Remember when thread

[lxskllr]

I pay almost everything in cash. Everything in person that I can. I just used an electronic check for the first time to pay property tax since they won't take cash. Everything seemed to work, but I wonder what kind of security they have for E checks? All it took was a routing#, acct#, and names/addresses/whatnot. None of that is secret info. I guess going to bank acct makes it harder to commit fraud, and I suppose there's a limited bank whitelist, but I'd be interested in knowing the details.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

Remember when almost any DOS/Windows 98 game ran on your 386/486/Pentium and you didn't have to worry about upgrading your computer in a panic just to enjoy a newly released game? I would fantasize more about owning a Gravis Ultrasound or a Creative SB AWE32 than some powerful video card.

- Having played a lot of mid-90's games on a lot of family 386/486 pcs, I never remembered this time.

I recall if Doom ran poorly on your PC, you could shrink the viewable area into a tiny box in the center of your already tragically low res screen to get more performance out of it. I played through the Doom shareware episode on what must have been a 256 x 192 block on my aunt/uncle's PC.

Honestly the QOL stuff surrounding PC games is such a godsend nowadays, the idea of a game just not working on your PC cause you don't have the right DX version or your GPU doesn't support shader revision whatever, or having to run games in *software* cause you don't have a 3D capable card, I don't miss any of it.

Might have been sarcasm on your part but I dunno its the internet.

 

[nakedfrog]

I pay almost everything in cash. Everything in person that I can. I just used an electronic check for the first time to pay property tax since they won't take cash. Everything seemed to work, but I wonder what kind of security they have for E checks? All it took was a routing#, acct#, and names/addresses/whatnot. None of that is secret info. I guess going to bank acct makes it harder to commit fraud, and I suppose there's a limited bank whitelist, but I'd be interested in knowing the details.

A surprising number of businesses downtown near me are cash-only (there's usually an ATM on the premises) and I'm fine with that.

 

[Meghan54]

A surprising number of businesses downtown near me are cash-only (there's usually an ATM on the premises) and I'm fine with that.

Surprised not more exist since merchant fees for swiping CC’s and even debit cards really eat into a business’s bottom line.

 

[BoomerD]

Remember waiting for an important download to finish on your modem and praying no one picked up the phone? Especially in cases where the ISP had a bug that wouldn't disconnect you even if your scratch card time was used up and you could keep using the internet as long as it wasn't disconnected?

I onstalled a second phone line for the modem.

 

[nakedfrog]

I onstalled a second phone line for the modem.

Look at moneybags over here!

 

[igor_kavinski]

Might have been sarcasm on your part but I dunno its the internet.

I did say DOS/Win98 games. The DX version/SW mode hell came later. I was lucky to have a 486DX2-66 to play the original Doom but being an ungrateful human, I lamented why it wasn't the 486DX-50. Then yearned for 486DX4-100. Got a Pentium 120 and then lamented why I didn't have a Pentium MMX. Dad bought me a Pentium II during the P3 era so I would dream how fast the P3 550 MHz would be. Upgraded to Celeron 700 MHz on same mobo and then dreamed about the Tualatin P3. Then my lust turned towards the Northwood P4. Prescott made me hate Intel. Got a Sempron. Loved AMD but Dothan got Intel back into my mind again. Haven't switched back to AMD yet. I think it might be Zen5X3D that makes me go AMD again.

 

[GodisanAtheist]

I did say DOS/Win98 games. The DX version/SW mode hell came later. I was lucky to have a 486DX2-66 to play the original Doom but being an ungrateful human, I lamented why it wasn't the 486DX-50. Then yearned for 486DX4-100. Got a Pentium 120 and then lamented why I didn't have a Pentium MMX. Dad bought me a Pentium II during the P3 era so I would dream how fast the P3 550 MHz would be. Upgraded to Celeron 700 MHz on same mobo and then dreamed about the Tualatin P3. Then my lust turned towards the Northwood P4. Prescott made me hate Intel. Got a Sempron. Loved AMD but Dothan got Intel back into my mind again. Haven't switched back to AMD yet. I think it might be Zen5X3D that makes me go AMD again.

-Still remember getting a sound blaster / CD Rom/ Encarta box for christmas one year. The joy of trying to set-up the correct IRQ and DMA channels etc in games was a blast (that was sarcasm).

 

[igor_kavinski]

Remember the mpeg video slideshow of video CDs in the pre-MMX era?

 

[sdifox]

Look at moneybags over here!

I used to download with my own line and chat with my friend on the house line xd

 

[BoomerD]

Look at moneybags over here!

 

[skyking]

I pay almost everything in cash. Everything in person that I can. I just used an electronic check for the first time to pay property tax since they won't take cash. Everything seemed to work, but I wonder what kind of security they have for E checks? All it took was a routing#, acct#, and names/addresses/whatnot. None of that is secret info. I guess going to bank acct makes it harder to commit fraud, and I suppose there's a limited bank whitelist, but I'd be interested in knowing the details.

I set up a second account for any ACH, and keep it trimmed down. When I do a manual ACH I transfer the funds to cover it. I pay property and income taxes with that, move money between banks or investments, pay for car licenses, any bill I can do with ACH.
I set up my first ACH auto payment with xfinity the other day. Everything else is manual.

 

[brianmanahan]

Remember when you could buy pop for $0.05

a nickel!

 

[A///]

remember when food labels were simple and to the point? spent a long 5 minutes in the aisles today trying to figure out what was in the box of some food i'd picked up beyond the photo they'd used. I could not figure out if it was rabbit food or human food or something you used to soak up fluids off the ground.

 

[SteveGrabowski]

I would sign on late at night when everyone was asleep and leave it on overnight to download demos Mayara Rodrigues videos.

fify

 

[SteveGrabowski]

Remember when you could buy pop for $0.05

Damn. Cheapest pop I ever bought was for $10 from this thick ass latina who gave me a couple extra free songs to finish in the private room. God bless you Hotel California.

 

[esquared]

Now I don't remember soda for .05 but I do for .10.
The machines were like these two.
Press on that gray handle in the middle to release the lock on the choice of bottles on the left.
I also remember an older one where you would slide the (choice of 3-4) bottles and slide the bottle to the
left side where you would pull the bottle up.

 

[skyking]

Those little 10 ounce bottles of tempered glass, you could pound nails with them. They got recycled so many times they were all fogged out with abrasion in the wear areas.

 

[BoomerD]

Those little 10 ounce bottles of tempered glass, you could pound nails with them. They got recycled so many times they were all fogged out with abrasion in the wear areas.

They made good weapons in a fight. As small as they were, they packed a helluva punch...and could be used numerous times without breaking.

ahem...or so I heard.

 

[A///]

Those little 10 ounce bottles of tempered glass, you could pound nails with them. They got recycled so many times they were all fogged out with abrasion in the wear areas.

sometimes you'd get a bottle that was only worn in the middle and you know it'd been used for spin the bottle by a bunch of kids. I was overseas in 97 or 98 or 99 and got a bottle of pepsi served to me. big fat stout bottle and it was glass and it was pepsi made with sugar. I didn't have the tongue for pepsi and that's all the restaurant had which stunned because cola from coke was anything you'd ever see outside the us. pepsi didn't and still doesn't have that presence and gravitas that cola from coke or coca has. tasted better than any pepsi I'd ever had even including the current made with sugar stuff. tab clear was nice back in the day but I remember trying out pepsi crystal when they had a drive outside a grocery store to try and get people to try it. the lady poured me a big one with ice. I took one swig, physically wretched and dumped it into the bin they'd set up when she or the other pepsi co employees weren't looking. it tasted so strongly of chemicals even if cola is a chemical compounding. no surprise it had zero positive impressions on anyone. the 80s and early 90s were terrible for drink manufacturers trying to thrust their nasty bs wares onto the common folk.

 

[[DHT]Osiris]

Remember when almost any DOS/Windows 98 game ran on your 386/486/Pentium and you didn't have to worry about upgrading your computer in a panic just to enjoy a newly released game? I would fantasize more about owning a Gravis Ultrasound or a Creative SB AWE32 than some powerful video card.

That's even less of a thing now. You could have bought a 6700k in AUG2015 and still be happy using it today, 8 years later, on AAA releases (citation: me). If you bought a 300mhz Pentium 1 in MAR1993, in 2001 you'd look like a moron while your friends had a 3Ghz pentium 4.

 

[igor_kavinski]

If you bought a 300mhz Pentium 1 in MAR1993, in 2001 you'd look like a moron while your friends had a 3Ghz pentium 4.

Today, the problem is GPU with so many graphical settings that we all would like to max out. In those days, most games were 2D so the CPU didn't have that hard of a time rendering them. I don't remember a single game from that era that forced me to get a better CPU. Upgrading was mostly done to enjoy more snappiness in Windows or get better benchmark scores and be the cool kid on the block with the shiny new CPU.

 

[Iron Woode]

remember when A&W was a drive-in restaurant? My dad would say, "wanna go to A&W?" when I was a little kid and I was, like, YEAH let's go!

They would bring a tray and attach it to your door window and then bring your food out. My dad and I always enjoyed that. I really miss those times.

I just found some old pics of Canadian A&W stuff:

 

[A///]

That's even less of a thing now. You could have bought a 6700k in AUG2015 and still be happy using it today, 8 years later, on AAA releases (citation: me). If you bought a 300mhz Pentium 1 in MAR1993, in 2001 you'd look like a moron while your friends had a 3Ghz pentium 4.

they'd also have gotten a free space heater. intel purchasers were always the winners or at least that's the lie I've told myself for 20+ years because I couldn't get my hands on amd's fancier processors then.

 

[A///]

Today, the problem is GPU with so many graphical settings that we all would like to max out. In those days, most games were 2D so the CPU didn't have that hard of a time rendering them. I don't remember a single game from that era that forced me to get a better CPU. Upgrading was mostly done to enjoy more snappiness in Windows or get better benchmark scores and be the cool kid on the block with the shiny new CPU.

but some of those settings have miniscule impacts on quality but take a hit to performance. theres yer big brain moment of the week.