Geek/Nerd moments of the Past...

[Rubycon]

What's your story?
Here's one of mine...

As soon as I would get a new video card driver loaded I'd fire up Windows (3.1 at the time) and run sol.exe.

I would play furiously to beat the game to see how fast the cards fell! That was my benchmark for 102x768 32bpp mode - i486DX2/66 with VESA local bus (VLB) cards. The Diamond Stealth 64 video was one of my favorites (late 1994 vintage).

Did you know that sol.exe for XP was updated so the card falling rate was constant and about the speed of an average ISA (Trident) VGA equipped i386-20 running 800x600 8 bit color?! I remember my disappointment when my sizzling 2100+ XP system with 1.5GB RAM and 128MB GeForce3 Ti500 could not push them any faster!

So I raided the DLL cache folder, deleted sol.exe (ignored the windows file protection message to insert the CD) and copied sol.exe from the NT server to my box!

Presto! Uh-oh! Now the cards looked so fast all you saw was a flash of light.

I wonder what a 5970 and a 4.4GHz 980X would do! :biggrin:

So what's your story of the past?

I must say that I'm REALLY good at solitaire. Actually learned how to play the game to do this!

Too bad I did not find the SHIFT+ALT+2 cheat sooner.

 

[rudeguy]

I turned down getting laid to upgrade to ME.

Worst. Decision. Ever.

 

[Locut0s]

Very similar to yours. Every time I upgraded my computer back then I would launch the flying windows screen saver and marvel at how much faster the windows logos flew.

 

[ahenkel]

I turned down getting laid to upgrade to ME.

Worst. Decision. Ever.

lawls I just found a windows ME upgrade disk. I don't know why I had it hell I wouldn't even pirate ME.

 

[Rubycon]

Very similar to yours. Every time I upgraded my computer back then I would launch the flying windows screen saver and marvel at how much faster the windows logos flew.

I had a copy of After Dark given to me and that was one of the reasons to get a real video card.

The toaster wings went from looking like geese to hummingbirds!

 

[Locut0s]

lawls I just found a windows ME upgrade disk. I don't know why I had it hell I wouldn't even pirate ME.

I've got a pirated DVD lying around here somewhere with every version of Windows from 1.0 up to XP.

 

[Rubycon]

I've got a pirated DVD lying around here somewhere with every version of Windows from 1.0 up to XP.

I remember software installation keys and thought they were good enough for passwords. Then FCKGW came along...

 

[Locut0s]

I had a copy of After Dark given to me and that was one of the reasons to get a real video card.

The toaster wings went from looking like geese to hummingbirds!

Ah yes After Dark. The ubiquitous flying toasters that you would see on every single monitor in every single computer store. Amazing how such things were so cool back them. I thought of buying it myself but couldn't quite get myself, or more accurately my father, to plunk down the money for a screen saver.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

I changed the address of the 2 mb of soldered ram on my Heathkit 8088 board and couldn't figure out how to change it back.

 

[ahenkel]

I wonder if after dark would run on Win7?

 

[Locut0s]

I remember software installation keys and thought they were good enough for passwords. Then FCKGW came along...

I understand that it was large corporations that wanted volume licence keys for ease of installation. Cause to me the idea just seems custom made for piracy.

 

[Rubycon]

Ah yes After Dark. The ubiquitous flying toasters that you would see on every single monitor in every single computer store. Amazing how such things were so cool back them. I thought of buying it myself but couldn't quite get myself, or more accurately my father, to plunk down the money for a screen saver.

Back then before LCD screen savers actually had a purpose!

I changed the address of the 2 mb of soldered ram on my Heathkit 8088 board and couldn't figure out how to change it back.

V20 time!

I understand that it was large corporations that wanted volume licence keys for ease of installation. Cause to me the idea just seems custom made for piracy.

VLK had no activation so it was dangerous as key theft was so easy.

There's still legitimate ways to get around activation on multiple machines - for legitimate pirates!

 

[Locut0s]

I changed the address of the 2 mb of soldered ram on my Heathkit 8088 board and couldn't figure out how to change it back.

lol that's a good one.

 

[crab]

I can remember connecting to a friend of mine through our 9600bps modems using Procomm Plus in DOS and transferring games like Commander Keen to each other. We lived two doors apart, but there was just something too cool about doing a file transfer.

He had a 286, and my 386DX was so damn pimp

 

[Rubycon]

Did anyone buy a 2.88MB floppy drive and the faster controller that required it?
Procomm and Pathminder for DOS. Those were the days.
I wore out a mouse pad playing Wolfenstein 3D. The 286 guys had it about postage stamp sized and the 486 users could run fullscreen!

 

[lxskllr]

I used to turn turbo off so the cards would fall slower. Much more satisfying that way :^)

 

[Locut0s]

I can remember connecting to a friend of mine through our 9600bps modems using Procomm Plus in DOS and transferring games like Commander Keen to each other. We lived two doors apart, but there was just something too cool about doing a file transfer.

He had a 286, and my 386DX was so damn pimp

I used to leech from BBSs all the time. I remember one time logging in to this particular BBS that I likes and seeing my name black listed on their "shitlist". That really upset me as a kid and I went crying to mommy and daddy. I had no idea that leeching files and not giving back to the community or chatting was frowned upon.

 

[Rubycon]

I used to turn turbo off so the cards would fall slower. Much more satisfying that way :^)

Or turn it on and off real fast while they were falling so it looked like something was wrong.

 

[Locut0s]

Did anyone buy a 2.88MB floppy drive and the faster controller that required it?
Procomm and Pathminder for DOS. Those were the days.
I wore out a mouse pad playing Wolfenstein 3D. The 286 guys had it about postage stamp sized and the 486 users could run fullscreen!

Those HD floppies were pretty rare weren't they?

 

[Rubycon]

Those HD floppies were pretty rare weren't they?

Yes indeed. And expensive. I just HAD to have a dual 3.5" 5.12" "combo" drive as well - those were $140 in 1993! Today you can find 2TB HDD on sale for that! Back in 1993 I believe I had a pair of 155MB SCSI drives. Those were 5.25 full height drives - that's the size of TWO DVD drives stacked!

 

[gaidensensei]

I was excited when I got my first -real- video card upgade from the trident junk. Diamond stealth 3d 2000!

Other moments I recall:
- loading commander keen off 5.25" disk and hearing the crunching
- wolf3d -goobers
- set s_host=castle
- entering bravo 5, get the dumbfire missiles and exit, repeat this for 2-3 hours. First time I ever really farmed in a game!
- pressing 2097 at menu for advanced options

 

[crab]

Any of you guys have the Commodore 5.25" drive? That damn thing weighed more than my whole case now.

 

[Locut0s]

Yes indeed. And expensive. I just HAD to have a dual 3.5" 5.12" "combo" drive as well - those were $140 in 1993! Today you can find 2TB HDD on sale for that! Back in 1993 I believe I had a pair of 155MB SCSI drives. Those were 5.25 full height drives - that's the size of TWO DVD drives stacked!

lol. I don't think you can even find anything that will read 5.12" any more. I know they certainly don't make them any more but I'm saying I don't think you can even find old used drives any more. Even in thrift stores and the like.

 

[Locut0s]

Nope I'm wrong!

http://cgi.ebay.com/Chinon-5-25-inc...C_Drives_Storage_Internal?hash=item4aa0363977

 

[crab]

Oh man... MFM hard drives. They could shake a whole desk seeking.