Bringing back memories of the Windows OS that never was...
October 27, 2014 7:05 PM Subscribe
Experience Windows93, the OS that never was and never should be. Managing to sit somewhere between nostalgia for 1990s-era Windows (is that a thing?) and an OS from an alternate timeline, Windows93 is... something. Enjoy the CRT graphics, watch the entire ASCII version of Star Wars (mentioned on MeFi in 2000!), play Windows Solitaire, and use a full fledged browser. Also, watch out for viruses and amazing 1990s easter eggs. I don't think there is anything NSFW, but there is so much here, a it is hard to know...
Nostalgia for 1990s-era Windows is indeed a thing. See: seapunk.
posted by gucci mane at 7:16 PM on October 27, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by gucci mane at 7:16 PM on October 27, 2014 [4 favorites]
I thought this was vaporwave.
I have lost track of the new aesthetics.
posted by griphus at 7:19 PM on October 27, 2014 [3 favorites]
I have lost track of the new aesthetics.
posted by griphus at 7:19 PM on October 27, 2014 [3 favorites]
The lard of unnecessary ambivalence and soft shark in this post's framing leads me to believe it was composed on a mac. Easier to use still than Yosemite...BAM!
posted by astrobiophysican at 7:21 PM on October 27, 2014
posted by astrobiophysican at 7:21 PM on October 27, 2014
Solitaire is perfectly buggy. I was set up to win when I realized that there was no four of spades.
posted by bh at 7:25 PM on October 27, 2014 [18 favorites]
posted by bh at 7:25 PM on October 27, 2014 [18 favorites]
Where is Small Elvis?
posted by lagomorphius at 7:28 PM on October 27, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by lagomorphius at 7:28 PM on October 27, 2014 [1 favorite]
astrobiophysican You wound me, sir or madam! I am Windows4Ever. These are 100% true things to give my bonafides:
I was at a Microsoft picnic in 1994 where there were tractors pulling large trailers filled with OK Soda. I believe that is the most 1990s Windows moment anyone can experience.
The only other OS I have installed on a PC was OS/2.
I had a small thrill when I saw the original CGA color combination in the fake boot screen.
So you take that back.
posted by blahblahblah at 7:30 PM on October 27, 2014 [19 favorites]
I was at a Microsoft picnic in 1994 where there were tractors pulling large trailers filled with OK Soda. I believe that is the most 1990s Windows moment anyone can experience.
The only other OS I have installed on a PC was OS/2.
I had a small thrill when I saw the original CGA color combination in the fake boot screen.
So you take that back.
posted by blahblahblah at 7:30 PM on October 27, 2014 [19 favorites]
Reminds me of when I had no Internet but I didn't care
posted by thelonius at 7:33 PM on October 27, 2014 [8 favorites]
posted by thelonius at 7:33 PM on October 27, 2014 [8 favorites]
@griphus:
Vaporwave definitely has the appropriate aesthetics of 90's-style computer imagery, especially stuff like James Ferraro's Far Side Virtual and stuff by Macintosh Plus, but I think the aesthetics started with seapunk before it.
posted by gucci mane at 7:45 PM on October 27, 2014
Vaporwave definitely has the appropriate aesthetics of 90's-style computer imagery, especially stuff like James Ferraro's Far Side Virtual and stuff by Macintosh Plus, but I think the aesthetics started with seapunk before it.
posted by gucci mane at 7:45 PM on October 27, 2014
There is at least one NSFW thing there. The picture of the lady you can get to on the desktop has a filler version on the pretend hard drive that reveals she's not wearing much in the way of clothes.
posted by JHarris at 7:46 PM on October 27, 2014
posted by JHarris at 7:46 PM on October 27, 2014
Seapunk and Vaporwave are The Man trying to co-opt out demo scene. Future Crew 4evah!
posted by Yowser at 7:58 PM on October 27, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by Yowser at 7:58 PM on October 27, 2014 [3 favorites]
JHarris, that would be the famous Lenna.
posted by LoopyG at 8:08 PM on October 27, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by LoopyG at 8:08 PM on October 27, 2014 [4 favorites]
Fools and Charlatans I was writing Windows Startup Concertos in FrootyLoops like eight years ago so take that
posted by Doleful Creature at 8:11 PM on October 27, 2014 [3 favorites]
posted by Doleful Creature at 8:11 PM on October 27, 2014 [3 favorites]
I was truly delighted by the idea of a secretly unbeatable Solitaire program, but sadly I played through a game and got the classic 90s cascading card effect. So it's unfortunately probably fair.
posted by crazy with stars at 8:13 PM on October 27, 2014
posted by crazy with stars at 8:13 PM on October 27, 2014
I was doing live sets using OctaMED in 1995. FruityLoops is for l8mers.
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:14 PM on October 27, 2014 [9 favorites]
posted by grumpybear69 at 8:14 PM on October 27, 2014 [9 favorites]
The lard of unnecessary ambivalence and soft shark in this post's framing leads me to believe it was composed on a mac. Easier to use still than Yosemite...BAM!
posted by astrobiophysican at 7:21 PM on October 27
"The lard of unnecessary ambivalence" is totally going to be my first album title when I start a soft rock band called Soft Shark.
posted by mmoncur at 8:19 PM on October 27, 2014 [8 favorites]
posted by astrobiophysican at 7:21 PM on October 27
"The lard of unnecessary ambivalence" is totally going to be my first album title when I start a soft rock band called Soft Shark.
posted by mmoncur at 8:19 PM on October 27, 2014 [8 favorites]
Oh, this takes me back to all those nights spent watching my disk get defragmented! Good times.
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:20 PM on October 27, 2014 [12 favorites]
posted by turbid dahlia at 8:20 PM on October 27, 2014 [12 favorites]
Ok but where's skifree
I got a 20 year old score to settle with a metal snowman
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:22 PM on October 27, 2014 [9 favorites]
I got a 20 year old score to settle with a metal snowman
posted by Ray Walston, Luck Dragon at 8:22 PM on October 27, 2014 [9 favorites]
The yeti ate skifree.
posted by Yowser at 8:26 PM on October 27, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Yowser at 8:26 PM on October 27, 2014 [1 favorite]
I want Desqview/QEMM, Qmodem with zmodem, Pcboard, Shez, a modem with lights and a family that won't pick up the phone while I am online. Also a Diamond Back BMX bike and a Harry Leary jersey.
posted by srboisvert at 9:07 PM on October 27, 2014 [10 favorites]
posted by srboisvert at 9:07 PM on October 27, 2014 [10 favorites]
Those transitions were unthinkable on any consumer desktop in the 1990s, of course. And I love the filenames like desktop.html and mimetypes.js. Neither Active Desktop nor JavaScript existed in 1993. Microsoft was still pretty much ignoring the web as hard as it could, and even TCP/IP didn't work worth a crap without third party libraries.
Yeah, okay "It's not realistic" is kind of a stupid thing to say here, but I just had to get that out.
posted by George_Spiggott at 9:08 PM on October 27, 2014
Yeah, okay "It's not realistic" is kind of a stupid thing to say here, but I just had to get that out.
posted by George_Spiggott at 9:08 PM on October 27, 2014
Remember setting up your very first Windows 95 network? I don't, because it never happened.
posted by turbid dahlia at 9:10 PM on October 27, 2014
posted by turbid dahlia at 9:10 PM on October 27, 2014
so it strikes me that if I really wanted to mess up conversation, I could just come in and quietly say "hey guys remember trumpet winsock" and spark off a "I walked six miles each day uphill both ways"-flavored nostalgia storm.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 9:19 PM on October 27, 2014 [32 favorites]
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 9:19 PM on October 27, 2014 [32 favorites]
In the late 1970s I wrote a program that had a similar aesthetic for the Commodore PET 2001, called BIN$. It simulated the PET's boot screen & allowed you to type in a BASIC program & execute certain other commands but eventually it started to go wonky. When you said LIST it would print the program backwards (vertically, horizontally or sometimes both). If you tried to RUN your carefully typed in program it would say "I'd rather walk", etc. I was the terror of my high school's nascent computer lab & I was still in Jr high. I recognize Windows93 as BIN$'s grandchild.
posted by scalefree at 9:31 PM on October 27, 2014 [9 favorites]
posted by scalefree at 9:31 PM on October 27, 2014 [9 favorites]
Doom 0.99 was released on December 10, 1993. I had to get it via Carrier Father who downloaded it, probably from FTP from the University of Wisconsin. For months before, said Carrier Father would bring the Good News, transferred by FidoNet, which was like Usenet only it was like a game of telephone . I printed these out on q screeching dot matrix printer that was about 50 DPI.
Which is to say, Vaporwave and Seapunk can still suck it.
posted by Yowser at 9:32 PM on October 27, 2014 [5 favorites]
Which is to say, Vaporwave and Seapunk can still suck it.
posted by Yowser at 9:32 PM on October 27, 2014 [5 favorites]
Oh my god the myspace page in the cat explorer. What an unwelcome blast from the past.
posted by yasaman at 9:33 PM on October 27, 2014
posted by yasaman at 9:33 PM on October 27, 2014
On the one hand, I honestly don't get the nostalgia for primitive crap I was so happy to get away from and personally have no interest in revisiting (old computer tech, LP records, mix cassette tapes, manual typewriters, etc.).
On the other hand, how many times have I muttered to myself that younger people don't appreciate what they have now because they have no awareness of what things were like "back then"...
In conclusion, get off my HD VirtuaLawn.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:58 PM on October 27, 2014 [1 favorite]
On the other hand, how many times have I muttered to myself that younger people don't appreciate what they have now because they have no awareness of what things were like "back then"...
In conclusion, get off my HD VirtuaLawn.
posted by Greg_Ace at 9:58 PM on October 27, 2014 [1 favorite]
I enjoyed that way more than I thought I would.
posted by SpacemanStix at 10:21 PM on October 27, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by SpacemanStix at 10:21 PM on October 27, 2014 [2 favorites]
HELP! I clicked on 'Totally Not a Virus. Trust Me. I'm a Dolphin' and now weird things are happening! How do I get Windows '93 back?!?
posted by mazola at 10:36 PM on October 27, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by mazola at 10:36 PM on October 27, 2014 [1 favorite]
looking at, being around, and using old stuff is a way to sort of measure the parallax between two implementations of a single concept (video player, music player, computer user interface, method of producing typed text), which can be used to learn about the nature of the underlying concept itself. It's super fun.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 10:37 PM on October 27, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 10:37 PM on October 27, 2014 [4 favorites]
Scalefree --
except you had to load it via cassette every time... didn't that give it away just a wee bit? (esp. since most people would turn their PET off when done, and since no one did anything useful on their pet, it was usually off anyway...)
posted by peter.j.torelli at 10:54 PM on October 27, 2014
except you had to load it via cassette every time... didn't that give it away just a wee bit? (esp. since most people would turn their PET off when done, and since no one did anything useful on their pet, it was usually off anyway...)
posted by peter.j.torelli at 10:54 PM on October 27, 2014
On the one hand, I honestly don't get the nostalgia for primitive crap I was so happy to get away from and personally have no interest in revisiting (old computer tech...)
The reason I like particular instances of "primitive" computer tech is that the things which mattered to me about it are not solved by current technology. I didn't use those old machines because they were awkwardly slow ways to accomplish something now achieved on an iPhone or web browser. I used them because I was totally interested in programming that particular computer, in making it follow my complicated commands, in understanding all facets of them -- and because there was a social community of like-minded devotees with our own subculture. Even among that community there were always those who were involved because they had a vision of something else that the 8-bit computer could help them reach. But to my mind, they were like real estate developers who looked at a forest and saw the subdivision they could build, while I was like a naturalist who just loved those trees and streams and idiosyncratic specific contours of that one particular bit of land.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 11:16 PM on October 27, 2014 [16 favorites]
The reason I like particular instances of "primitive" computer tech is that the things which mattered to me about it are not solved by current technology. I didn't use those old machines because they were awkwardly slow ways to accomplish something now achieved on an iPhone or web browser. I used them because I was totally interested in programming that particular computer, in making it follow my complicated commands, in understanding all facets of them -- and because there was a social community of like-minded devotees with our own subculture. Even among that community there were always those who were involved because they had a vision of something else that the 8-bit computer could help them reach. But to my mind, they were like real estate developers who looked at a forest and saw the subdivision they could build, while I was like a naturalist who just loved those trees and streams and idiosyncratic specific contours of that one particular bit of land.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 11:16 PM on October 27, 2014 [16 favorites]
Yeah, I'd probably be a better programmer if I could break myself of the sense that machines (and even APIs) are worthwhile for their own sake, and should be meticulously learned as a sign of, like, respect. Too much of that gets in the way of producing things that have value to capital.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:55 PM on October 27, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 11:55 PM on October 27, 2014 [4 favorites]
also: wow, I love seapunk music.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:01 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 12:01 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
On the one hand, I honestly don't get the nostalgia for primitive crap I was so happy to get away from and personally have no interest in revisiting (old computer tech, LP records, mix cassette tapes, manual typewriters, etc.).
Yeah, whatever, man. The Internet has still not come up with a community-building tool as awesome as BBSes.
With BBSes, you typically only communicated with people in your area code, which meant that you could (and often would) actually get to meet them. I met some of my lifelong best friends on BBSes in the early-to-mid 90s -- people with whom I'm still close.
Meetup.com is laughable in comparison, and Facebook is only good for reinforcing already-existing connections. I think we're all worse off for not having something like BBSes in the present day.
What's fascinating is that there was never really any good reason for BBSes to exist in the first place. Even in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s, Internet technology was far superior to BBS technology in every conceivable way. It's just that everyday people (read : non-military, non-scientist, non-academic types) people didn't know about it and didn't have access to it. Essentially, the PC community reinvented the wheel, poorly, but in the process created something spectacular and lifechanging that would nonetheless be destroyed once the Internet (which had existed all along) came to the fore.
I consider myself truly fortunate to have come along at a time when such a thing was a thriving concern; at its peak, there were 400+ active BBSes in the 314 AC, including my own. Sadly, I suspect we'll never see its like again.
posted by evil otto at 12:42 AM on October 28, 2014 [14 favorites]
Yeah, whatever, man. The Internet has still not come up with a community-building tool as awesome as BBSes.
With BBSes, you typically only communicated with people in your area code, which meant that you could (and often would) actually get to meet them. I met some of my lifelong best friends on BBSes in the early-to-mid 90s -- people with whom I'm still close.
Meetup.com is laughable in comparison, and Facebook is only good for reinforcing already-existing connections. I think we're all worse off for not having something like BBSes in the present day.
What's fascinating is that there was never really any good reason for BBSes to exist in the first place. Even in the 70s, 80s, and early 90s, Internet technology was far superior to BBS technology in every conceivable way. It's just that everyday people (read : non-military, non-scientist, non-academic types) people didn't know about it and didn't have access to it. Essentially, the PC community reinvented the wheel, poorly, but in the process created something spectacular and lifechanging that would nonetheless be destroyed once the Internet (which had existed all along) came to the fore.
I consider myself truly fortunate to have come along at a time when such a thing was a thriving concern; at its peak, there were 400+ active BBSes in the 314 AC, including my own. Sadly, I suspect we'll never see its like again.
posted by evil otto at 12:42 AM on October 28, 2014 [14 favorites]
The reason I like particular instances of "primitive" computer tech is that the things which mattered to me about it are not solved by current technology.
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 11:16 PM on October 27 [5 favorites +] [!]
what i always loved about computers back then was that a computer was a tool that let me create a tool. (possibly by a tool). humans love tools.
posted by readyfreddy at 2:42 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by Harvey Kilobit at 11:16 PM on October 27 [5 favorites +] [!]
what i always loved about computers back then was that a computer was a tool that let me create a tool. (possibly by a tool). humans love tools.
posted by readyfreddy at 2:42 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
You don't even need to win a solitaire game to get the cascading card effect. Just click and drag anywhere in the window. It's magical.
posted by anthom at 4:22 AM on October 28, 2014
posted by anthom at 4:22 AM on October 28, 2014
Here's Windows 3.1. If only Microsoft B.O.B. got the same treatment...it's what Windows 95 could have been...an interface decades before its time...
posted by samsara at 5:30 AM on October 28, 2014
posted by samsara at 5:30 AM on October 28, 2014
With BBSes, you typically only communicated with people in your area code, which meant that you could (and often would) actually get to meet them.
Yeah, I've *never* met anybody from Metafilter.
posted by eriko at 6:00 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
Yeah, I've *never* met anybody from Metafilter.
posted by eriko at 6:00 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
evil otto, in my experience meeting people from BBSs was not a positive aspect of that technology. I definitely met some shady types that way, who were admittedly not nearly as shady as people I met from IRC but still.
posted by 1adam12 at 6:39 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
posted by 1adam12 at 6:39 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
except you had to load it via cassette every time... didn't that give it away just a wee bit? (esp. since most people would turn their PET off when done, and since no one did anything useful on their pet, it was usually off anyway...)
There were 4 PETs that shared 2 dual 170K floppy drives (our lab was cutting edge!) so loading it relatively quickly wasn't difficult. And I had an accomplice who could distract our math teacher who'd gotten roped into teaching programming. We spent many hours at those keyboards teaching ourselves the dark art of misusing computers, so they were rarely turned off.
And now I run a team of hackers dedicated to breaking into the computers & networks of one of the world's largest companies so in retrospect my time was well spent.
posted by scalefree at 6:56 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
There were 4 PETs that shared 2 dual 170K floppy drives (our lab was cutting edge!) so loading it relatively quickly wasn't difficult. And I had an accomplice who could distract our math teacher who'd gotten roped into teaching programming. We spent many hours at those keyboards teaching ourselves the dark art of misusing computers, so they were rarely turned off.
And now I run a team of hackers dedicated to breaking into the computers & networks of one of the world's largest companies so in retrospect my time was well spent.
posted by scalefree at 6:56 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
Yeah, whatever, man. The Internet has still not come up with a community-building tool as awesome as BBSes.
I was just thinking exactly this the other day when I ran into someone online cheerleading for Facebook--these people must be too young to realize we've already done all these social media type things before just with different UI conventions and feature sets. There's still not really anything particularly new or innovative that services like FB offer end-users. If anything, it's the mere fact that so many people use them that makes them so valuable; the value they bring to the market is not so much for end-users but for the upstream markets that sell goods and services to consumers.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:13 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
I was just thinking exactly this the other day when I ran into someone online cheerleading for Facebook--these people must be too young to realize we've already done all these social media type things before just with different UI conventions and feature sets. There's still not really anything particularly new or innovative that services like FB offer end-users. If anything, it's the mere fact that so many people use them that makes them so valuable; the value they bring to the market is not so much for end-users but for the upstream markets that sell goods and services to consumers.
posted by saulgoodman at 7:13 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
I consider myself truly fortunate to have come along at a time when such a thing was a thriving concern; at its peak, there were 400+ active BBSes in the 314 AC, including my own. Sadly, I suspect we'll never see its like again.
The 314 area code was pretty damn special. I ran a board there too, but only for a couple months. There are a few other MeFites that are also former 314 BBSers..
posted by zsazsa at 7:26 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
The 314 area code was pretty damn special. I ran a board there too, but only for a couple months. There are a few other MeFites that are also former 314 BBSers..
posted by zsazsa at 7:26 AM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
Is it just me, or is anyone else wishing for a degauss button? Also, this needs a Prodigy icon on the desktop.
posted by Hactar at 7:31 AM on October 28, 2014 [4 favorites]
posted by Hactar at 7:31 AM on October 28, 2014 [4 favorites]
FIDONET 228:4
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 7:32 AM on October 28, 2014
posted by quonsar II: smock fishpants and the temple of foon at 7:32 AM on October 28, 2014
My most favorite 90s os moment was going to a Magic Cap event at Fry's... I got a free t-shirt and then General Magic completely disappeared within a few months. I forgot the name until I looked it up just now... turns out they were spun off from Apple(!). Ahhhh, the 90s.
posted by Huck500 at 7:39 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by Huck500 at 7:39 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
Yeah, whatever, man. The Internet has still not come up with a community-building tool as awesome as BBSes.
For me, that thing was IRC in the mid-90s. I was in college, and we got email addresses my sophomore year (1993-94). Somebody on the computer lab staff monkeyed up a hack to get into IRC -- no web at the time, so he set up a client on his own account which people could access in a complicated way.
I was pointed towards the #disney channel by a guy on my dorm floor, because it apparently attracted nice friendly people instead of proto-internet creepers. Between classes, I would go to the computer lab and chat. I met many people that I'm still friends with today. We had get-togethers in DC and Boston. I met a guy from Michigan (who is now on TV, but that's a weird story) who offered to create a website for my college rock band in 1995, when websites were new and unusual, and came out a couple times from Michigan to see the band play. He ended up marrying a woman from my area that he met on #disney.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 7:59 AM on October 28, 2014
For me, that thing was IRC in the mid-90s. I was in college, and we got email addresses my sophomore year (1993-94). Somebody on the computer lab staff monkeyed up a hack to get into IRC -- no web at the time, so he set up a client on his own account which people could access in a complicated way.
I was pointed towards the #disney channel by a guy on my dorm floor, because it apparently attracted nice friendly people instead of proto-internet creepers. Between classes, I would go to the computer lab and chat. I met many people that I'm still friends with today. We had get-togethers in DC and Boston. I met a guy from Michigan (who is now on TV, but that's a weird story) who offered to create a website for my college rock band in 1995, when websites were new and unusual, and came out a couple times from Michigan to see the band play. He ended up marrying a woman from my area that he met on #disney.
posted by Ben Trismegistus at 7:59 AM on October 28, 2014
Heh, several of the people I used to hang out with on IRC are also Mefites. I must have kept good company. ;)
Before that, I used the local BBSes a lot. You'd be surprised how many even relatively small towns would have. What really surprises me, thinking back, is how many were FidoNet linked. Someone had to call long distance to deliver messages to other cities, and that weren't cheap. Neither was the satellite feed one of our local sysops subscribed to (planet connect, maybe).
posted by wierdo at 8:11 AM on October 28, 2014
Before that, I used the local BBSes a lot. You'd be surprised how many even relatively small towns would have. What really surprises me, thinking back, is how many were FidoNet linked. Someone had to call long distance to deliver messages to other cities, and that weren't cheap. Neither was the satellite feed one of our local sysops subscribed to (planet connect, maybe).
posted by wierdo at 8:11 AM on October 28, 2014
This site is just tossing around alpha-blending and 3D compositing effects like it's no big deal. In 1993, it would be witchcraft. WITCHCRAFT. (or maybe a Video Toaster)
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:32 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
posted by RobotVoodooPower at 8:32 AM on October 28, 2014 [2 favorites]
omg trumpet winsock
This is strangely hypnotic.
posted by divabat at 9:13 AM on October 28, 2014 [3 favorites]
This is strangely hypnotic.
posted by divabat at 9:13 AM on October 28, 2014 [3 favorites]
Yeah, whatever, man. The Internet has still not come up with a community-building tool as awesome as BBSes.
Maybe that's the difference between us; I never used computers as a way to meet people, nor did I get into system programming.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:05 AM on October 28, 2014
Maybe that's the difference between us; I never used computers as a way to meet people, nor did I get into system programming.
posted by Greg_Ace at 10:05 AM on October 28, 2014
At least in my browser, it won't let me open Virtual PC in Virtual PC instances. I'm saddened.
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 10:24 AM on October 28, 2014
posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 10:24 AM on October 28, 2014
Before that, I used the local BBSes a lot. You'd be surprised how many even relatively small towns would have. What really surprises me, thinking back, is how many were FidoNet linked. Someone had to call long distance to deliver messages to other cities, and that weren't cheap.
My BBS used something called "PC Pursuit" (not sure of the name) that let me dial a local number and then relay to a number in a different area code for a flat $30 a month, which was a great deal at the time. I also used it to hang out on awesome boards like The World that weren't local to me.
posted by mmoncur at 10:26 AM on October 28, 2014
My BBS used something called "PC Pursuit" (not sure of the name) that let me dial a local number and then relay to a number in a different area code for a flat $30 a month, which was a great deal at the time. I also used it to hang out on awesome boards like The World that weren't local to me.
posted by mmoncur at 10:26 AM on October 28, 2014
Clippy in Windows 93 is sublime: "It looks like you are probably not writing a letter. I like letters. I think you should."
(Open Cat Explorer, pick VM, then "Windows Really Good Edition", then Start / Word, for Clippy goodness).
posted by Triplanetary at 11:01 AM on October 28, 2014
(Open Cat Explorer, pick VM, then "Windows Really Good Edition", then Start / Word, for Clippy goodness).
posted by Triplanetary at 11:01 AM on October 28, 2014
> FIDONET 228:4
FIDONET 228:4: IF IT CAN'T BE SAID IN 60 CHARACTERS DON'T BO
Eat your heart out, twitter
posted by jfuller at 1:41 PM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
FIDONET 228:4: IF IT CAN'T BE SAID IN 60 CHARACTERS DON'T BO
Eat your heart out, twitter
posted by jfuller at 1:41 PM on October 28, 2014 [1 favorite]
Citadel-86 long distance network represent!
posted by five fresh fish at 2:52 PM on October 28, 2014
posted by five fresh fish at 2:52 PM on October 28, 2014
My BBS used something called "PC Pursuit" (not sure of the name) that let me dial a local number and then relay to a number in a different area code for a flat $30 a month, which was a great deal at the time.
PC Pursuit was a service offered by Sprint to carry modem connections across their long-haul X.25-based network called Telenet. It was an even better deal if you could get someone else's access code then use it to reach certain BBSes that didn't mind the occasional call from Sprint security asking who was calling them so much.
posted by scalefree at 6:47 PM on October 28, 2014
PC Pursuit was a service offered by Sprint to carry modem connections across their long-haul X.25-based network called Telenet. It was an even better deal if you could get someone else's access code then use it to reach certain BBSes that didn't mind the occasional call from Sprint security asking who was calling them so much.
posted by scalefree at 6:47 PM on October 28, 2014
This is strangely hypnotic.
Previously (yeah, I FPP'd that nonsense)
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:26 PM on October 28, 2014
Previously (yeah, I FPP'd that nonsense)
posted by oneswellfoop at 11:26 PM on October 28, 2014
Oh, this takes me back to all those nights spent watching my disk get defragmented! Good times.
And you can re-live them any time you like. Good defragger.
posted by flabdablet at 10:28 AM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
And you can re-live them any time you like. Good defragger.
posted by flabdablet at 10:28 AM on October 29, 2014 [1 favorite]
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posted by You Can't Tip a Buick at 7:10 PM on October 27, 2014 [2 favorites]