I had the same experience of Internet-Cafe's, just in a little different way. So.... Yeah... Never really wen't to those places.
As I said, I have never actually been at such places. They were just too "alien", for mee.
Most of the male cliantel, were pale pizzafaces with a look on there face's wich basically told you that nothing was rotating inside the brain.
They smelled too, as they really were the kind of young males that do not shower more than once a week or once every 14 day.
Those places basically smelled like a mix of hard smelling old sweat and old used cooking oil. Mixed with the smell of urine.
The awefull smell of really bad hygiene. And that is something I just can't cope with.
They all sat enclosed in their little world, with headphones, not talking to anyone.
And when they did "talk", it was a chat-message, sent in-game. Not talking to each other, in person.
That was in the years of 1995 to 2003. And that was the sad, sad, sad type of people attending those places.
So... Me being a metal-head, looking for beer and party, only having computers as my spare-sparetime hobby.
These places did not speak to me at all. Mostly of other experiences from the past.
Around 1989 to 1992 I was involved with the local computer clubs in one way or another.
And two times a year, they held a private computerweekend. A term that evolved to "LAN-Party" in the years to come.
We were highly socialised, meaning that it was not 100% computers those weekends. (though they were the primaery thing)
We used to play basket-ball. Play hand-ball, watch terminator and other new movies on vhs, in the improvised cinema.
Yeah... We got by, using a vhs player (not recorder/player) and a 14 inch crt television.
We had a "cafe" were meals were cooked, and you could sit down and drink coffee/tea at any time.
4 cups of coffee at 3am! Anyone? 😁 As we all stayed awake the whole weekend.
Then we had competitions in sensible soccer or floppy-disk throwing. Who could through a floppydisk the longest?!
Yeah... Good times... Good times... As we talked about both hardware and software. And other teenage stuff like music.
It was a time of both Amiga and PC fanboys, getting together, forgetting the Amiga-VS-Pc fight for one weekend.
Anyway...
The other experience was when I started to study and mooved away from home.
I started to study computer science at a technical school/college... You know.. Were carpenters, and other craftsmen
get their education. Anything not bussiness related and anything not highly intellectual related.
(Just keep forgetting the english term)
The dorm-rooms were located alongside a hallway. 22 to 30 rooms, were 2 people were sharing 12 square-meters of space.
We were all studying computers and we were all in different stages of our education.
So what did aprox. 26 to 28 students do with their computers in 1995?
Well... We made our own little LAN-network... Using coaxial cables in a big messy web. And they were all tangeled together.
We even had them on the walls, outside the windows, when the small gap under the door's ran out of space.
Then we all held our own LAN-Party, for next to nothing. We played C&C, Descent, and Doom against each other.
Don't eat stuff off a 15 year old never cleaned cpu cooler.
Those cakes make you sick....
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