Yes, we really did have to download things uphill both ways back then. I remember leaving the computer on overnight to download a game that was, like, 40 mb.
In the morning I got there and it had crashed at like 98% lol
My dad was pissed at me for “wasting electricity” the real OG data center hater over here.
And then it would finally connect, and your sibling would pick up the phone and start dialling…
Aaaaaaargh!
I remember way, way back in the days of dialup a very tech savvy friend had emailed me 20+ files, because I was the only one capable of stitching an image together. Took forever (days?) to download the files, and I had to redownload more than once due to roommates doing fun stuff like picking up the other phone line… (It was of his truck after hitting a moose.) Of course, I didn’t get to see the image until he got home, I had a Hercules monitor, he had a fancy one that did actual graphics.
I believe broadband is, generally, a net negative for the human species.
Its always on, leading to a constant conveyor belt of fresh horrors.
Its always on, so theres no seperation from internet and anything else, because you can’t just log out of the internet anymore.
High speed/Always on internet means goods we used to own physically and use as we please, have been converted into goods we just perpetually rent and can be taken from us at any time.
always on broadband was genuinely the turning point in ruining the internet.
It’s what brought internet to the masses. That’s what always kills <any subject>.
I’m from the before-times, where loading a single EGA screen in 4 colours took a good twenty seconds from a floppy drive. Printer was dot matrix. Internet was something mythical only possessed by the extremely elite or academia. You better believe I’m still astonished when I see a 4K game load in 3 seconds from an NVMe drive.
Mrrrrrrr meep meep meep meep meep meep meep meep. Murrrrrrrrrr weeeerrrrr MWOM MWOM mreeeeee meomrmrmrmrmmmmrrrr
(8 digit number because Europe)
There was a time when you either had phone service or internet. But not both at the same time.
And if some bastard tried calling you when you were on the internet, they weren’t your friend any more.
There was a code you could use when dialing your provider to disable the 2nd call tone for a call. Put that in your phone number for dialing and your friends would get a busy signal, as god intended.
edit: that still exists, *70
I BEGGED my mother for a second line, so I could stay online longer, but she wouldn’t get one :(
I remember images loading one line at a time and I get irritated at less than 40Mbps.
Set phasers to BONK!
I remember this and I complain about wifi. Americans are getting scammed on internet speed.
Back when your computer picked up the phone and called some machine far away.
Those AOL CDs you got in the mail.
I remember growing up with AOL and being stuck on the kiddie mode.
I also remember the day I figured out that I was t actually stuck on kiddie mode and I could use Netscape and browse the Internet directly. Sooo many tiddies seen at one line of pixels at a time…
Limitations of available technology at the time =/= limitations generally caused by shitty ISPs and/or IT teams not maintaining their infrastructure and equipment properly.
We were also loading 30kb webpages. Try to load anything from the last 10 years over 33,600
Yeah, but thats in large part due to the fact that people stopped trying to optimize, because why optimize when most people have gigantic firehose connections that can just use their raw bandwidth to overcome issues.
A similar problem exists with other aspects of computing, lack of optimization and just brute forcing it with modern GPU/CPU power
there’s a few videos on youtube about people loading up dialup and trying to use today’s internet on it. It is not fun.
I can still hear that image.
Christ, that sound lives rent free in my head
You know what’s worse that no internet? Slow internet.
Unfortunately I DO know this image…
