Kate Hackett
Are you ready to feel like a decrepit being? Because these posts shared on Reddit’s AskReddit sub are going to make you feel like an ancient relic.
u/Marambal17 asked the world “What is so ancient only an Internet veteran can remember?” and we combed through the post to find some of the best answers. I guarantee you you’ll finish this article feeling 900 years old as you comb through these memories.
1. Printing Mapquest
If going on a long car journey, having to print off directions from MapQuest.
2. Email addresses
Signing up for a new email address and the username not already being taken.
3. Risky behavior!
When we used to risk getting viruses just to get cool cursors
4. Remember this relic?
Counters on webpages
5. RIP, Real Player
Real Player.
Also: uninstalling Real Player.
6. Oh god, we’re so old
Making aol away messages in the funky fonts and colors. And those midi sound files that played on a loop. And those dress up “dolls”. It would take AGES to download all of those images.
7. Customized desktops
Remember desktop themes? Changing all your icons, mouse pointer, computer sounds, etc., to images and sounds from, like, Dr. Katz: Professional Therapist or whatever.
8. Flash Player
Not being able to play flash games until the flash player had been updated.
9. LAN parties
Having to physically carry your computer around to a friend’s house if you wanted to play multiplayer
10. Netscape
Netscape Navigator and Netscape Communicator.
11. So much time…
Winamp. It really whips the lamas ass. So much time perfecting skins.
12. Old sites
Old websites written in a notepad file with basic HTML using tables for spacing/formatting and images that took forever to load. This included lower than lo-fi midi audio files that auto played when the site loaded and “webring” affiliation links at the bottom of the page.
People thought making a personal page look professional meant it looked like a newspaper column with a “table of contents” link list on the left side in traditional roman numeral style list.
13. ICQ
And that ‘uh-oh’ alert when you got a message.
14. When Music Bridged Gaps
Putting a music CD into the computer to check out the “extras” only for it to load way too slow to do anything with.
15. RIP, your own website
Having your own webpage hosted for free on Geocities, Angelfire, Yahoo homepage, or a similar service. Everyone had their own “website” when I was a youngster, which was usually simply a landing page with a hit counter, some pictures/photos, an.mp3 of their favourite music, and some general thoughts, perhaps a about section or a blog if they were serious about keeping it up to date. They were always thrown together with the most basic HTML editors, with dreadful formatting and banner advertisements and popups aplenty.
I regret those days since modern social media networks are artistically bankrupt, and hosting your own website and actually making it nice has become a more sophisticated affair than it used to be (though it is still possible).
16. Mouse trackballs
Having to clean the gunk out of your trackball mouse with your fingernail
17. Gmail invites
Having to be invited to gmail.
18. Getting online
Actually having to “switch on” the internet. Opening the shortcut, typing password and clicking connect and then waiting for the dubstep music to finish.
19. MUDs
Multi User Domains/Dungeons. They were the text only precursors to games like WOW and Everquest.
20. Internet was phone, phone was internet
When I set up our internet for the first time mid 90s I accidentally had it calling a long distance number. Dad received a phone bill for $2800. We no longer had the internet in our house after that.
