Click to see other views of this image: [ Original Size ] [ 2X Zoom ] [ 3X Zoom ] Among the few GIF files I saved in the early 1990s (outside of those uploaded to by BBS), this warm, inviting Christmas scene remains one of my favorites. In the image, we see a living […]
Click to see other views of this image: [ Original Size ] [ 2X Zoom ] Long ago, scanners were rare and expensive. Consumer digital cameras were mostly non-existent — and those that did exist were impractical to use or expensive. At the same time, many users possessed computers with (relatively speaking) high-resolution bitmapped displays […]
This year marks the 10th anniversary of Friendster, and the 15th anniversary of the launch of SixDegrees.com, the first social networking website. Up now on PCWorld.com is a slideshow (created by yours truly) to celebrate these anniversaries by examining the world of computerized social networking in the pre-Web era. It covers the usual suspects like […]
It’s the MICRO EXECUTIVE WORKSTATION, people! iPad, schmyepad. In the 1980s, we had hair on our chests, far fewer seat belts, and we walked backwards downhill halfway from school every day in the monsoon season. AND WE LIKED IT. We also used the TRS-80 Model 100 — a sleek 3.9-pound, 2-inch thick machine that could […]
The time Apple went AOL. In the lost era between Jobs (1985-1996), Apple produced many strange and ill-fated products. Here we see an ad for eWorld, Apple’s subscription dial-up online service that launched in June 1994. eWorld offered proprietary features like message forums, email, weather, news, and other information in a fashion similar to CompuServe, […]
Up now on PCMag is a slideshow I made showcasing freaky-weird 3D amateur computer art of the early 1990s. It’s composed mostly of GIF files from the BBS era that I’ve been collecting for some time now. Here’s a snippet of the introduction: Back in the early 1990s, when 3D computer-generated art was still a […]
There are about 730 hours in a month. You may remember getting one of these in the mail in the 1990s. Ok, ok…you may remember getting dozens and dozens of these CDs in the mail. Some people used them as coasters, some as Frisbees. Some put them in the microwave to watch them sparkle. (To […]
As of today, I have posted a Retro Scan of the Week every Monday for five years. That’s 263 entries total — each post containing at least one scan of something deliciously vintage for you and yours to enjoy. But wait a minute. Let’s back up a bit to the “every Monday for five years” […]
“PROCOMM PLUS: Totally Connected” I used Procomm Plus for DOS during my early years of BBSing, although I called it “PC Plus” because of its shortened executable file name, “PCPLUS.EXE”. I never did migrate to Procomm Plus for Windows, although I remember salivating over it in a software store back when anything and everything modem-related […]
MegaWars: “The Ultimate Computer Conflict” I betcha Neil Armstrong didn’t do this while he was on the moon. …or did he? P.S. You can read more about MegaWars, an early online multiplayer computer game, here. [ From Personal Computing, November 1982 ] Discussion topic of the week: If you were a half naked combat-astronaut on […]
