Reply 40 of 147, by Jo22
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Meatball wrote on 2022-07-12, 22:52:I would say the PC died (as we knew it) shortly after DirectX 7.0 and the GeForce 256 releases. Of course, someone else might say the moment the Pentium was released it was all downhill. And this is all relative; there's gobs of superlative stuff after 1999/2000 - but "heart" was missing (for me). When you got into computers is likely the primary factor when reviewing the PC postmortem.
That's not wrong per se, I think. Sometimes I feel the same.
The classic DOS era of homebrewing, soldering irons and such was slowly coming to a halt at the time.
On the other hand, up until 2000, there was this kind of euphoria.
The Power Mac G3 B/W and the original iMac were released in '98.
People hoped for a better future, technical marvels, the end of wars.
It didn't come true, unfortunately.
But for a few years, the present was bright.
Windows XP debuted, it was colorful and stable.
PCs and their peripherals in translucent cases were still around, just to be replaced by strangely deformed ones.
The DVD was one the rise, video rental was going well.
Pokémon movies all over in the cinemas.. Mew! 😉
And there was some indie development scene based around Windows 9x.
2D games were being made again, people experimented with Direct3D/DDraw in late 90s/early 00s.
Emulators gained attention among the users..
SNES9x and ZSNES had their major releases.
Between 1997-2005, a lot of personal homepages formed.
Some had information/content about my other hobbies.
CB-Radio/Packet-Radio, Windows 3.1 gaming, QB45 programming, VB6, BBSes etc.
It was as if those individuals were performing a final salute for the 80s/90s.
As is the combined experience of all those retro people shined like a thousand stars.
Here's something very 90s, that I just discovered recently on Vogons.
It's a mixture of a screen saver, an RPG, a chatbot and an AI.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHwS50Wmnx0
And then there are some really great games from the early 2000s, like Out of Order or The White Chamber.
Re: Could anyone recommend some pc games for girls?
On Caiman.us, Japanese indie games were also a recurring attraction in the 2000s.
Those people over there made great little titles like Cave Story or Undertale.
And then there were some less known gems like Tower of Heaven or Holdover.
In the early 2000s, there was a PDA hype, too.
PalmOS, Symbian/EPOC and Pocket PC rivaled each others.
Emulators popped up on those little devices.
Firstly, for Gameboy and NES, then Sega MasterSystem/GameGear and finally SNES/MD.
I fondly remember using my Handspring Visor to emulate Pokémon Yellow and Kirby on Phoinix (?) or how it was called.
(This was after I've found a video player for PalmOS, I vaguely remember.
The sample video contained a dithered footage of a hedgehog trying to hum_, uhm, climbing a toilet brush?)
On Pocket PC 2000/WinCE 3 handhelds, GAPI, the Game API, provided a simple DirectDraw/DSound counterpart. Yame used it.
Back then, SH3, MIPS and ARM (later: StrongARM, XScale) co-existed on Pocket PC.
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Edit: I'm trying to name the positive things of the years around 2000 here.
Of course, I simultaneously missed the early-mid 90s with its last 80s waves.
Beige boxes, pagers, driving in cars without computer, listening to music and bed time stories or audio books on music cassettes.
Using those little Casio Pocket TVs to receive analogue TV with a little telescope antenna.
Using paper fax, a real torch light without LEDs, a wired phone or an early cordless phone, using walkie-talkies to talk to my friends. NiCD rechargeables, solar cell-based chargers. Light mills. Analogue SAT receivers with variable audio channels.
Playing with chess computers or R/C cars. Using null-modem cables to connect PCs, playing Click&Play adventures.
Using 5,25" diskettes in real life, still. Buying shareware CDs for use on a single/double-speed CD-ROM.
Edit: And players weren't so antisocial and dumped down yet, I think.
There was no Sony Playstation in the early 90s. 🙂👍
Edit: Or in other words, the early 90s were a time when both the analogue and digital world were in balance. Kind of. 🙂
Edit: Of course, the experience varied among countries.
Some were culturally living in the 80s, still, for example.
Or experienced completely different times, not sure.
Edit: Edited.
Edit: I'm sorry for the long post, I got carried away (again). 😥
"Time, it seems, doesn't flow. For some it's fast, for some it's slow.
In what to one race is no time at all, another race can rise and fall..." - The Minstrel
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