The Retro Internet and Long gone websites that you remember

5rtytry56

For me it was GeoCities. I hosted my own personal website there. Geocities was divided up by different 'neighborhoods' with different topics and themes.
If Geocities was'nt 'down your street' then you could surf to Tripod which was a bit more dingy but still quite informative. I had a presence there as well.
Or did you 'hang out' around on the site as provided by your hosting provider like tinet.ie (later eircom) or indigo?

o1s1n

IM programs were really what it was all about back then. Used to spend hours upon hours talking to people on ICQ. Live Type was particularly great fun. I guess the fact that it required bugger all bandwidth really helped.

Does the 'old boards.ie' count? I really miss that place

CiDeRmAn

Back in the mid 90's I would frequent Dave's Videogame Classics.
I was working on my day off in Gamesworld and, on my lunch break, would head to the Global Internet Cafe on O'Connell St and hang out there for half an hour, and that site was my go to place.
Imagine my surprise just now to find that the page is still up, though not updated since 1996!
Dave's Video Game Classics
Now that brings back memories!
Used to use Netscape as my browser, but I think most people did, no one I knew used IE at all.

5rtytry56

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

Global Internet Cafe on O'Connell St and hang out there for half an hour, and that site was my go to place.
Imagine my surprise just now to find that the page is still up, though not updated since 1996!
Dave's Video Game Classics
Now that brings back memories!

Remember it well sir.

First batch of PC's there were Gateway 2000's 'new look' PCs. And 2 brothers from England. Really sound.

Retr0gamer

I miss 1up the most. Great articles and not afraid to call publishers and developers bull**** especially on the 1up yours podcast. It just had a great bunch of characters working there that really bounced off each other with most there being walking encyclopedia's of knowledge.

Also loved JoseQ's emuviews which had the best news on emulators. Unfortunately the author abandoned it after the bull**** over the FinalBurn emulator author getting death threats from people because he wasn't working fast enough on it.

Another old favourite was Cult of Kefka which was one of the best places to get fan translations of roms but I guess romhacking.net is way better these days but without the personality.

Steve X2

Early 90's internet for me was a trip to Dublin from Kildare and a few hours in the Cyberia internet cafe in Temple Bar area and of course the Global Internet Cafe on O'Connell st. They had some tasty tomato bread sambos there

Tow

Pre Internet: Nemesis Dungeon, Informatique, TOPPSI.

Tow

Internet: IRC, P45Rant.net

5rtytry56

I also purchased webspace from the Waterford Institute of Technology
Computer Society at snet.wit.ie Unlike a site mentioned above, snet.wit.ie ceased to exist sometime around 2006.
all for the princely sum of £2 punts and there was no real limit to what you wanted to put up - I did'nt have that much to upload either.

My email account on snet was also hacked by scum though. :mad:

Here's a snapshot from July 2006

CiDeRmAn

My first taste of the internet was the bulletin board system accessible via the computer lab in Kevin St back in 1990.
I was doing a year of a Applied Science degree, which I packed in and went on to do my nursing.
Predictably, there was a lot of Star Trek discussed online.... something that hasn't changed!

imitation

I was always a retro and emulation fan, especially in the late 90s as it was a method to play pokemon !

One thing that took my fancy was klass of 99, a remake of school daze. I was constantly looking for news of its release untiit finally came out. The website is still there too !

http://retrospec.sgn.net/game/ko99

When i started in college i began using there fat internet pipe to download vidjos, fun stuff like a guy who make hes own cannons and rail gun (power labs) and random patches for games and demos. I had to ferry them home 100 mb at a time on a zip disk. By the time i finished college i had a 1 gig memory stick and youtube had launched, and most importantly I had broadband at home so no ferrying things about.

Tchoin

I truly miss Lik-sang, used to shop there a lot! Too bad Sony shut them down.

It was the first place where I saw the Panasonic Q, and they were very early sellers of all things Gamepark.

5rtytry56

This era marks the first time I did gaming online with other players, with a 56k modem - playing Microsoft Simulator 98 on a Microsoft server. You had to look at an advert.
In this age too there was an actual hard-copy magazine that you could subscribe to about Flight Simulator 98 - the editor was a sino - American gent. I received 1 free sample issue.

5rtytry56

Around 1997/1998 you could apply a firmware upgrade to your US Robotics 33k modem to make it work at 56k. The x2 upgrade as it was known even had a teeshirt.

5rtytry56

If using a PC with Windows 3.1 or 3.11 to connect to the internet an application called Trumpet Winsock was needed. It can still be downloaded from a number of sites.

Dr Bob

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

My first taste of the internet was the bulletin board system accessible via the computer lab in Kevin St back in 1990.
I was doing a year of a Applied Science degree, which I packed in and went on to do my nursing.
Predictably, there was a lot of Star Trek discussed online.... something that hasn't changed!

yup about 2 years later I spent a good chunk of time in those same labs playing a lot of text based MUDS online ..and using stuff like archie and gopher . I actually remember Netscape Navigator being released .
(got a modem and an internet account a year or two later )

Conor Bourke

Waiting for 3 hours for one song to download from Napster :pac:

CiDeRmAn

In about 95 I recall being outside a internet cafe and not going in, having never gone online before and feeling intimidated, never having used a browser before, in the heady days before they had browsers integrated into the OS.
Ha...
Month or two later and it was all systems go!
Netscape at the ready, downloading early MAME versions and Pacman binaries!

Retr0gamer

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

In about 95 I recall being outside a internet cafe and not going in, having never gone online before and feeling intimidated, never having used a browser before, in the heady days before they had browsers integrated into the OS.
Ha...
Month or two later and it was all systems go!
Netscape at the ready, downloading early MAME versions and Pacman binaries!

[pedantic]Mame wasn't released until February 1997[/pedantic]

CiDeRmAn

Retr0gamer wrote: »

[pedantic]Mame wasn't released until February 1997[/pedantic]

I know, it was a journey...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2NQIPVqLMUg

I started on the likes of MD and S/NES emulators back in 96... onto the likes of Kgen and Genecyst, Nesticle and the like in 97.
Great days I have to say.

Retr0gamer

CiDeRmAn wrote: »

I started on the likes of MD and S/NES emulators back in 96... onto the likes of Kgen and Genecyst, Nesticle and the like in 97.
Great days I have to say.

[/pedantic]NES emulation was only released to the public in late 1996 with it becoming popular with Nesticle in 1997, MD and SNES emulation was a good bit after that :P[/pedantic]

CiDeRmAn

Retr0gamer wrote: »

[/pedantic]NES emulation was only released to the public in late 1996 with it becoming popular with Nesticle in 1997, MD and SNES emulation was a good bit after that :P[/pedantic]

God Dammit Retr0!!!
I'm going to beat you to death with your own arm, you know that, right??

Seriously though,
I got my PC in 96, and was working in town around then too.
I was doing emulators too, so what was in vogue in 96 then, put me right!

imitation

I was doing emulators too, so what was in vogue in 96 then, put me right!

Playing quake (being amazed at looking up). Looking at laras fine pyramids in Tomb Raider. If you didnt have a decent CPU then it was playing multimedja CDs, Doom and point and click adventures.

Or maybe you were too busy watching father ted and ireland winning the eurovision?

CiDeRmAn

I was a Quake and Mechwarrior 2 player back in the day, along with the glory that was Interstate 76, from 96 to 97 at least.
Tomb Raider on PC was fantastic, never liked Duke though
Sadly, I bought into PC just before the MMX enhancements were brought out, but I did buy into graphics accelerators from the first.
Good times in the 90's for gaming, 96 to 97 was magical to say the least.

imitation

Remeber when you stuck in the 3dfx and everything went smooth, and the fps quadrupled ?

Interstate 76 was such a cool game, I loved the soundtrack !

5rtytry56

Aah the good old Voodoo chipsets......went up to Voodoo 5 or 6 . Also used in Novalogic shooters and flightsims.

.............And then 3Dfx sold the community down the river.

Retr0gamer

Well you know what they say about old age and memory :P

CiDeRmAn

Retr0gamer wrote: »

Well you know what they say about old age and memory :P

I'm more worried about old age and forgetf.... now, what was I saying again....

Oh yes, Old age and prostate size, that must have been it....

CiDeRmAn

5rtytry56 wrote: »

Aah the good old Voodoo chipsets......went up to Voodoo 5 or 6 . Also used in Novalogic shooters and flightsims.

.............And then 3Dfx sold the community down the river.

5rtytry56

Thread NOT in Auld wans and auld fellas