# The Retro Museum.



## Johnny Mnemonic (Sep 24, 2019)

I wanted to start a thread for folks who want to reminisce about old-school technology and how it may have shaped who they are today. Stuff like:

Your first computer/game console.
Your first mobile phone.
First internet login.
Did you become a technology professional after getting into it as a hobby, or are you a casual user, et cetera.

My first computer was a Commodore 64 I got around age 10. I spent a lot of my wasted youth pirating duplicating games to play using floppy disks and my first online experience was using a 300 baud modem to access my Q-Link account.










Not my personal setup, but it looked almost identical to this.

First computer video game:








Had to load it from a cassette tape drive. Took almost 30 minutes to load.


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## waldowainthrop (Oct 25, 2019)

Early-ish stuff I’ve used or done:

- 1980s Vectrex (early video game console that used vector instead of raster graphics)
- 1990 Game Boy
- 1991 Sega Genesis
- Internet in 1993
- First cell phone used in 1998, first owned in 2001
- 1998 Microsoft Sidewinder Force Feedback Wheel (first of its kind)
- Broadband in 1999
- Every generation of IBM/PC Compatible/Windows computers from 1988 to 2011
- Got into web design and development in the 2000s


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## Ian Richard Markham (Jan 13, 2019)

My phones lined up from oldest to newest. Now who can name the make and model of each phone starting on the left side of the picture and moving right.


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## waldowainthrop (Oct 25, 2019)

I can name most of them (first one was my first phone too) but not the second one without Googling it.


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## UbaBrah (Oct 25, 2019)

The third one looks like a Palm Treo. I remember the Palm OS/Pocket PC days fondly.

Anyway, this was my first computer, the ZX Spectrum, with the old school cassette deck. Well, more so the family computer, as it was technically my older brother's, but we were both on it all the time. This thing was a hoot. We had games like Lord of the Rings for it, which was just text and image based really. At one point, the "play" button on it broke off and we had to jam a screwdriver in there just to get the games to run. Good times.










This was my first cell phone, the Ericsson T10. I got it for Christmas right around the year 2000 IIRC.


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## peteyvavs (Nov 18, 2015)

Johnny Mnemonic said:


> I wanted to start a thread for folks who want to reminisce about old-school technology and how it may have shaped who they are today. Stuff like:
> 
> Your first computer/game console.
> Your first mobile phone.
> ...


My first set up was a stone tablet and chisel, I went to school with Fred and Barney.


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## Mr. Yuck (Jul 31, 2017)

In 1984 or 5 the army issued me a portable proto laptop thing that had a full keyboard and some storage. It could text via satellite. 

Plus it was bullet and waterproof. No manufacturer markings. Just an id number. The Army bought a hundred of them for EOD/UXB teams and I got the first one, learned it and trained everyone else. Everyone was properly awed by the end of class. That was the beginning of the end for what had been a very unorthodox elite group within the military. 

People became dependant on it. Instead of memorizing the schematics of everything that might be encountered they started relying on just loading what they thought they'd need into the computer. 

There were only 500 EOD of all ranks at the beginning of the Reagan buildup. You needed to be in the 99th percentile on the ASFAB test and get a security clearance to even be considered. Permanent hazard pay and 15k bonus if you made it through the first level of training. 

Human standards were relaxed as the computers got better. But those people who came in later did not have the big picture the way us pre-tech people did and when IEDs became a thing - they choked. I had everything from civil war handgrenades to the balloon bombs Japan put in the jet stream in my head and that was a hell of a lot more useful with a one of a kind bomb than schematics of modern munitions. 

So I'm not a luddite but I really don't want a toilet that wipes my ass for me either. I didn't get a smart phone or an automatic transmission until I started Uber and I am really disappointed that the commercialization of the internet has made it harder to get reliable information and easier for society to compartmentalize. 

The drivers that didn't learn this area with paper maps get lost. There are two areas here with roads that washed away in the spring. Mud and rockslides are a thing. No app will get you to those airb&bs. 

My son was my surprise present when I turned forty. I've been really careful to lead by example. He doesn't have a facebook sized hole in his life either. We've never had cable. His teachers think he's different and he is. For him I don't want a life split between drudgery and escapism and so far so good. Doesn't look like he's gonna fall for it.


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## Johnny Mnemonic (Sep 24, 2019)

Ian Richard Markham said:


> My phones lined up from oldest to newest. Now who can name the make and model of each phone starting on the left side of the picture and moving right.
> 
> View attachment 386229


First one is Motorola StarTac. Antenna dongle always broke and flopped around.


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## Cold Fusion (Aug 28, 2019)

peteyvavs said:


> My first set up was a stone tablet and chisel, I went to school with Fred and Barney.


I'm pretty confident Fred didn't have a formal education.
Every night he orders the same dinner 
With the same result


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## DexNex (Apr 18, 2015)




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## Johnny Mnemonic (Sep 24, 2019)

Commercial for Activision's _Pitfall_...

FYI: That's Jack Black


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## Fusion_LUser (Jan 3, 2020)

Johnny Mnemonic said:


> Commercial for Activision's _Pitfall_...
> 
> FYI: That's Jack Black


Pitfall was a great game! I spent way too much time playing that game when I was a kid. Though it was nothing compared to how much time I wasted with Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit 2 or Tekken.

And those were nothing compared to the king of time wasting games... GTA: Vice City. I spent way too much time in my early 30's playing that game!


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## ANT 7 (Oct 14, 2018)

First computer was an Apple IIE.......first cell was a Motorola brick phone........never started playing online games until the CCP virus arrived.


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## Stevie The magic Unicorn (Apr 3, 2018)

Guess what is still the cab companies "official" backup to our credit card processor?

That's right these babies...


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## sasu66 (Sep 7, 2020)

Stevie The magic Unicorn said:


> View attachment 517523
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 And the best part is gratuity. 100% transparency.


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## Johnny Mnemonic (Sep 24, 2019)

Stevie The magic Unicorn said:


> View attachment 517523
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Oh snap! A card embosser. I learned how to use one of these in the 90's as a cashier. Do the customers make you hand over the carbons?


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## billm (Feb 19, 2017)

Used one of those for food delivery back in the '90's. Fun times, if you couldn't find yours for whatever reason. 

Keeping with the thread:
First Video Game: Pong 
First Console: Intellivision
First Mobile Phone: Cingular Nokia, I think 3310. Used a Qualcomm before that for a delivery job provided by the company. Also used a bag phone at another driving job.
First Computer: Apple IIe.We had Apple IIc in middle school, which we were allowed to check out and bring home.
First Internet Login: Dial In BBS (remember, long distance charges apply. Ran up some huge phone bills). Then AOL dialup.

Middle school Basic classes were where I decided I was going to go into IT. After all, computers didn't talk back.


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## Stevie The magic Unicorn (Apr 3, 2018)

sasu66 said:


> And the best part is gratuity. 100% transparency.


With the current onboard system the customer has to input their tip (either % or adding a flat amount) before the step of swiping their card.

I see their tip amount in the system or lack thereof and have never once thought a tip was going to get stolen off me. Unlike with Uber...

No arguments no changing and all sales are final.

(The initial charge is also the exact amount charged to your card, unlike with restaraunt where the initial hold is changed)


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## sasu66 (Sep 7, 2020)

Stevie The magic Unicorn said:


> With the current onboard system the customer has to input their tip (either % or adding a flat amount) before the step of swiping their card.
> 
> I see their tip amount in the system or lack thereof and have never once thought a tip was going to get stolen off me. Unlike with Uber...


Tipping is a social norm, there is a psychology behind it. A normal customer cannot walk away without tipping but Uber customers feel comfortable to walk away without tipping.


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## Amos69 (May 17, 2019)

My first cellular phone


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## Fusion_LUser (Jan 3, 2020)

Amos69 said:


> View attachment 524969
> 
> My first cellular phone












My company provided a Motorola phone back in the early 90's and I don't remember the model but it was like this and it had it's own strap so you would carry it like a 35mm camera! I hated the thing and got them to give me a pager.

The first cell phone I got under my own name in the late 90's was the Nokia 6110 then a Nokia 3310 in 2001 and those were great phones...


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## Johnny Mnemonic (Sep 24, 2019)




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