For those 80s Children (brought Python to mind)

Post #73,826 by bepatient 1/9/03 11:43:23 PM Reply	For those 80s Children (brought Python to mind) When I was a kid, adults used to bore me to tears with their tedious diatribes about how hard things were when they were growing up; what with walking twenty-five miles to school every morning uphill both ways through year 'round blizards carrying their younger siblings on their backs to their one-room schoolhouse where they maintained a straight-A average despite their full-time after-school job at the local textile mill where they worked for 35 cents an hour just to help keep their family from starving to death! And I remember promising myself that when I grew up there was no way I was going to lay a bunch of stuff like that on kids about how hard I had it and how easy they've got it! But.... Now that I've reached the ripe old age of twenty-nine, I can't help but look around and notice the youth of today. have it easy! I mean, compared to my childhood, you live in Utopia! And I hate to say it but you kids today you don't know how good you've got it! I mean, when I was a kid we didn't have The Internet--we wanted to know something, we had to go to the library and look it up ourselves! And there was no email! We had to actually write somebody a letter--with a pen!--and then you had to walk all the way across the street and put it in the mailbox and it would take like a week to get there! And there were no MP3s or Napsters! You wanted to steal music, you had to go to the record store and shoplift it yourself! Or we had to wait around all day to tape it off the radio and the DJ'd usually talk over the beginning and foul it all up! You want to hear about hardship? You couldn't just download porn! You had to bribe some homeless dude to buy you a copy of "Hustler" at the 7-11! Those were your options! We didn't have fancy stuff like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal! And we didn't have fancy Caller ID Boxes either! When the the phone rang, you had no idea who it was... it could be your boss, your mom, a collections agent, you didn't know!!! You just had to pick it up and take your chances, mister! And we didn't have any fancy Sony Playstation videogames with high-resolution 3-D graphics! We had the Atari 2600! With games like "Space Invaders" and "Asteroids" and the graphics were awful! Your guy was a little square! You had to use your imagination! And there were no multiple levels or screens, it was just one screen forever! And you could never win, the game just kept getting harder and faster until you died! Just like LIFE! When you went to the movie theater there no such thing as stadium seating! All the seats were the same height! A tall guy sat in front of you, you were in trouble. And sure, we had cable television, but back then that was only like 20 channels and there was no onscreen menu! You had to use a little book called a TV Guide to find out what was on! And there was no Cartoon Network! You could only get cartoons on Saturday morning... ...D'ya hear what I'm saying!?! We had to wait ALL WEEK! That's exactly what I'm talking about! You kids today have got it too easy! You're spoiled! You guys wouldn't last five minutes back in 1984! You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! _{Laurie Anderson} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #73,830 by Meerkat 1/10/03 12:50:56 AM Reply	Well, it wasn't all bad... We didn't have fancy stuff like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal! That's still the way it is on my world. To me, it's the height of rudeness to think that, just because you receive another call, they're bound to be more important than the person you're currently talking to. And as for Atari 2600: Pitfall. Starmaster. How can you top those? :) You're definitely right about taping (taping? what does that mean? :) stuff of the radio though :) John. Busy lad.
Post #73,848 by Yendor 1/10/03 8:16:16 AM Reply	Amen, brother. We didn't have fancy stuff like Call Waiting! If you were on the phone and somebody else called they got a busy signal! That's still the way it is on my world. To me, it's the height of rudeness to think that, just because you receive another call, they're bound to be more important than the person you're currently talking to. This is so very true -- yet it's become an accepted part of our society to think that you must answer every call you receive. I have Call Waiting with my cell phone. Most times I simply ignore it. Since it also has Caller ID (which I did without when I had a land line), I'm able to know who's calling and can judge whether it really is more important. 99% of the time it's not. (Since I also use my cell phone for business, there's a legitimate possibility that it is more important.) And as for Atari 2600: Pitfall. Starmaster. How can you top those? :) Simple. You don't. :) -YendorMike [link\|http://www.hope-ride.org/\|http://www.hope-ride.org/]
Post #73,912 by orion 1/10/03 1:14:34 PM Reply	More more more! I love it! We didn't have those plastic playgrounds at McDonald's either, when you went to play it was at a park. No plastic, it was metal and wood and rubber. No tree bark or small rocks, it was either sand or dirt. We didn't have half the stuff you kids now have on a playground. No ball room full of lastic balls, no netting, no super slides, etc. We left our shoes on as well, and didn't take them off. Computers were expensive, my father paid $500USD for a Commodore 64 and it had no hard drive! Just a funky tape recorder, and if you wanted to load a program you pressed play on the tape and then went to do something else for half an hour or so. Like eat dinner, play the Atari 2600 and move blocks around, or just read a book or watch network TV. Yes we didn't have Cable TV, and when we did get Cable TV it was not digital and only had 36 channels. For pay-per-view we had to call it in on the phone, we couldn't order it on a remote control like you do. I still remember doing a Control-K-D in Wordstar, you kids got it easy now with Wordperfect and Word for Windows. Back in the early 80's, unless you had a Macintosh from 1984 or later, you didn't have a GUI word processor, Windows didn't really catch on until after 1987. I still remember those Wordperfect for DOS keyboard templates that fit over the function keys. When someone pirated a copy, they photocopied the template and then cut it out of the paper. This was before modern copy protection. We didn't have Audio CDs, we had 8-Track or Cassette tapes or a Record. The Record was a vinyl disc, usually black, and you had to have a special record player to play it. You couldn't copy it unless you had a tape recorder hooked up to your stereo, and then it was in casette format. But records and tapes were expensive, so we usually copied it off of the radio anyway. :) We had Lego blocks, but the blocks didn't move, they didn't have Star Wars or Harry Potter themed bricks. Just regular bricks and we used our imagination to build stuff out of them. We didn't have "Kiddie Credit Cards" when we turned 12, and nobody bought us a car or let us use their car. We had to ride a bicycle or work a job to earn enough money to buy a used car. Usually we bought one for under $500 that needs major repair work. You teenagers have it easy now, both Mom and Dad work, and either buy you a car or let you use one of theirs. We didn't have that when we grew up. We either worked a job to buy a car, or used the bus or walked or used a bicycle. I can remember walking for miles just to get a comic book, or a Slurpee and Nachoes from 7-11, I was in great shape when I did that. Almost everything we got, we had to buy ourselves. We usually got an allowance, or worked a job, or did yard work, etc and then saved up the money. We also saved up the money from Christmas, our birthday, and other special events, and then used it to buy what we wanted. Like an Atari 2600, or a new 2600 game. I remember paying $39USD for Pacman for the 2600, and it was just one large Dot eating smaller dots and the Ghost Monsters flickered like crazy, so bad that you had to wear sunglasses. **Pete Moss' Peat Moss, when only the finest horsesht will do! ;)***
Post #73,945 by SpiceWare 1/10/03 4:10:31 PM Reply	I dunno about this one You want to hear about hardship? You couldn't just download porn! You had to bribe some homeless dude to buy you a copy of "Hustler" at the 7-11! I recall some BBSes that had an extensive collection for download at 300 baud. I also recall seeing it available in various usenet newsgroups in 88 when I started using the internet. Darrell Spice, Jr. [link\|http://home.houston.rr.com/spiceware/\|SpiceWare] - We don't do Windows, it's too much of a chore
Post #73,998 by bepatient 1/10/03 9:07:50 PM Reply	Sort of agree.. ...since I was "chatting" and various other "net" activities in the late 70's on [link\|http://www.wvnet.edu/wvndex.shtml\|WVNET]. You were born...and so you're free...so Happy Birthday! _{Laurie Anderson} [link\|mailto:bepatient@aol.com\|BePatient]
Post #74,021 by orion 1/10/03 10:41:58 PM Reply	BBSes I recall most of the porno came from ReadMac files created on the Macintosh using a DOS reader to use the PICT or whatever format the Mac used back in the early to mid 80's. Nothing like a dithered naked woman in greyscale in 640x200 two color mode in CGA using the CompuServe ViewGIF or whatever program to read the Macintosh created files. If you squinted really hard, it appeared to be in color because of the dithering. :) I recall we had to scroll it up and down to see the whole picture. I recall that the Nagel artwork came through the best, but it was more like SoftPorn. When I got my Amiga, I was able to see pictures in 4096 colors. A friend of mine wasn't impressed, despite the fact that it displayed more colors than his EGA monotor and video card. He said "It doesn't move, I'm not impressed." yet it was an almost perfect picture downloaded on an Amiga in the Hold And Modify mode. Moving porn came later. Not that I get into that sort of stuff anymore, but yes before the graphic formats, people made ASCII and ANSI art drawings of pornographic pictures. 300 Baud and higher could download them. ZModem worked the best, we used DSZ and registered it to get the Moby Turbo mode, etc. **Pete Moss' Peat Moss, when only the finest horsesht will do! ;)***
Post #73,963 by tseliot 1/10/03 5:09:31 PM Reply	35\ufffd/hr? Dang, I got a nickel a week. Many fears are born of stupidity and ignorance - Which you should be feeding with rumour and generalisation. BOfH, 2002 "Episode" 10

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