Life Before the Internet

[Leejai]

yea...it was hyperterminal chat!

 

[Fingolfin269]

Originally posted by: ShawnD1

Originally posted by: Fingolfin269
We could be talking different years too. Gaming accelerated at an exponential rate. I'm talking around 1986-7.

And no, we did not live in the ghetto. Maybe you lived in a rich neighborhood?

I'm thinking more around 1989-90. I was middle class.

Maybe today's kids just have a different view towards games. In my day, games were not really a priority. Cops and robbers was priority; followed by riding bikes, building stuff, and exploring stuff.
Maybe today's kids just think of games as first priority.

Oh yah, they weren't. I do think that's because gaming wasn't as social back then. There weren't quite as many cool multiplayer games that I remember. Even the one's that were supposedly multiplayer were mainly 'your turn/my turn' sort of games.

But yah, if you didn't have a bike back then you just weren't cool. 🙂

 

[DT4K]

I don't think how kids spend their time has changed much.
Yeah, everyone has a computer and internet now.
But every day in my neighborhood from the time school gets out until dark, there are tons of kids playing outside. Riding bikes, scooters, skateboards, playing basketball, kickball, etc. My kids spend just as much time playing outside as I ever did.

I bought a C64 in 1982 and it seemed like everyone I knew had one. So gaming was very big even then.

Life before the internet:
People got together physically at weekly user group meetings to copy software instead of dl'ing from Kazaa.

You had to spend hours in a library to do any research instead of minutes on the net.

If you needed information, it involved looking up a phone number in a phone book and calling 10 or more different people or companies or government agencies before you finally figured out who could give you the information.

People made more phone calls and wrote more letters before the internet.

It really is quite amazing how much things have changed now. Often, I will be looking something up on the net and I will wonder how someone would have been able to find out this information before the internet.

 

[Fritzo]

Atari, C-64, and BBS's man! Oh yeah! Oh, and I faintly remember primative games called softball, football, and..what was it called....frisbee?

 

[monk3y]

I was quite little... Used to play alotta console games. I probably did alot more physical activities too.

 

[PanzerIV]

Before the internet I had to:

* Use this thing called a stamp and physically mail my bills to locations throughout the country.

* Pay for long distance calls to chat with friends.

* Drive to the library and search gazillions of heavy, sometimes dated books, periodicals and reference material for schoolwork, personal research, etc.

* Play games with only a few people who may or may not have really been interested.

* Used to have to BUY girly magazines! 😛

Now, all for the price of broadband I can pay bills online, chat for free, find whatever the hell I want with a few keystrokes and clicks, game with people all over the world and d.l. as much as I want of anything I want.

 

[imported_Strang]

Originally posted by: loki8481
I couldn't even begin to imagine what the workplace was like before there was a computer on every desk.

Man, I never really thought about that. The little things like online billpay or buying tickets online I could probably live without in a pinch, but working in a job like mine with lots of downtime w/o the internet would be painful. I'd probably be playing cards all day, heh.

 

[Trygve]

Originally posted by: vegetation
I remember extensive bbs systems in the mid to late 80s. They had it all, forums, file transfers, porn, chat. Just you had to often redial for a long time to get an available line. The online community was far more local, so you often end up meeting others in the area with events like picnics and such. Sad to see that gone.

Yep. There was fidonet, but it was definitely a lot more locally-oriented. I used to host local BBS gatherings every month or two.

Still have my first modem around here: handled 50, 110, and 300 baud, with both RS-232 and current loop interfaces. Back then in the pre-PC days, I'd written my own communications package for the minicomputers I had on hand.

In some ways, it wasn't all that different from now; the download speeds are a lot faster, but the downloads are a whole lot bigger too.

 

[Shlong]

Sports, used to play everyday now probably once a month.

 

[compudog]

Before the Internet or before affordable computer in the home? Before my first computer I hiked, rode my bike, and played in playgrounds with the neighborhood kids. When I got my first computer, I hooked up to BBS and TELNET and other cool stuff at 300 baud. I've seen less and less of the sun since then. Now, I look forward to time spent AWAY from computers and the 'net.

 

[KhoiFather]

Before the internet was a big hit for me, back in the days when I was like 11-12, all the kids in my neighborhood would come together almost everyday to play football, street hockey, street baseball with a tennis ball, basketball and actually go out to places. I miss those days, it was mad fun back in the day and days I won't ever forget. "Tears"

 

[Pex]

before i got into computers, it was different. i was ripped, got laid every day, got drunk every night, got straight A's, and was active in sports. now i weigh 300 lbs, havent talked to a girl in over 10 years, havent seen a drop a beer in 10 years, and am failing college.