Tip jar

If you like CaB and wish to support it, you can use PayPal or KoFi. Thank you, and I hope you continue to enjoy the site - Neil.

Buy Me a Coffee at ko-fi.com

Support CaB

Recent

Welcome to Cook'd and Bomb'd. Please login or sign up.

March 28, 2024, 11:54:56 AM

Login with username, password and session length

What did you people do before the internet?

Started by Al Tha Funkee Homosapien, October 24, 2006, 12:49:15 AM

Previous topic - Next topic

extradave

I always use to cheat at that and just take a templar's stat upgrades straight away. I don't think I really understood the rules fully.

edit: On topic, i'd probably be the MD without the internet, the hours I have pissed away at work.

Almost Yearly

Are you the 24th Dave?


A certain itinerant ovine Whore has been on a tour of the UK's libraries recently, discovering that they block him from accessing this place on the grounds that it is a "chat site" or somesuch. Shurely shome shour grapesh?

chand

Quote from: "Emergency Lalla Ward Ten"Before the internet, somebody could tell you about a 'lost' Carry On film called Carry On Screwing which a friend of a friend's brother had once seen, and you could never be entirely sure whether they were bullshitting you or not. I mean, you could look in film guides, but they're not necessarily gospel.

These days, if Carry On screwing had ever existed, then Google would pick up a record for it. Result: urban myth instantly squashed flat.

In some ways, this is a good thing, but in other ways I kinda miss the mystery. Everyone's so bloody savvy and cocksure these days - there seems less scope for pissing about.

I dunno, I may have inadvertently started an internet-based urban legend once. I had a pissing-about studenty website about a fake band I was involved in which was clearly a joke. On the news page I made a reference to a song one of these fake bands had written called 'Coalition Of The Willy' which suggested penis envy was a factor in Bush's decision to go to war with Iraq. This was subsequently quoted, apparently seriously, in this somewhat pretentious academic article about penises and war.

QuoteThe possibility seems to have been recognized in Australia in March 2003, where a pop group (Panda Flan Attack) produced an anti-war song Coalition Of The Willy exploring the psycho-physical challenges of the American leadership in "attacking Saddam's palace"

I'm quite fond of the idea that someone might one day quote that in their dissertation and thus spread the idea that such a song actually existed.


nixon

Quote from: "Santa's Boyfriend"

Actually, the research thing shocked me.  The internet was still in its infancy when I was at Uni, so all through my education research meant going to the library - even during my PGCE a few years later.  But when I ended up teaching and I asked the kids to go away and research something, they always came back with the first thing they found on Google - even if it wasn't actually relevent, and even if I specified that they had to go to the library and research there.  I think they thought I meant go to the library and use their computers to google a result.

:-)

The first time I saw the internet was in my college Library.  Must have been November 1995.  All I can remember doing on it was going into chat rooms.  At that time chatrooms were just people saying..

"gee this internet thing is great!"

look how far we have come... (mmm.. sounds a bit dodgy)

I had now idea back then it could be used for research.




Quote from: "Santa's Boyfriend"
Quote from: "nixon"I wish sometimes It was the early nineties again.

Bring back John Major, Nirvana, Bill Clinton and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, that's what I say!


ok.  you have a point. I guess what I was getting at was more of a "oh.. more social era".

Quote from: "Emergency Lalla Ward Ten"Before the internet, somebody could tell you about a 'lost' Carry On film called Carry On Screwing which a friend of a friend's brother had once seen, and you could never be entirely sure whether they were bullshitting you or not. I mean, you could look in film guides, but they're not necessarily gospel.

These days, if Carry On screwing had ever existed, then Google would pick up a record for it. Result: urban myth instantly squashed flat.

In some ways, this is a good thing, but in other ways I kinda miss the mystery. Everyone's so bloody savvy and cocksure these days - there seems less scope for pissing about.

That's all been replaced by the viral marketing 'craze' and youTube where you wonder if 'real' events have been staged or actually happened.

Besides the Internet is so chocker with triviality and mis-information - facts are still not clear-cut.

Mister Cairo

I used to spend hours exercising my imagination and drawing secret cities run by me and a secret police force, picking my nose, painting Warhammer 40,000 VERY badly, getting told off for no reason by my dad, eating biscuits and walking through the local fields with my dad and sister (his idea of a fun day out). We got the Internet when I was 16 and thank fuck we did.

Quote from: "clareQuilty"Teletext.

I did that too.  I was addicted to Planet Sound, The Void, Digitiser and Megazine.

Captain Crunch

Time was, we used to tape stuff offa the radio and make tapes for each other (avec subliminiminal messages pour les boyos (!)) and half penny sweets and cider and putting a biro i in the middle of 'To Let' signs and smoking and not doing PE.

Actually I probably spent most of my pre-internet days playing air-bass in my mate's kitchen and failing to pull.  So no change at all for me.

Brigadier Pompous

Quote from: "Cardinal Tit Storm"
Those were the days. What a saddo, eh.

Hah, now you can use voip and dice-rollers to play over the internet.

Twice the sadness.

Tokyo Sexwhale

My first inkling of the internet was when Clive James used to talk about something called the "Information Superhighway" in the early 90's.  I hadn't a clue what he was talking about, so it washed over me.

When I went to University we had something called JANET which had some primitive e-mail system, that I never used.  And then a very minor amount of dabbling at work when it seemed to have a big "wow" factor, but only the secretaries had access to it, and they hadn't a clue how to use it.

Anyway, I remember being a lot more physically active, but then again I was young.  I watched a lot more TV too.  But the biggest impact has been in reading for pleasure.  

I read books for information or for study purposes, and have read a few other non-fiction books, but since I got the internet as a home user (1998)  I am shocked to report that I cannot recall reading any fiction book!  Prior to that I was a voracious bookworm, devouring at least 4 books a week.

Shit, can anyone lend me a Dan Brown?

I remember when I used to socialise regularly.
Good times.

And gone are the days when a bunch of us would go round my mate's house, drink Katzpiss lager, watch vids and listen to Lawnmower Deth, GWAR and Bad News albums for hours.

Still, this is much better.

the midnight watch baboon

Quote from: "Banana Woofwoof"
Quote from: "clareQuilty"Teletext.

I did that too.  I was addicted to Planet Sound, The Void, Digitiser and Megazine.

Hurrah, me too. Also used to read Josh's diary, a fictional account of a teen boy. His fictional sister had one, too. One of Josh's diary entries was about him having an 'enormous wig-wam under the sheets last night'. Whatever could he mean?

Quote from: "the midnight watch baboon"
Quote from: "Banana Woofwoof"
Quote from: "clareQuilty"Teletext.

I did that too.  I was addicted to Planet Sound, The Void, Digitiser and Megazine.

Hurrah, me too. Also used to read Josh's diary, a fictional account of a teen boy. His fictional sister had one, too. One of Josh's diary entries was about him having an 'enormous wig-wam under the sheets last night'. Whatever could he mean?

Christ, I remember that n'all!  Fackin' 'ell.

the midnight watch baboon

Teletext was so much better then, much more love went into it than all the interactive stuff you get now. Aye.

ccbaxter

Quote from: "the midnight watch baboon"
Quote from: "Banana Woofwoof"
Quote from: "clareQuilty"Teletext.

I did that too.  I was addicted to Planet Sound, The Void, Digitiser and Megazine.

Hurrah, me too. Also used to read Josh's diary, a fictional account of a teen boy. His fictional sister had one, too. One of Josh's diary entries was about him having an 'enormous wig-wam under the sheets last night'. Whatever could he mean?

I was a regular reader of Park Avenue, the Teletext soap opera, one of the ten daily pages of which would be a hideous attempt at a picture of a main character. Nightmarish... but strangely addictive.
I think it all ended very abruptly with everyone dead.

Emergency Lalla Ward Ten

I used to exchange loads of (very, very long) letters with people. It was a sort of ultra-slow version of Verbwhores in a strange way, since most of the letters concerned the state of comedy. I knew I was unusual in doing this, though.

The first thing I used to when I got up was inspect the doormat for post. If there wasn't anying, I'd feel pretty gloomy.

Pinball

Well I'm a keen film collector, and used to collect laserdiscs. For US stuff, this meant faxing and phoning for catalogues a lot. I clearly remember my last 'big' LD catalogue, which was from 1995/6. LD shops on CompuServe started appearing in 1995, and probably from mid-1996 onwards the catalogues became redundant. So, for me, the Net was a quantum leap, with sites like BigEmmas and Ken Cranes fulfilling all my laserdisc needs :-)  There were some great early finds too, like NASA's educational catalogue, and even today many of those LDs haven't been replaced by DVD versions.

Suttonpubcrawl

Quote from: "Emergency Lalla Ward Ten"The first thing I used to when I got up was inspect the doormat for post. If there wasn't anying, I'd feel pretty gloomy.

Heh, the first thing I do every morning is go on the computer. My computer is in my bedroom almost right next to my computer, and is always on, so I don't even have to fully get out of bed to check whether I've got any emails, messages, if the film I started downloading last night has finished, whether there are any interesting (State of the Boards) threads on CaB or anything else. My computer is really the hub of my life, I use it to keep in touch with people, listen to music, watch films and TV programmes, store photos, read up and learn about things, do work on, find out basic information like film times, dates and addresses, buy things, sell things, organise myself and a fuck of a lot more besides. It's amazing, computers can do so much these days, they've really come of age. In the past they still had a wide range of uses, now though they can do almost anything. Of course in 5 or 10 years (let alone 20 or 30 years!) that will sound terribly naive, as the capabilities of computers will certainly continue to expand massively. But even now they can do so much that they've become more than just a fun or useful thing to have, they have become an absolute necessity to a lot of people. I've probably said all this stuff before, but I'm just amazed at how I'm now able to do all the things I used to dream about being able to do on a computer.

Pinball

I've now set up a permanent PC under the TV as a proper media PC, and it's great. Last night I had MAME running on the plasma, and an X-Arcade joystick connected to the PC. It doesn't get better than that IMO. And of course the streaming TV stuff. I could do it before via a 10m cable, but the ease of streaming stuff now, and via wifi, is ace.  I laugh (and cry) at how the otherwise wonderful Xbox360 is castrated media-wise. Does M$ really think that will stop people watching MPEGs on telly?

I don't read books nowadays though. Which is sad. Probably more to do with workload at work rather than the Net though, I suspect. Possibly..

Ciarán2

Quote from: "Beep Cleep Chimney"
Quote from: "the midnight watch baboon"
Quote from: "Banana Woofwoof"
Quote from: "clareQuilty"Teletext.

I did that too.  I was addicted to Planet Sound, The Void, Digitiser and Megazine.

Hurrah, me too. Also used to read Josh's diary, a fictional account of a teen boy. His fictional sister had one, too. One of Josh's diary entries was about him having an 'enormous wig-wam under the sheets last night'. Whatever could he mean?

Christ, I remember that n'all!  Fackin' 'ell.

Whaddayamean "did"? I still see Planet Sound as my Bible!

Santa's Boyfriend

Actually, now I remember.  My first exposure to the internet must have been at school, as I remember being shown an exceptionally early version that basicly looked like teletext.  The only thing I remember was working out how email worked and sending an email to another school telling them to fuck off.  I got into a bit of trouble for that.

rudi

Quote from: "Banana Woofwoof"
Quote from: "clareQuilty"Teletext.

I did that too.  I was addicted to Planet Sound, The Void, Digitiser and Megazine.

This.

actwithoutwords

Quote from: "Ciarán"
Quote from: "Beep Cleep Chimney"
Quote from: "the midnight watch baboon"
Quote from: "Banana Woofwoof"
Quote from: "clareQuilty"Teletext.

I did that too.  I was addicted to Planet Sound, The Void, Digitiser and Megazine.

Hurrah, me too. Also used to read Josh's diary, a fictional account of a teen boy. His fictional sister had one, too. One of Josh's diary entries was about him having an 'enormous wig-wam under the sheets last night'. Whatever could he mean?

Christ, I remember that n'all!  Fackin' 'ell.

Whaddayamean "did"? I still see Planet Sound as my Bible!

The one thing that the internet has yet to achieve is to fucking sort itself out and get channel 4 teletext available so I can look at Planet Sound again. If aertel can do it, surely teletext can.
Among the crowning achievements of my life so far was getting about 7 pages over two days on Planet Sound for a review of a festival I wrote in the early 00's.

To briefly join in the retro teletext circle jerk, in addition to all the above I used to read the defiantly uncool vibe and backchat on bbc a fair bit as well. The bizarre rivalry with the megazine equivalent was occasionally quite amusing. I was also reading a load of the old Digitisers over the summer. Wonderful stuff. Press reveal now to see Madonna with her newly adopted child:

rudi

What page featured Man with Chin?

He was ace.

The Duck Man

I watched Goodnight Sweetheart a lot, if my 1998 diary is anything to go by.

Emergency Lalla Ward Ten

There was a "debate" on TalkSport last night (no, wait, come back) about whether the internet has fucked up the way kids see life. Sex being the obvious thing - in the pre-internet age, if you found a page of porn in a hedge or whatever, it was considered a mysterious glimpse into an adult world you shouldn't really be party to, but presumably that phenomon just doesn't happen any more what with proper porn constantly being a few keystrokes away.

chav

It could be argued that mass media in itself precipitated this change, rather than the Internet itself. Porn was fairly common in the form of VHS, I don't think it can be described as "finding it in a hedge" all them time. Kids could open a newspaper and read all sorts of sordid stories. If kids are reading inappropriate material on the net then it's up to the parents to supervise them.

Bit late on this one, but I had to disagree with your point re: "Carry On Screwing" - whether the mystery of not knowing for sure if some cultural artefact existed might be fun, surely you can't be arguing that it's better to not know something than it is to know it. Think of it in the converse way - if the film existed, then Google would point you to ways to buy copies, or even to watch it on-line, within minutes. Thus the Internet is the most useful appilance & network ever conceived by humans. I don't know how you can criticise something for bringing you knowledge. It's like having a go at Encyclopaedia Britannica for daring to reveal how television works.

DaFuzz

Multiplayer gaming took my life in a completely new direction. Before broadband I spent 50% of my spare time playing computer games, the other 50% doing college work (HND Computer Engineering). Half way through the first year of college I got the Broadband and then it all went horribly wrong. The first few months was spent playing Counter Strike and wanking, then my friend introduced me to Dark Age of Camealot. Just about managed to get through the first year of college, barely attended in the 2nd year and relied on student loan solely. Went on the dole, 9 months later got my first job aged 21! Got sacked 2 months later and spent another 9 months on the dole, spending my 6 months of New Deal in a charity shop steaming clothes and counting jigsaws. Got told that after my 6 months of New Deal i'd be put in any job they could find. Didn't sign back on, first monday of doing nothing a friend I made playing Counter Strike told me of a temp job, packing weed killer, where he worked as the IT bloke. Luckily one of the permanent workers went crazy and I got his job. Now i'm the storeman and spend 90% of my working life on the internet and 90% of my spare time on the internet \o/. I blame my mother for buying an Amiga 500+ all those years ago.


I dunno.

JesusAndYourBush

Quote from: "Tokyo Sexwhale"When I went to University we had something called JANET
We had that when I was at Leeds Poly in 1988/89.  One day someone discovered we could do wmail and we had much fun emailing each other, emailing people in other universities, and after several failed attempts to email someone in America I got an email from postmaster@... and I thought I was in trouble until I read it and saw that he was explaining the correct way to send the emails (I think you had to add @earn-relay onto the end of the email) and the emails were saved up and sent by satellite during the night, that's what I was told anyway.  One day I even managed to log into Michigan University although it only gave me one attempt at the password and then it must've blocked me because I couldn't log into it again.



As for Teletext, hehe, I used to read that a lot.  Planet Sound, Digitiser (the original man with a long chin was best ("nubbynubbynubbynubbynubby...") as opposed to his feebler replacement), Bamboozle, there were 3 letters pages on Ceefax but the gits never printed any of my comments, although to my anger sometimes the same pathetic message by some cretin would appear on ALL 3 pages.
Paramount Text, which was updated daily (many pages, the guy, Ant was his name I think, must have devoted hours of his time to it) from peoples phone messages and was the closest thing you could get to an internet forum without being on the net.  Sci-fi channel (I think) had something a bit more interactive (kindof like an internet forum, but populated by twats) where you phoned a number which gave you a special temporary page number which you tuned to and then typed your message using your phone keypad.  It was pretty easy to find other peoples pages and see what they were typing.  One guy called Mikey used a Commodore 64 to generate the tones so he could type the messages really fast but he was a twat and used to stir up trouble by posting using other peoples names.

The time I stopped reading teletext co-incided with me getting on the net, funnily enough.