# What were the 90s like to live in? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [March 11, 2016, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-90s-like-to-live-in/748650 "2016-03-11T15:57:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![Derleth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b9e5f3/32.png) [@Derleth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Derleth)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2016, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-90s-like-to-live-in/748650/101 "2016-03-15T10:54:27Z")
> [@Pork\_Rind](#): > > No, I think I get what’s meant here. My first several internet accounts simply consisted of a dial up account through a terminal window. Text and ascii art only. All apps ran on the hosting machine, nothing locally. It wasn’t until the mid-90s when I got my first true SL/IP or PPP account (can’t remember which) that my local machine was ‘on’ the Internet in such a way that I could run web browsers and stuff and see imagery. First: SLIP. Serial Line Internet Protocol. I didn’t know anyone who knew that abbreviation was capable of misspelling it that way. Second, it was possible to use a shell account as a real Internet connection, using something like Slirp. It’s more limited than a full-featured Internet account, but so’s using the Internet behind NAT. So, sure, it’s possible they didn’t know that, but the capacity was certainly there. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2016, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-90s-like-to-live-in/748650/102 "2016-03-15T13:14:06Z")
There’s a guy named Rob who I used to go to high school with. We played video games on the weekends. He moved to Minnesota after college and became an insurance analyst of some sort, then we lost touch. After a few years, he decided to write a novel. So he did, and he self-published it via Amazon. A few months later, he was able to quit his insurance job and write full time, and now he’s published 20-something books. A few years ago, I found him through Facebook and gave one of his books a try. I’ve been hooked ever since. His most recent work came out last night and was waiting on my Kindle when I went to bed. You couldn’t do any of that in the 1990s. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2016, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-90s-like-to-live-in/748650/103 "2016-03-15T15:10:05Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > Hi-jacking planes to crash them was uneard of before 9/11. As this is the SD, there cannot be a nit that can’t be left unpicked. [1987, hijacked and flew into the ground.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Southwest_Airlines_Flight_1771) Sure, it was a suicide and not a terror attack, but I’m sure the 42 other people on the plane didn’t care about that distinction. ---
**Author:** ![Knowed\_Out](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/knowed_out/32/7380_2.png) [@Knowed\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Knowed_Out)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2016, 3:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-90s-like-to-live-in/748650/104 "2016-03-15T15:46:35Z")
Reminiscing about the 90’s… how could it all the sudden be 20 years later? I remember it was a bash to see all these new technologies come out and try to stay ahead of the curve like all the cool kids. The Interweb was more of an underground thing back then. Not everybody had access to it, or if they did, they weren’t sure what to do with it. It wasn’t as user-friendly as it is nowadays. As a result of the “underground” feeling, I met new friends online and partied my ass off. I was kind of a local legend. Nowadays, diabetes says uh-uh, and I’m paying the wages of sin. Back then, I could be weird and horrifying, but so were all the other techies who wanted to shed their nerd image. I can’t be that way anymore with employers and family members able to see my dark side just by Googling me. I helped raise the beast, and now it consumes me. I wrote 4 and 8 tracks music mods and put them up in every BBS I could find. They’d wind up in German shareware CDs. Nowadays, music technology is much more advanced to the point where tablets have replaced recording studios. I thought I was ahead of the times, but I was quickly surpassed, and now I’m a relic. ---
**Author:** ![An\_Gadai](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d6d6ee/32.png) [@An\_Gadai](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/An_Gadai)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2016, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-90s-like-to-live-in/748650/105 "2016-03-15T16:22:19Z")
> [@Knowed\_Out](#): > > Reminiscing about the 90’s… how could it all the sudden be 20 years later? > > I remember it was a bash to see all these new technologies come out and try to stay ahead of the curve like all the cool kids. The Interweb was more of an underground thing back then. Not everybody had access to it, or if they did, they weren’t sure what to do with it. It wasn’t as user-friendly as it is nowadays. > > As a result of the “underground” feeling, I met new friends online and partied my ass off. I was kind of a local legend. Nowadays, diabetes says uh-uh, and I’m paying the wages of sin. Back then, I could be weird and horrifying, but so were all the other techies who wanted to shed their nerd image. I can’t be that way anymore with employers and family members able to see my dark side just by Googling me. I helped raise the beast, and now it consumes me. > > I wrote 4 and 8 tracks music mods and put them up in every BBS I could find. They’d wind up in German shareware CDs. Nowadays, music technology is much more advanced to the point where tablets have replaced recording studios. I thought I was ahead of the times, but I was quickly surpassed, and now I’m a relic. It’s been a long, strange trip. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2016, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-90s-like-to-live-in/748650/106 "2016-03-15T20:46:55Z")
> [@Knowed\_Out](#): > > Computer art was mainly ASCII based and GIFs were just emerging as the hot new technology. I don’t mean animated GIFs either; just single images usually 300 x 400 in size. Oh yes, aspect ratio was still 4/3. At what point? The beginning of the decade probably had stuff like smallish 16-color EGA digitized photos, while by the end, it wasn’t uncommon to have various full color photos in relatively high resolution - 640x480 up to 1024x768 with anywhere between 65k-32 million colors. You could buy relatively inexpensive digital cameras by the latter half of the decade that might have a megapixel of resolution with 32 million colors. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2016, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-90s-like-to-live-in/748650/107 "2016-03-16T00:36:13Z")
> [@Knowed\_Out](#): > > Reminiscing about the 90’s… how could it all the sudden be 20 years later? > > I remember it was a bash to see all these new technologies come out and try to stay ahead of the curve like all the cool kids. The Interweb was more of an underground thing back then. Not everybody had access to it, or if they did, they weren’t sure what to do with it. It wasn’t as user-friendly as it is nowadays. In the mid-1990s, I think it was about 1996, I sent an e-mail to my father, still alive back then, for the first time. He did not have an account or a computer, but the TV station where he worked had an account. From what I could figure, it was a company account that everyone could use. I sent it there so they could print it out and give it to him. Whoa! Modern technology! What a trip! ---
**Author:** ![Dereknocue67](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/6de8d8/32.png) [@Dereknocue67](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dereknocue67)\ **Post date:** [March 16, 2016, 7:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-90s-like-to-live-in/748650/108 "2016-03-16T07:55:00Z")
The 90’s were a great time to have the majority of your portfolio in the $tock market. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-were-the-90s-like-to-live-in/748650.md?page=5)