I don't miss dialup but I do miss the quality of some of the BBSes of that time period, especially Software Creations. There's no way I could miss downloading a 500K file at 9.6Kbs off Compuserve, having my mom's friend call, having my download which took quite possibly hours interrupted, and having to start all over again. when I got a US Robotics 28.8 that could disable call waiting, boy was that a big jump. And again once I got Road Runner back in the very early days of broadband. At that point, I could never go back. It was like driving a Yugo and then suddenly getting a Ferrari.

The main thing I miss about older computers is no fans. My old 486 DX4 was literally silent. Even my P133 was a lot more quiet than any computers I own now. And no emulation. It was the real deal not running through an intermediary. Emulation is certainly convenient, but having played the games on the actual hardware of the day I can literally hear sound anomalies no matter how much I muck with the settings in DOSBox and can feel the slight delay in processing; even with a fairly powerful computer.

For when I need the real experience to be perfect, I have a P3 600 running Win98 hooked up to my living room TV and 800 watt stereo. I played through a good portion of System Shock on that and the last episode of Duke Nukem 3D. Great experience!

I agree, though I also get the irony of posting this in this way. I miss sitting down at my computer and having it be purely for games or programming. To a large degree I still mandate this by just being remarkably lax in checking and responding to my Facebook (once a month is a good estimate). This Pavlov trains my friends to get in touch with me by phone, which I far prefer for contact. Except Polio was actually bad. :P

3 AM
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*Beeeeee-booooo---we-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee-ee KKKKKKKKKKKKKKKSSSSSHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH durn durn*






"Holy crap! Someone is hacking us! Quick! Pull the phone line!!"

I miss the start of the millennium when we FINALLY got broadband. That, combined with all the cool video games.

I feel like I post on forums because of that old-school dial-up mindset I have though. I don't even know what reddit and shit are, but I've been posting on forums of some kind or another since 1997 or whatever.

The answer.

I miss the time when the internet was about useful content instead of multimedia overkill.
I miss the time when people would take the time to create a well written tutorial that you could reference and c&p from instead of just putting up an hour-long video that I don't have the time to watch. "Show, don't tell" doesn't mean video, you know.
I miss the time when people on the internet would all know how the internet works. When everybody knew what "Netiquette" means.
I may sound elitist, but I miss the time when the internet belonged to educated grown-ups instead of kids and marketing guys.

No i dont miss dial up as over here the dial up i had would cut off after 2 hours and you would have to reconnect. Not good when on a raid in Everquest when you come back into the game to find guild miles down a dungeon and all the monsters respawned in front and behind you.

Perfect-o.

Ahh the bad old days, calling a number on a rotary dial phone (only had to dial 4 numbers not 10) then but the phone receiver in the cradle of a 300 baud modem and wiat for the "hand shaking" to finish.

Sometimes I miss the rotary dial phone, but never the 300 baud modem.

Fuck, it's this guy again.

Not really, if there was a button on the side of my head I could press to free up those memories and potentially put the involved neurons to better use, I would totally press it.

PS: It was a god awful sound. I'm glad I don't have to hear it anymore.

I don't really miss old computers, however I do miss old games that no longer work on modern computers. I'd still really like to build a good Windows 98 gaming rig one of these days, just so I can play some games that have no other way of working. (And there are no emulators which support 3D acceleration for Windows 98. It sucks.)

I started "computing" in 1981, and sometimes I miss "those good old days" but not enough to wish we weren't where we are today (with some exceptions). It's more of a nostalgia thing, fond memories and all that...

I can definitely see how it harkens back to that time period; when you'd have much more personal contact with a typically smaller group of people (regulars). Though I think there's a lot more pointless arguing on internet due to the more wide-spread accessibility. I most of all miss when computers and PC gaming were purely for intellectual types and not for the masses.

Not sure I would say intellectual types, but something like that. Funny part is everyone back then was wishing more people liked our hobby and now we see the result of that, which arguably isn't what anyone wanted (but should have expected).

The internet giveth and taketh away, however, and it giveth us Kickstarter and indies which hopefully make up for all it takes away.