gerry wrote on 2023-11-08, 16:34:
.. a video wall of separate crt monitors, thats now so nostalgic somehow!!
I think the same, even though I haven't seen such video walls so often IRL.
They remind me of a broadcast studio, though.
It has something to it, I think. 🙂👍
gerry wrote on 2023-11-08, 16:34:that's an interesting point, i have thought that living in the year 1990 in some ways has more in common with the
50's, 60's, 70 […]
Show full quote
that's an interesting point, i have thought that living in the year 1990 in some ways has more in common with the
50's, 60's, 70's and 80's than living in the year 1999 did - as that small amount of time saw the advent of widespread cell/mobile phone use,
the emergence of the 'world wide web', a huge uptake in PC usage (in work and home), the end of the 'cold war' and break up of ussr and warsaw pact,
the development of china and ever more global trade and more things too (at least as viewed from north america, europe)
These are good points, I think.
Probably it's also related with the 90s being the end of the 20th century.
In my country, reunion had just happened in early 90s and we got a lot of "other" countrymen/countrywomen over night.
Not that this was a bad thing, whatsoever, we got along pretty well with each others.
It's just.. The new citizens felt a bit strange to us at times. And vice versa. The differences in culture/mentality were just very drastically at times.
Many of them didn't even owned a land-line telephone at home before, or so I was told.
VHS and telefax machines, neither. Some had black/white TVs, because colour models were so expensive/rare.
By contrast, many of "us" had been using C64, NES and Videotext/Teletext capable colour TVs since the 80s.
So it wad kind of a culture shock, too. To both sides, I guess.
On the other hand, there had been some slightly unrealistic expectations, too.
Our new citizens knew the other half of the country merely by TV or by the descriptions of the relatives living here.
Before the wall fell, some had assumed we're living a carefree life in the land of milk and honey.
I mean, that wasn't totally untrue in direct comparison, but it seems they didn't know how brutal our system can be, as well.
In their part of the country, the living standard was lower, but everything was slower paced, also. There was more time (example).
Social nets everywhere, with only a few being homeless. Everyone got a home, even though it was very cheap and mass produced.
Children care was available, even if it wasn't so great, maybe.
I'm saying that because there was some indoctrination going on, as well, judging by documentaries.
Here in the west, at the time, child care was more oldskool with kindergarden or grandparents/parents raising children at home.
But there also were positive things coming from the east:
Women did do men's work for decades, like it was not uncommon in the east of Europe.
And they didn't change their mind when they moved over.
So the old "women belong in the kitchen and raise kids" point-of-view of the west
was going to be questioned, too, which caused funny situations, also in talk shows on TV. 😂
So yeah, it was quite a turning point, all in all. 😄
Those slightly "weird" people that came to us were bringing us a breeze of fresh air, too, so to say.
Being a "few years behind", they perhaps kept the 80s alive even a bit longer, even if it wasn't their intention.
Their fresh interest in CB radio and American movies, too. Our video rentals were rather happy, I think.
_
Speaking of video games, it's funny or remarkable that the NES was so long-lived.
I got my last game (new in a video game shop) in ~1996, for example.
About 10 years after the console was introduced in my country.
In east Europe, at about same time, the NES was popular too (Dendy).
It's homebrew scene, bootleg and emulation scene was well alive.
In the mid-90s, before I bought my latest NES game, many emulators were already around for it.
Even for Amiga, OS/2, Macintosh and Windows 3..
I think that's fascinating. 😎
gerry wrote on 2023-11-08, 16:34:
in 1990 a television and a microwave were still expensive, by 1999 they were cheap compared to salary
- same with the PC, the sheer volume of goods seemed to increase ever more and be more available
Yes, there was quite some change. Satellite TV, too.
My father had a satellite receiver from the 80s, which was very advanced for its time.
It was an older technology using an LNC (low noise converter) rather than an LNB (low noise block converter).
In our part of our home town, we were one of the earliest families to have a satellite dish installed.
We also had online access via both CompuServe (for international e-mail, tech helplines/forums)
and BTX (our national service, useful for home banking, booking a trip, online telephone book etc).
These were the two main online service providers here. AOL arrived a few years later, Internet was a niche, still.
At the time, early-mid-90s, there already was ISDN around, with up to 64kbit/s (or 128Kbit/s by combing two lines).
But sadly, it wasn't available in our part of the town in the early 90s.
So we had to use modem connection using a data/fax modem.
Unfortunately, the dial-in nodes in our neighborhood were very slow.
About 9k6 at best. 2400 bps were common. 1200/75 Baud the fallback.
CompuServe wasn't any better, because it was an US American service.
The mainframes were located in overseas, so all the traffic had to pass over other national networks (like BTX or Datex-P).
True CompuServe dial-in nodes operated by CompuServe itself came later.
gerry wrote on 2023-11-08, 16:34:
sure other periods saw changes too but the 90's was a stealthy change
- it didn't feel like a revolution at the time, but looking back - it really was,
it turned over into a new era, the start of the one we are in now in many ways
Stealthy change is a good description, yes! ^^
I remember having a pager (beeper) with me in the mid-90s and it was considered normal or modern.
By 1999, everyone was like "what's a pager?!".
That's when the Nokia mobiles, Tomb Raider and the Playstation were in fashion.
gerry wrote on 2023-11-08, 16:34:
perhaps that's partly why DOS and windows 3.1 seem particularly nostalgic for some,
because they lie just behind the horizon between 'then' and 'now'
It surely is for me. 😁 I just wonder if others do feel like this, too. 🤷♂️
Windows 3.1, climbing trees, playing with r/c models, bike tours with friends, using a telephone booth,
playing video games with friends in front of a small CRT TV are synonyms to me for another time.
I'm sure that people who had their youth in the 70s may also think/feel similar about how things had changed for them in the 80s.
The hippie era was slowly vanishing, for example. Cable TV got overly popular in the 80s. There was MTV..
But all in all, things were still recognizable, maybe. People didn't have to change, if they didn't want to.
They could keep using their Chippendale TV/Radio cabinets.
By comparison, the changes that happened between 1990 and 1999 were much more hefty, maybe.
By the late 90s, PCs and Internet were more and more dominating the daily life of the people.
At least here in western part of Europe, I mean. And countries in other places with similar lifestyle.
I'm not sure how it was in the Balkans or 90s Russia.
These places felt as if they had a lot of need to catch up, maybe.
Which wasn't that bad, maybe. They had the privilege to have both 80s pop culture and 90s tech.
Or in other words, they had the positive parts of the 80s a bit longer than "us".
Speaking under correction here, of course. It's difficult to make oneself a proper opinion from the far.
Edit: Changed the formatting a bit (on PC).
Edit: Link added.