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Dear Time Lords: Freeze Computers in 1993

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Re: Dear Time Lords: Freeze Computers in 1993

#21

Post by weinzierl »

OP has a good point, but for me, I'd rather wish we'd skipped the 90s and picked up again much later. I like to think of the 8-bit era as an early bronze age of computing, lots of things went right and were done right.

16-bit, to me, are the dark ages. Lot's of confusion, not much good came out of it technologically and aesthetically. God, everything was ugly. Maybe all the trials and tribulations were necessary for what was about to come but I like to believe they weren't.

32-bit to me is the golden age and 64-bit is platinum.

If you offered my a time machine to go back, I'd surely say: "No, thank you!". There hasn't been a better time than now, but if you'd forced me at gun point, I'd pick the 80s over the 90s any time.

Re: Dear Time Lords: Freeze Computers in 1993

#22

Post by Brajeshwar »

I was in school, and I remember my 1993. Our school was one of the few schools in my hometown (north-east India) that got computers.

Unfortunately, we had too many students for each computer during classes. I started a revolt that “Computers are wasting our study time, as our upcoming board exams are more important.” The whole class signed the petition and the School Head had to schedule a class-wide talk and agreed to make it totally optional to the point of, “If you really want, you be part of it. But yes, study for the exam is more important.”

So, the computer classes ended up with just me (the traitor), a friend from Kerala, and the school head’s daughter. We ended up like 3 computers each to our disposal. I wrote a QBasic Game-ish program to impress my first girlfriend — she uses the arrow keys to launch dots to hit some area on a heart-shaped thingy on the screen and it prints her name. I remember using physical graph-paper to calculate the screen “pixels” (I think) or co-ordinates to calculate strike areas.

Oh and Yes, almost all of my classmates remember me for being that traitor.

https://brajeshwar.com/2025/fixing-a-dos-computer-for-the-ar...

Re: Dear Time Lords: Freeze Computers in 1993

#23

Post by mrwh »

simonjgreen wrote: post #17
mrwh wrote: post #6

I don't think I was ever happier as a programmer than I was in the early 90s, well before university, with no thought of the internet, writing games on my Amiga. Incidentally, I recently replayed Loom, from a bit before that era. It's still a lovely, wonderful game! Such a shame the fan-made sequel (Forge) seems to have died.

Impossible to think about Loom without thinking about the first room in Money Island and the guy with the badge

"Talk to me about Loom!" That was my introduction to it.

I believe it was reasonably popular back in the day, made money at least. Now it would be almost avant guarde in its slowness I guess. You can't even double click to run. The popular art of yesteryear becomes the high art of today...

Re: Dear Time Lords: Freeze Computers in 1993

#25

Post by zdc1 »

Well the games of my childhood, Total Annihilation and Seven Kingdoms, came out in '97. So for my own selfish reasons I would argue that the Pentium II is where progress should have stopped.

On the other hand, at least I'll get to play Castle of the Winds.

(I also loved Z: Steel Soldiers, but despite the '01 release date, I'm sure it too would have run on a Pentium II).

Re: Dear Time Lords: Freeze Computers in 1993

#27

Post by qsera »

jmyeet wrote: post #2

I'm old enough to remember the 1990s. Many of us who do consider it the last good decade. Living was cheap. The previously ever-present threat of nuclear annihilation had seemingly abated. This was before the d0t-com crash and obviously the War on Terror that has dominated the 21st century thus far. I have fond memories of the 486 era, which was really the early 1990s. I'm kinda surprised the PC component of this isn…

>Youtube

For me, youtube is only nice because of the decades old content that people have put on it. But that is because there is no such quality content made in the world anymore, and that is partially because of the enshittification bought on by the internet.

If it was not the case, youtube won't be that big of a deal. Let me disclose here that I am not a big fan of "on-demand" content.

Re: Dear Time Lords: Freeze Computers in 1993

#29

Post by incanus77 »

josephg wrote: post #4

I've been half joking lately that if I wrote an OS, I'd call it Nostalgia OS. I'd aim for a UI reminiscent of windows 98 / windows 2000 / snow leopard. With HID guidelines and a rich, clear, cohesive set of UI widgets to build applications with. I think that was the peak computing user interface - at least as I experienced it. Of course, the kernel would be based on capabilities (probably SeL4). And applications woul…

Check out the Chicago95 theme for XFCE.

Re: Dear Time Lords: Freeze Computers in 1993

#30

Post by jamiek88 »

Brajeshwar wrote: post #22

I was in school, and I remember my 1993. Our school was one of the few schools in my hometown (north-east India) that got computers. Unfortunately, we had too many students for each computer during classes. I started a revolt that “Computers are wasting our study time, as our upcoming board exams are more important.” The whole class signed the petition and the School Head had to schedule a class-wide talk and agreed…

I remember using graph paper as a kid in England to design my space invaders clone for the class bbc micro.

I loved your story, ingenuity and the cheekiness of youth!

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