Jul -- General Chat: When I was growing up

Taryn

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Posted on 01-31-11 06:34:02 PM (last edited by Terra at 01-31-11 03:34 PM)

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The 1990s for me, although my parents were a bit behind in some areas.

- Push-button phones were high-tech. Cellular phones, which still had the "ular" in cellular, were bulky and pricey.

- 800*600 was considered a very high resolution, and 256 was a lot of colours.

- I was about 7 or 8 when those funny URL things started popping up in commercials. I thought they were DOS files at first because of the ".com" at the end.

- Internet was dialup. Nobody knew anyone with broadband at home.

- VCRs were fairly common. It was easy to forget to rewind the tape.

- Everyone thought the world would end in 2000, or computers would all stop working, or electricity would fail, or whatever.

- At the same time, "2000" had a really cool, futuristic sound and people would name things "2000" well into the 1990s.

- You could get on an airplane without being treated like a terrorist.

- Arcades had pinball machines and some awesome older games.

- 900 numbers were used a lot for game hints, phone-based contests, and the like.

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MajesticLight
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Posted on 01-31-11 06:40:26 PM

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Computer and tv screens were deeper than they were wide or tall.

I'll think of more later

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Danika
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Posted on 01-31-11 07:37:42 PM

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00:00:00

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5349

- Floppy disks were still very common and optical drives were a luxury
- Remote controls weren't very common just yet
- Analog TV still existed and showed no signs of disappearance
- Digital radio didn't even exist yet
- 900 psychic/adult hotline numbers
- Betamax vs VHS war
- Cable TV only had 40 or so channels in 1990
- There were actually dance-oriented radio stations
- Computers that could display more than 256 colors were very rare

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FieryIce

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Posted on 01-31-11 07:56:58 PM

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Although, I'm relatively young, I come from a very poor place so ...

-There was no such thing as cable, everyone would watch the three local TV channels we had.
-For a period of time, we relied on a well for our water.

-No internet access, that came way later (late 98-99~) as dialup.
-Everyone with a beeper or a cassette player was popular and technological.
-Most people had rotary dial telephones.

That's all I can think of

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Posted on 01-31-11 08:31:13 PM

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-You wanted Internet? Go with AOL and hope you don't get kicked for inactivity. Also prices.

-You had a computer, you were lucky and pretty well off.

-DOS edutainment games were THE SHIIIIIIT

-CD games were sooooo coooooool

-Most cars were generally more angular

-Gas that was $1.50 a gallon was an OUTRAGEOUS price

-If you dropped a school laptop, you were screwed

-Windows 95. Windows 95 everywhere (now it's shifting towards Windows 7. Windows 7 everywhere)

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Posted on 01-31-11 09:35:42 PM

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-There were surface power lines which would make the power flicker at even the slightest breeze.
-Horses were actually used as a means of transportation

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Posted on 01-31-11 10:50:06 PM

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Lots of kids would play outside during the summer and the street I lived on would be bustling from morning to night.

These days, *if* the kids are playing, it's likely in the backyard away from people.

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Taryn

Passed away.

Thanks for being a part of us, even if it wasn't always on the best of terms.

1987-2014

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Posted on 01-31-11 11:32:52 PM

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Originally posted by FieryIce
-For a period of time, we relied on a well for our water.

Most people in Michigan's Thumb still do this. We were one of the few families with running water.

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Rick
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Posted on 02-01-11 12:59:31 AM

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Waiting for the Dial-Up to connect.

Game magazines were the only way to find out about secrets and tips.

Games could be rented by going to a store!

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Posted on 02-01-11 02:19:36 AM

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Games could be rented by going to a store!

And stores (both rental and otherwise) seemed to have every single game under the sun, all displayed in a neat fashion without games hiding behind other games. You knew what was available.

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Rick
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Posted on 02-01-11 02:22:12 AM

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Oh man, yes. There used to be three places in town to rent games, each with different prices.

And one of these places had NES games to rent right well up until I was in high school. THAT was sweet, lemme tell ya.

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Posted on 02-01-11 02:23:39 AM

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Actually, you can tie that in to...

- There were actual INDEPENDENT rental stores for movies/games. At least 3 in my neighborhood, of which none remain. It was great to have choice in case something wasn't at one location.

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Rick
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Posted on 02-01-11 02:26:04 AM

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The funny thing was, the three rental things switched up a bit for a while.

One was the local Shop N' Save (Hannaford now), which was the cheapest. Then there was the bowling alley, which stopped that and Movie Gallery would come along. Then there was Movie Kingdom.

Out of all the places still open, Movie Kingdom still is renting stuff, but not games anymore. Lemme tell you, I got mad props for Movie Kingdom for still being open all these years.

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Posted on 02-01-11 02:28:05 AM

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00:00:00	Illumina Prevue Guide Emulator
POST # 5356	Yea... nowadays the only place you can develop film is at Rite Aid, Walgreens or Walmart I remember when supermarkets used to take film in for developing, and also those photo huts... shows my age ____________________ Twitter • YouTube • DeviantArt • The Left Mouse Button "Meow!" ~a cute cat

Lyskar
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Posted on 02-01-11 02:44:36 AM

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Metal_Man88's Post

All computers cost over $1000 and were under 50 MHz.
Video game consoles were all bittage-rated.
All keyboards were clicky-based.
Windows 3.1 and Apple ][es were the standard.
Dot-matrix printers were still used by people.
Everyone wore late 80's fashions.
VHS was still new and expensive.
Everyone went to the movies.
No one had cell phones.
News was less biased.
People were more socially conservative.
People spoke in person more often.
Drivers paid more attention to the road.
Games were actually video games most of the time, and were very difficult.
Fewer franchises existed; those that did got more faithful sequels.

Just to name a few things, anyway.

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Posted on 02-01-11 03:16:51 AM

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All computers cost over $2000 and were under 50 MHz.

Fixed that for you.

PC's were extremely expensive around here and came in gigantic boxes with the monitor and all.

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Lyskar
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Posted on 02-01-11 06:20:08 AM

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Metal_Man88's Post

Yeah, my Dad paid some astronomical $2500 bit for the ZEOS 386 machine we had. I'm using the keyboard from that thing right now.

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Aerakin
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Posted on 02-01-11 09:51:07 AM

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- Music oriented TV stations actually played music videos most of the time.
- (related) There wasn't much TV reality.

I miss those times.

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Taryn

Passed away.

Thanks for being a part of us, even if it wasn't always on the best of terms.

1987-2014

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Since: 09-01-09

From: Seattle

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Posted on 02-01-11 12:55:02 PM

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Originally posted by Illumina
Yea... nowadays the only place you can develop film is at Rite Aid, Walgreens or Walmart

Film cameras in general.

My parents had a Polaroid, which was a camera that would develop the picture itself and spit it out, and I didn't understand why other people had to go to a store to get their film developed.

Also, floppy disks. Remember the days of "Disk 1 of 3" and installers prompting you for the next disk a lot?

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