• AwkwardLookMonkeyPuppet@lemmy.world
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        9 months ago

        I remember my friends phone numbers from the 80’s, and I have no idea what their numbers are now. Like I don’t even know a single digit in their new numbers. I’ve never even seen the numbers. We tapped our phones together, and I magically had their contact card.

  • Codex@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Ah, fond memories of tying up the house phone line all weekend for a 48 hour non-stop Starcraft marathon over AOL, getting pings on battle.net that were embarrassing then but are probably considered warcrimes today.

    • Semi-Hemi-Demigod@kbin.social
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      9 months ago

      I played Descent against my friend by dialing into his computer directly. Worked amazingly well considering the specs of the machines. We had a rule that if he got disconnected because his mom picked up the phone we’d have to restart the match.

      (I was already so chronically online by that time my parents had sprung for a second phone line.)

    • dejected_warp_core@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      It’s amazing any real-time gaming worked with all that latency.

      I routinely played Quake 2 with 200-300ms ping. I had to abandon hitscan weapons entirely, relying on rockets and grenades to do any damage. I never dominated any pub matches, but I usually wasn’t dead last either. Anyway, forcing that much latency on gamers nowadays is disallowed under multiple UN sanctions.

    • M500@lemmy.ml
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      9 months ago

      I remember my friends and I would all be in a waiting room to load a command and conquer map when we played online.

      While waiting for everything to lead there was a progress bar so you could see how far along you and your friends loading bars were.

      One friends dad as in IT and got high speed internet before the rest of us.

      It blew my mind to see his loading bars zoom to complete almost instantly.

    • dohpaz42@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      I rang up over a thousand dollars in charges for using a number outside of my local exchange, which was at the time considered long distance (same area code). I had spent a couple days camping out in an IRC channel.

      • Gork@lemm.ee
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        9 months ago

        Ah yes when “local long distance” plans were an unfortunate thing.

  • holycrap@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    I guess it tracks that the type of person who would beat their son over an internet bill would also beat their dog. Some people have no business having kids or pets.

  • Dagwood222@lemm.ee
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    9 months ago

    My favorite Boomer porn stories.

    One kid paid for a copy of Playboy with seventy five pennies he’d saved up.

    Military kids knew when ‘snap’ inspections would be carried out. They’d warn the troops, who would hide their porn and beer in the woods. Then the kids would search out the stashes and abscond.

  • MiltownClowns@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    When I was twelve I was able to forward AIM to my SMS. Backs when texts where 11¢ a piece… $350 that month.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    Oh man. I have a nostalgia for old cellphones like the Nokia or flip phones, but not the cell plans. There was initially no internet, but when it showed up it was super limited data. Limited texts. Limited minutes. But you could get free texts and calls after a certain time of day, like 5 or 6 in the evening. Plans were expensive. If you went over your allotment of texts it was a ridiculous fee like 25¢ or 50¢ a text. Same for call minutes. You were constantly clock and usage watching. I got one bill for almost $500. Ouch.

  • 🇰 🌀 🇱 🇦 🇳 🇦 🇰 ℹ️@yiffit.net
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    9 months ago

    Man, of only Wet Ass Pussy existed back in those days, I feel like actually finding porn on a .WAP site would have been incredibly easy.

    I had a Razr myself; after having a Sidekick. Going back to that shitty mobile web browsing experience fucking sucked. Even if you managed to find boobs on it, they’re gonna be low resolution and lack a lot of color.

    Unless the dude means the smartphone remake of the Razr? Or he used the OG even after the iPhone came out? He said he racked up a data bill but, like… They didn’t have “data” service back then. They had talk and text. Maybe 3 or 4 phones even had real internet stuff for power users, and it was slow as fuck because you’re using the incredibly slow cell network.

  • ares35@kbin.social
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    9 months ago

    it was quantumlink (aol’s predecessor, for the c64) chat rooms for me. dad was long gone by then. qlink was linked to my own bank account, so i felt it in a different way. for ‘porn’ the most accessible thing was a simple hack for c64 strip poker so they started out nekked.

    • cdf12345@lemmy.world
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      9 months ago

      Did you happen to watch Halt and Catch Fire?

      It was clear that Mutiny was Quantum Link.