(belatedly OT and just for fun)
MShipley88 wrote:Dude, how old are you?
Not really just an age question, but I've been tinkering around with various computer tech since the mid 70s. Looks like I'm not the only one around, too.
MShipley88 wrote:The home computer market was taking off in the 80's, but computers were in their infancy. It is hard for guys who remember the end of the 80's to even start to comprehend how primitive things were at the start of the 80's.
It's a perspective thing, Mark.
The boom really started in 77. Before that it was almost solely hobbyists and off-duty professionals: as of 77/78 the home computer magazines hit the shelves big time and 83/84 actually marked the
end of that first boom.
MShipley88 wrote:Dear God...late into the 80's most schools were teaching "computer" by trying to get kids to type on the Apple II! There was no such thing as a "hard drive" until deep into the 80's
WA state?
MShipley88 wrote:Almost no one in the private market was on any such thing as an "internet" until well into the 1990's.
Ya dun remember BBSing on a 300/75 modem or playing Essex MUD, then?
MShipley88 wrote:You really have no idea how crappy these things were. You also have to realize how recently most computer technology developed. The computers of today are positively telepathic compared to the computers that TSR started with. There is just no comparison between 1980 and 1990. The gap is even larger when you compare 1990 to 2000! My God!
You're meaning software as much hardware... albeit that's mostly hideously inefficient/bloated these days compared with "old school" software.
RPG analogy again?
(Add video games consoles to that computing/RPG history/development equation too, please. The dates actually match even better, in that case).
"Back then" people often also had to write their own software (*jk*). Wasn't a problem; nor at uni, either: major projects there including a distributed hypertext system using the 'net (late 80s, pre-Berners-Lee) on our Sun Workstations. Berners-Lee was right, we (and others) were wrong, though; protocol first, software next.
And that software lagged a l-o-n-g time for mass public access to the WWW, I know.
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Ah... tourneys...
*looks again*
Yeah, I'm probably just watching from the sidelines again.
Makes a change from woodies, anyhow.
