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Growing up before the internet age

I'm also from that era. Born in '83. I remember playing outside as a kid and coming back home either covered in mud or some blood from playing sports outside.

The feeling of exploration and discovery on the NES and SNES was goddamn real pre-internet days.
 

JCK75

Member
I think you mean 512K.

To have 512Mb in the 80's would be like...

Tim And Eric Omg GIF
Doh
I do meen 512K.. my brain had to adjust to 40 years of change.
 

pramod

Banned
It was nice finding international items on video or game merchandising via mail order only on a postcard. Never knew the tracking or ETA just waited sometimes months and it made receiving that media something unique and not boring and routine.

And even cooler is when you get to bring it to school to show off to your friends.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
I'm also from that era. Born in '83. I remember playing outside as a kid and coming back home either covered in mud or some blood from playing sports outside.

The feeling of exploration and discovery on the NES and SNES was goddamn real pre-internet days.
80s as a kid was great (I was born in the 70s). Street hockey after school, come home for dinner, then at about 7 pm go back out for more or bike ride to the variety store, watch TV or play games in their basement. Rarely ever a phone call needed. Just tell mom or dad I'm going to Jeff's house and they'd say ok be back by 9 pm. Come home at 9, wash up, eat some food, cram some homework or watch tv and go to bed. Smooth sailing.

I remember getting my first bike (I remember the white and blue Sears bike with training wheels). Soon after I got it, at some point my dad let me go off riding and I rode around the block by myself (big block too considering I was like 5 years old). Not a care in the world. If this was modern day, every parent would be beside their kid the whole time thinking someone will kidnap their kid.
 
The thread is open in a GAMING section so talking about life before internet GAMING wise. Nobody here said it sucks that you can order a bottle of milk online and get it delivered in 30 minutes to your house thanks to the internet. Who the hell is talking about limited TV programs......Nobody is saying internet sucks, we are discussing how we used to consume games and information about them at that time and how people played more in-person. Read the OP, you went balls out off topic lol.
Think you need to go to specsavers this is posted in "OFF TOPIC" and not in gaming section. Also you might want to take your own advice and "Read the OP" because the op was talking about other aspects of the net aside from gaming.
 

wondermega

Member
Oh man. The 80s, the 90s, it was just better, man. So much goddamn better. I'm knocking on 50 soon, I got out of college and entered the workforce a bit before Y2K so I got to have a whole amazing college experience in the pre-connected days and let me tell you it was GREAT. Of course if one could glimpse 15 years into the future at that point, things would have seemed so magical and I would have felt awful that I'd need to wait for so long to get where we are at now. I suppose it's really true, the grass is always greener.

Anyway to chime in - being a kid was great, video games and video game magazines and arcades were just fucking so magical. Hanging out with friends and exploring the city was really the happiest thing. You could kill half a day in a used CD store looking for cheap scores or just buy something that was $6 and had a wacky name or cool cover art. Hang out at the comic book store, bum around the mall, just... VISIT your friend if you wanted to catch up and shoot the breeze. TV was cool but it wasn't overloaded with so many paralyzing choices!

Driving around was scary and special - I was in Boston and "conquering" that city felt more engaging than any video game, you had to figure out how to get from one place to another somehow and when you did it was like "new level unlocked" in your brain. Also discovering cool little bars or places to eat. You'd just hear about cool little places from your friends or some guy at work or something, no Yelp to just tell you "eat here and avoid this loser place.."

Yeah the present has its positives as well I suppose. I'd so much rather watch a movie at home w nice OLED TV on the couch then go to a theater. I can while away hours looking at bullshit on gaf or Reddit. I've figured out how to use FB and Twitter to indulge in my dorky special interests without all the angst and hatred and drama that 99% of the rest of the world uses it for (well, most of the time!) Want to learn something? I got into coding like 6 years ago, it's fucking MAGICAL that I can type "how do I use scriptable objects" or whatever into a YouTube search and immediately some 16yo genius will pop up and explain it to me with a clean, nicely produced video. VR and AR are incredible. I love that I can FaceTime with my folks and friends from childhood 3000 miles away.

So yeah, there are things to celebrate from both periods. I feel so lucky that I got to experience extremes of both, I suppose. But honestly overall I just remember feeling much happier with the Standard Operating Procedure of how things were 20 years ago. Of course I was much younger and life was profoundly simpler then, so there is that. At this point I'm not really too excited to see what more BS the future will bring. Anyway, whatever - the world is still incredible, it's a balance, choose how you want to live and all of that. We should probably all throw away our smartphones, but I suppose that is pretty much impossible.
 

Happosai

Hold onto your panties
And even cooler is when you get to bring it to school to show off to your friends.
Exactly. I remember this with books in particular. Not everything was in a Barnes & Noble, local bookstore or library. I recall ordering foreign language books which no one had and even one getting stolen on 'basics to spoken Japanese.'
Who steals a book today? Who had a physical library?

Glad this thread isn't getting guest read by the person who made that thread a few months back stating 'NeoGAF is old.' Yup, I'm old and maybe we all are. Wait, what was I typing? Lol
 

Sojiro

Member
Being born in '82 I mostly feel the same as the OP. My only disagreement is that I really fondly remember the early internet days (early as in more and more households had access to it), talking around the mid to late 90's. One of the first games I played online was Worms 2, and talking with the other player who happened to be in Europe was a mind boggling experience, and I had just as much fun talking with someone from a country across the world, as I did playing the game. Not to mention, 13-14 year old me getting introduced to the wild world of online porn will forever be a memorable thing lol. I do agree that for video games that it also started the trend of instant gratification, where people would look things up online (probably via GameFAQs) instead of figuring it out themselves, or talking with buddies playing the same thing.

I feel it all really went down hill when social media blew up, along with having 24/7 access to the internet with a device you constantly carry around with you (usually to get on social media). Even worse is that some of the social media apps (looking right at TikTok here) seems to condition ADD, where if the already short 30 second video doesn't instantly grab the viewer's attention, its a swipe to the next one. I have a coworker in his early 20's that you can tell when he is on it, because you can see his brain shut off as he swipes repeatedly until a video can get his attention in the first 3 seconds. Granted my opinion of that may be an old man yelling at a cloud thing, and I fully admit that lol, but my other coworker (who is my age) and I have often said we swear that shit conditions its users to have ADD tendencies.

There is a lot of good with the bad though nowadays though, Google maps is a godsend and I would never want to use something like MapQuest again, online ordering has really made getting things convenient (although at the cost of local businesses admittedly), and while I loathe 99% of what social media has devolved into, I do like that it has helped me keep in touch and reconnect with old classmates, friends, and family. All in all though, I do often miss the pre-to early internet age, and think all of our old men life outlooks are much better because of those times.
 
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StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Being born in '82 I mostly feel the same as the OP. My only disagreement is that I really fondly remember the early internet days (early as in more and more households had access to it), talking around the mid to late 90's. One of the first games I played online was Worms 2, and talking with the other player who happened to be in Europe was a mind boggling experience, and I had just as much fun talking with someone from a country across the world, as I did playing the game. Not to mention, 13-14 year old me getting introduced to the wild world of online porn will forever be a memorable thing lol. I do agree that for video games that it also started the trend of instant gratification, where people would look things up online (probably via GameFAQs) instead of figuring it out themselves, or talking with buddies playing the same thing.

I feel it all really went down hill when social media blew up, along with having 24/7 access to the internet with a device you constantly carry around with you (usually to get on social media). Even worse is that some of the social media apps (looking right at TikTok here) seems to condition ADD, where if the already short 30 second video doesn't instantly grab the viewer's attention, its a swipe to the next one. I have a coworker in his early 20's that you can tell when he is on it, because you can see his brain shut off as he swipes repeatedly until a video can get his attention in the first 3 seconds. Granted my opinion of that may be an old man yelling at a cloud thing, and I fully admit that lol, but my other coworker (who is my age) and I have often said we swear that shit conditions its users to have ADD tendencies.

There is a lot of good with the bad though nowadays though, Google maps is a godsend and I would never want to use something like MapQuest again, online ordering has really made getting things convenient (although at the cost of local businesses admittedly), and while I loathe 99% of what social media has devolved into, I do like that it has helped me keep in touch and reconnect with old classmates, friends, and family. All in all though, I do often miss the pre-to early internet age, and think all of our old men life outlooks are much better because of those times.
Your last paragraph sums it up.

I think technology is best when it streamlines something existing into something fast and works well. As you said maps. Young people never experienced going to a gas station or bookstore buying a $10 map for a city they'd be driving to for a quick trip. And then after you're done there's good chance you'll never use that map again (ie. me buying a Chicago map). Reconnecting with friends and fam and old schoolmates is probably the best thing to come out of the net for me. Stuff like easily checking sports scores, stats and stuff like that you couldnt do unless you read newspapers and bought the season ending annual yearbook etc....

The worst part of the net is getting distracted with things you never really needed in the first place or needed it to be more efficient. Googling what the stores hours are is great as it saves you time driving there when it's closed. But being bombarded with constant ads, news bites and people promoting themselves isn't something people ask for to get through life. It's just something you got to tolerate. Some can handle it, some cant and go ape shit or depressed with info overload.
 
Some of my fondest memories are recording tunes from the radio onto cassette, alongside nightly broadcasts of Art Bell's Coast to Coast AM. Or that feeling of Sunday night rolling around and watching X-Files.

I agree with others that the very late 90s to early 2000s were the internet golden years. Just the perfect amount of connectivity and access to information but it was segregated to home, to a basement or unoccupied room or something. Smartphones really screwed all that up and also like others, I find myself disconnecting from all the noise more and more.
 

Vexed Dad

Neo Member
Getting to the Gamesmen in 1988 (Australian games retailer) on the day a game came out only to be told by the staff that "we haven't got the shipment in yet, maybe later today" . Unfortunately for you, your parents weren't about to hang around till later to find out, nor did you have the ability to get back there later yourself...
 

nush

Member
Getting to the Gamesmen in 1988 (Australian games retailer) on the day a game came out only to be told by the staff that "we haven't got the shipment in yet, maybe later today" . Unfortunately for you, your parents weren't about to hang around till later to find out, nor did you have the ability to get back there later yourself...

It was like that when waiting for import games to come in sometime, sorry the planes not landed yet, hasn't clear customs and you need to wait for the courier to drive up from London. There were times I'd wait for hours in that shop, but it was a cool place to hang out and chat games. Like GAF in real time.
 

Ionian

Member
1520171552969
r uploading junk for that upload/download ratios?
I still remember downloading a bunch of opengl demos and shareware software.

MachRc is my Prodigy username
prodigy.jpg


God prodigy sucked so hard as a 12 year old.

Truly did. Shit band that was massively popular. I loved them, all my mates used to do the dance.

Then I grew up. There's a reason why they no longer sell;

They're juvenile and kids grew up.

Only chavs listen to them now.
 
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Trunx81

Member
Getting to the Gamesmen in 1988 (Australian games retailer) on the day a game came out only to be told by the staff that "we haven't got the shipment in yet, maybe later today" . Unfortunately for you, your parents weren't about to hang around till later to find out, nor did you have the ability to get back there later yourself...
Or having your parents order Lufia (2) for snes in that book of a catalogue (via phone!), only to wait and wait and wait until one month later a video games magazine states that it was delayed.
 

Ionian

Member
You appear to have lived in an alternate reality of British TV broadcasting. BBC2 comparatively edgy and youth content compared to BBC1. ITV well everything was hung on Corrie but they did have a decent movie selection, ITV cut of Robocop is the stuff of legend and Mr Bean. Game for a Laugh, YO we totally trolled you every week for laughs, sorry about demolishing your house LULZ. No wait, Sunday Night at the Paliadium was solid entertainment. Channel 4, way more edgy that BBC2 home to Eurotrash and foreign films you were almost guaranteed to see at least some boobs in.

"Once I even called him Egghead", I busted up laughing. The dub was so off. Was brilliant, also they cut huge chunks of the film. My mates Father rented the film for us before we were even teens, ITV cut is the stuff of legends.

(For anyone who hasn't seen it, don't. Just watch the original, it's awfully cleansed. Loads cut out and dubbed. It's pacified)
 

nush

Member
"Once I even called him Egghead", I busted up laughing. The dub was so off. Was brilliant, also they cut huge chunks of the film. My mates Father rented the film for us before we were even teens, ITV cut is the stuff of legends.

(For anyone who hasn't seen it, don't. Just watch the original, it's awfully cleansed. Loads cut out and dubbed. It's pacified)

"You're gonna be a bad mother crusher!"
 

Ionian

Member
80s as a kid was great (I was born in the 70s). Street hockey after school, come home for dinner, then at about 7 pm go back out for more or bike ride to the variety store, watch TV or play games in their basement. Rarely ever a phone call needed. Just tell mom or dad I'm going to Jeff's house and they'd say ok be back by 9 pm. Come home at 9, wash up, eat some food, cram some homework or watch tv and go to bed. Smooth sailing.

I remember getting my first bike (I remember the white and blue Sears bike with training wheels). Soon after I got it, at some point my dad let me go off riding and I rode around the block by myself (big block too considering I was like 5 years old). Not a care in the world. If this was modern day, every parent would be beside their kid the whole time thinking someone will kidnap their kid.

I remember asking my Father if he'd buy me a Star Wars figure If i learned how to ride. Early 80's,

Think I picked Klaato or Placo.

I was like a pig in shit when I got home, made my entire year. And I read that bike for decades. Well got a mountain bike when older, used to cycle 20 miles to work, girlfriend hated the smell of me. Sex was off the menu. I don't blame her.
 

nush

Member
Think I picked Klaato or Placo.

That feeling when the Star Wars figures you actually wanted to buy are always sold out. Lobot, I brought Lobot becuse when I went to the toy shop that darth Vader was making and appearance at all the good figures were gone. I did get to meet Darth Vader for the first time.
 

TGO

Hype Train conductor. Works harder than it steams.
"Once I even called him Egghead", I busted up laughing. The dub was so off. Was brilliant, also they cut huge chunks of the film. My mates Father rented the film for us before we were even teens, ITV cut is the stuff of legends.

(For anyone who hasn't seen it, don't. Just watch the original, it's awfully cleansed. Loads cut out and dubbed. It's pacified)
"Why me, fight me, why me!"
"You just finked on the wrong guy! You’re out of your freaking mind"
😂
Although I think I heard it different to Egghead

"Iron butt, bonehead, Once I even called him... AIRHEAD."

Although there are different versions so
 
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Ionian

Member
That feeling when the Star Wars figures you actually wanted to buy are always sold out. Lobot, I brought Lobot becuse when I went to the toy shop that darth Vader was making and appearance at all the good figures were gone. I did get to meet Darth Vader for the first time.

Lobot is an odd one. Was always a pound, same as Lando and think Leia was 2 pounds. Think my most expensive figure was Yak-Face. Father used to drive me up the North. Puked on his brother, toys were cheaper and had all new shit you could't get in the south. I was astounded, was the end of the toys.
"Why me, fight me, why me!"
"You just finked on the wrong guy! You’re out of your freaking mind"
😂
Although I think I heard it different to Egghead

"Iron butt, bonehead, Once I even called him... AIRHEAD."

Although there are different versions so

No doubt you're right, was so long ago I watched it. I could be wrong but I was a kid. Was still learning English. :) Film was new when I saw it, on video that is. ITV played an edited one, they were famous for that to get past the censors. ITV are famous for censoring.
 
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Reactions: TGO

kittoo

Cretinously credulous
Remember when a show came on ONCE, and if you missed it you'd better wait for rerun season for it to come on ONCE again.

Or shows that only came out certain times of year.

We got all of our news in a 30 minute block once a day, or in a well edited and well researched dose in the newspaper. No race to be the first and cloak opinion or marketing as news.

You made a mix tape, on an ACTUAL CASSETTE TAPE, for a girl you liked.

Parents kicked you outside right after breakfast and you COULD NOT come home till dark.

Rooms had like one outlet because the only things that needed power was a lamp and maybe a clock. The atari was downstairs cause that's where the one TV was.

Oh man do I remember waiting months for one episode of a random show because there was a super hot chick in it (I was maybe 14 or 15 and super horny all the time lol). I had no internet or any notion of how to go about finding more about the show. I would just go to that channel every now and then to see if it was airing.
Never did see her again.

I also used to wake up early to watch reruns of WWE just to look at Trish Stratus and Sable. Mom used to think I was a kid watching it for wrestling 😂
 

DarkestHour

Banned
This thread is super depressing.

There's a handful of pinball arcades near me with a mix of pinball machines and video game arcade cabinets. I've been taking my son about once a month and damn does it make me feel like a kid again. It's dark, there's music playing, you heard the pinball machines and the video games. Tons of people having a great time. It's surprisingly popular even with people that you wouldn't expect to be there. Not a damn concern in the world while I'm there.
 

STARSBarry

Gold Member
Not quite at the "before internet" stage as a kid I used BBS to chat about stuff as my parents had a computer at home they used for work and I used for Command and Conquer and Theme Park, so used to dial in to Monocrome to leave messages about it.

But even then I remember the early internet when it finally opened up... honestly I don't think it really became bad before social media took off. I had a happy few decades with quakenet and more specific intrest forums before MySpace started to transform how people interacted.
 
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I am not claiming to be a person from that era, but growing up in rural Ukraine was pretty much like that, I got my first internet when I was 13, which is way later than people typically now get access to it, before that it would just be countless amounts of spending your time having fun with whatever you can come up with.
 

V1LÆM

Gold Member
I can remember meeting girls and getting their house phone number. Fucking call them and their mom or dad would answer. "Hey, uh, is Heather there?" Shit was awkward.
i wasn't too good with girls. i mean i wasn't getting lots of numbers off them but i remember calling my first girlfriend on the landline all the time. mobile phones existed but they were for adults. teenagers didn't carry mobile phones around at the time.

i'd have to call her home and her mum would pick up all the time. i felt so awkward every time. eventually my gf convinced her mum to get a landline with multiple handsets so she had one in her bedroom. we'd always be talking on MSN and i'd be like "i'm about to phone so answer before your mum!" lol.

this also reminds me of where i used to live as a kid in the 90s. this was before i even had a PC with MSN on it. i didn't really have my friends landline number and anyway all my friends lived on the same street. so if i wanted to know where someone was or if they were coming out i'd have to go to their house. those houses had buzzers so i guess it's like a phone. instead of a phone number you're putting in a code for their house (something like 3BC, 5BC, 10AC). my friends parents would always answer and i'd be like "hiiii, this is nightmare-slain! is kevin coming out?" and i'd get an answer like "he's having his dinner he'll be out later!", "he's grounded!", "i'll ask him!", or "he's out with mark and scott!".
 
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Ionian

Member
i wasn't too good with girls. i mean i wasn't getting lots of numbers off them but i remember calling my first girlfriend on the landline all the time. mobile phones existed but they were for adults. teenagers didn't carry mobile phones around at the time.

i'd have to call her home and her mum would pick up all the time. i felt so awkward every time. eventually my gf convinced her mum to get a landline with multiple handsets so she had one in her bedroom. we'd always be talking on MSN and i'd be like "i'm about to phone so answer before your mum!" lol.

this also reminds me of where i used to live as a kid in the 90s. this was before i even had a PC with MSN on it. i didn't really have my friends landline number and anyway all my friends lived on the same street. so if i wanted to know where someone was or if they were coming out i'd have to go to their house. those houses had buzzers so i guess it's like a phone. instead of a phone number you're putting in a code for their house (something like 3BC, 5BC, 10AC). my friends parents would always answer and i'd be like "hiiii, this is nightmare-slain! is kevin coming out?" and i'd get an answer like "he's having his dinner he'll be out later!", "he's grounded!", "i'll ask him!", or "he's out with mark and scott!".
My best mate was Connor Mc Gregors trainer. He fucked a basin of water over me. I only asked if he was in.

Also used to use fart spray on me at his (mates) birthdays.

He was a champion cyclist. Got disqualified for knocking down a kid. The amount of trophies, a desk was littered with them.

Didn't stop me.

Edit: then he married a bunny burner. Always thought he was gay anyway. He broke up with her and then she stalked him. Was wild. He's in videos of McGregors matches. He got into MMA after he got disqualified from cycling. He's an absolute prick. I told McGreor to shut as well, was screaming outside my window. My house is really close to his. Lucky he didn't assault me. He'd need to be superman to come to the window though, 2nd floor.

Just random shit.
 
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V1LÆM

Gold Member
My best mate was Connor Mc Gregors trainer. He fucked a basin of water over me. I only asked if he was in.

Also used to use fart spray on me at his (mates) birthdays.

He was a champion cyclist. Got disqualified for knocking down a kid. The amount of trophies, a desk was littered with them.

Didn't stop me.
what you talking about
 

Ionian

Member
what you talking about

My house is in Crumlin. He's from Crumlin. I rent it out. McGregor is (drum-roll) from Crumlin.

That's what i'm talking about.

House is across from a famous gangster, he accused me of spying on him. I wasn't but you don't fuck with these people.

Happy you live in a nicer place.

He thought I was driving drones over it. He knocked on the door and told him it must be aliens.

He had a name, i'll never speak it.
 
What I miss most is the social aspect of the pre internet/smartphone days. Since there was no way to entertain yourself alone outside home, people would constantly hit each other up to do some shit. Always get nostalgic when I walk beside a group of people and everyone is just staring on their phone….

Good days. I do hope that one days all this crap sorta crambles apart and we go back to what it used to be. Because deep down I do think everyone wants it.
 

-Minsc-

Member
I was a 90's teen.

Being a more socially reserved person I missed out on much the the pre-internet teenage shenanigans. There were too many things at the farm or in video game land to catch my interest. When I graduated from high school in 2000 I still had not drivers license. That didn't happen until 2003. As a result of little interaction with people outside the family I fell into the internet before the internet became mainstream. It is weird. Within me there are life expectations instilled from the pre-internet era. Late teen and early twenties me soaked up the internet life. Due to the pre-interent instilled values there was this drive to move out into the "real world". By the time I got myself around to doing that the world shifted to being something more internet centric. Stuck between two ways of life and being pulled in opposing directions.

That's what this thread brings out of me.
 

SafeOrAlone

Banned
Friendships and relationships were more vibrant. You were each other’s entertainment when you were together. You only had the time together when you were actually there in person. People were just more special.

I don’t make myself available on social media. I am a modern rockstar. I am exclusive to reality.

Except here.
 
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