children)
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[–] [email protected] 136 points 5 months ago (16 children)

Flying being a really fun and nice experience.

You could walk your family members/friends right to the gate without going through any screening. As a bonus, everyone wore shoes and not their worst clothes too.

My first flight I was by myself before I was even a teenager yet, and the airline had a specific flight attendant watch after me until my grandparents picked me up on the other side. She was awesome and I kept the flight wings the captain gave me for decades. It was not unusually good customer service.

In fact, before MBAs McKinsey'd the world, interactions at most businesses were actually pleasant... Nearly every restaurant or store actually cared about customer satisfaction in the before times. I can't tell you how nice that was having a social contract. It was a genuinely nice thing (*racial and gender provisions apply, offer not valid in all areas) Instead of expanding the umbrella to everyone, we drained the public pools and now it's normal..

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[–] [email protected] 122 points 5 months ago (3 children)
[–] [email protected] 51 points 5 months ago

Thanks, pal.

Maybe use a NSFW tag next time?

My mom walked in and now I don't get to use aol for a month!

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[–] [email protected] 112 points 5 months ago (7 children)

To continue installing a game you had to type in the 7th word found on page 16, paragraph 3 on line 4.

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[–] [email protected] 98 points 5 months ago (1 children)

My jpeg stopped downloading cause my roommate picked up the phone.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Internet you could hear, literally.

[–] [email protected] 98 points 5 months ago (10 children)

This station now concludes its broadcast day.

That's right. At a certain time of night, TV stations would just stop showing things until morning.

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[–] [email protected] 96 points 5 months ago (14 children)

Insects. At night there would be plenty of insects under every singe street lamp. The windscreen would be full of yellow goo after driving in summer.

[–] [email protected] 58 points 5 months ago (6 children)

Snow. It used to last the whole winter and not just 2 days here and there.

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[–] [email protected] 89 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (12 children)

Driving long distances to places you had never been before usually involved books of maps, pre-planning, a navigator, and help from strangers.

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[–] [email protected] 79 points 5 months ago (5 children)

You could only watch cartoons after school or on Saturday mornings.

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[–] [email protected] 77 points 5 months ago (11 children)

Games used to come with books to read, and their anti-piracy measure was to give you a page number and tell you to enter the first word on the page to activate the software.

Of course, you'd copy that floppy and write the code word on the label for your friends.

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[–] [email protected] 77 points 5 months ago (10 children)

Flip the plastic chicklet in your floppy disk so you dont accidentally erase it.

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[–] [email protected] 68 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Hit the coin return button on everything and randomly get lucky once in a while.

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[–] [email protected] 66 points 5 months ago (1 children)

When you call someone it was normal for someone else to answer and you had to be careful because they could be listening to your call.

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[–] [email protected] 62 points 5 months ago (17 children)

My speakers used to be able to let me know I was about to receive a call on my cell phone.

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[–] [email protected] 61 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (22 children)
  • Receiving junk mail Internet CDs
  • Waiting patiently to record a song you liked
  • Setting the clock and a timer to record something on your VCR
  • The planet Pluto
  • Wax lips and candy cigarettes
  • Tang
  • Translucent electronics
  • Cheat Code books
  • 1(800) COLLECT & "00 it's magic!"
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[–] [email protected] 50 points 5 months ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 46 points 5 months ago (25 children)

It's a US thing, where the glory of SCART was unknown thus they had to continue using the antenna input of their TV to connect their consoles to, also, as far as I'm aware only NTSC has fixed frequency assignments. Elsewhere in the world you just programmed the TV to display the console's output on whatever number you wanted, or, if you had a proper input for non-antenna signals, switch the TV to "AV".

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[–] [email protected] 44 points 5 months ago (15 children)

A stack of 15 floppy disks for one program. Please insert the next disk to continue (I can't remember the exact wording). Command prompt to A:\ and having to see what the install program might be called. Bring amazed that CDs could autorun programs.

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 5 months ago (3 children)

I would go to the video rental store to play video games.

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 5 months ago (14 children)

Want to kmow the weather, lottery results, TV channel program for the day and other info? Go to your TV and check the teletext

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[–] [email protected] 37 points 5 months ago (11 children)

The random one that I remember and don't see anywhere, is the tv getting staticky whenever we ran the microwave

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[–] [email protected] 35 points 5 months ago (5 children)

We had hopes for the future and internet connections made sounds.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 5 months ago (5 children)

Using a hole punch to make 5 1/4" disks double sided! Saved a lot of money!

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Failing at a pc game wasn't necessarily on you. It could also be on the dirt gathered by the ball inside your mouse. Later, of course, you realized it was on you all along.

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[–] [email protected] 34 points 5 months ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 33 points 5 months ago (3 children)

screeches in dial up internet sound effects

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 5 months ago (4 children)

I remember summers without smoke.

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[–] [email protected] 33 points 5 months ago (6 children)

Y'all remember the turbo button?

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 5 months ago (4 children)

OTA TV stations used to have an end to their broadcast day, and they'd play the national anthem before going to color bars until morning.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 5 months ago (3 children)

I'd like to listen to my favourite album, but first I need to find a pencil.

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 5 months ago (6 children)

Sound blaster compatible, irq5, dma1

The magic config to make sound work in DOS games

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[–] [email protected] 32 points 5 months ago (7 children)
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[–] [email protected] 31 points 5 months ago (1 children)

"At the tone, it will be 8:45 exactly." Beep

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[–] [email protected] 31 points 5 months ago (5 children)

Sticking my finger into the coin return of every pay phone, and if there was a dime, checking the date on it because silver coins were still floating around in circulation.

Same thing every time one of us got our hands on a quarter. If it was silver, we'd all fight over it.

I don't remember any of us ever cashing one in. If we found one, it would just go into a shoebox, ultimately getting lost to time.

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[–] [email protected] 30 points 5 months ago (6 children)

1-800-CALLCOLLECT "imatthemallatboscospickmeup" and then get your dime back

[–] [email protected] 34 points 5 months ago (6 children)
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[–] [email protected] 29 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Oh man… I said “box art” the other day and my buddies daughter pointedly asked what I was talking about :-)

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 5 months ago (11 children)

You could only program like 9 phone numbers on your phone because it only had 10 buttons for it and one of them was reserved for 911. All other numbers you either memorized, wrote down in a book or on cards, or dialed 411 to talk to a stranger whose job was to provide you with the contact information of people and businesses.

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[–] [email protected] 29 points 5 months ago (8 children)

Game consoles didn't come with a storage card, so you had to keep the game running or restart every time.

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 5 months ago (2 children)
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[–] [email protected] 28 points 5 months ago (12 children)

A wire coat hanger shoved into the back of the TV to get it working

Going next door to borrow the phone because you've been downloading something all day and didn't want to lose it

Being hyper aware of the current status of the street lights in summer evenings

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