Not being able to use the phone and the internet at the same time? And your Dad yelling at you because Grandma tried to call but couldn’t get through because you were horsing around on the interwebs?
Having to wait for a video to rewind before you could return it to the video shop? And feeling your life slip away in those tedious moments?
Mobile phones that were just mobile phones? With non-colour screens? And no other game but Snake?
Non-flat screen anything? Computer monitors and TVs that required at least three grown men to lift them?
Floppy disks?
Using a double tape deck to make mixed tapes? And handwriting the songs on the cover? And getting really pissed off if you made a mistake and had to use White-Out?
Remember White-Out?
ALL your music being on CDs? And having to carry a 12cm by 12cm stack of CDs everywhere just so you had a library of 100 songs to choose from?
Driving without GPS? And having to actually PLAN your trip on a map BEFORE you left the house?
ICQ? Or MSN Messenger?
Having to call your friend’s house and ask their parents if you can speak to them? And if they were jerks they sometimes said no because it was after 7pm?
The dial-up internet connection noise?
Not having the internet at home? And having to go to the library and print out 60 pages of information for your English assignment?
Taping songs off the radio? And pausing and rewinding to try to learn the lyrics?
Leaving CDs and cassettes in your car in summer? And having them melt if you left them on the dashboard?
Not being able to check your email on your phone? Therefore probably only checking it legitimately once a day?
Video store late fines? And the family trauma caused by incurring them?
Writing things like addresses and phone numbers down on paper?
Not being able to text someone? Like if your Mum went to the shops and you forgot to tell her to get Vegemite you were stuffed until next shopping day?
What do you remember?
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23 Comments
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Most of these are 90’s things though? And white out? Still use that.
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Author
Yeah but you would had to have been born in the 80s for it be relevant. What do you use white out for? I barely even use pens anymore. 🙂
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Yeah, I am a 85er and was too little to remember much 80s stuff but at the 90s stuff is so me. I also remember begging my Dad for a Nokia…something…because it didn’t have an antenna. I sulked for DAYS when he wouldn’t sign as guarantor at Optus for me.
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I still remember my ICQ number 6018192! And I out-nerded my boyfriend by having one with a lower number!
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I can’t remember mine but I know it started with a 3 and only had 6 numbers. I suspect I out nerd you both. 🙂
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I’m a 1992 baby, but I still remember all these things! Good times.
I should add, listening allllll day for that one song you wanted to record from the radio, and then running like a ninja to hit record when it finally came on. =)
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…and getting angry when the announcer talked over the intro/outro of the song
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OMG yes. I found a tape like this the other day and halfway through an announcer spoke and I *still* felt annoyed at the guy.
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Ah I totally remember that! And you’d sit there thinking ‘shut up shut up!’ hoping the announcer wouldn’t go to far into the song.
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I am an 85er and all of these bring back such memories! I remember rewinding scenes in movies again and again, and having to rewind things to start from the beginning. I also remember Super Nintendo.
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Freaking LOVE Super Ninento.
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ICQ! Ah, good times. Remember when you couldn’t just arrange to meet someone ‘in town, around 7’ and then use your phones to find each other? You had to specify an exact time and location (in Brisbane it was always outside Hungry Jacks in the Queen St Mall) and wait there.
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In Canberra it was at the Goon Pillow (a silver sculpture of pillow in city centre).
🙂
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Renting the VCR from the video store, along with the video you wanted to watch, because they were too expensive for everyone to have them. And the smell of the videos!
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I remember renting a Ninento 64 for the holidays!
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That dial-up internet noise is the worst! I remember once trying to sneak onto the internet while my Dad was taking a nap, and that noise woke him up!
Also, I still have the piece of paper that my boyfriend wrote his name and number on the night we met- nearly nine years ago.
I remember not being able to google every new person you met, and having to rely on conversation to learn things about them. I used to keep an exercise book in my school bag, with a page in it for every boy I liked, and each time I learned something new about them, I’d write it down. It was like medieval Facebook (or a stalker’s handbook).-
Wow! Totally not being able to Google anyone! Like before Facebook you could only find info from someone if they won an award or got arrested.
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Having been born in ’87 (and turning 18 in 2005), I always wondered how people managed to go to bars/clubs/ANYWHERE before everyone had mobile phones
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So true. We were pretty much screwed. There’s was a real ‘don’t lose each other’ mentality which meant you often had to watch your girlfriends making out with a guy for AGES because you couldn’t leave the club without her.
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Cassettes. Awesome! I met my husband when I was fifteen. My INXS tape had broken, and ever the gentleman, he offered to fix it for me. Set up a first date to return it! Good times…
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Oh cute! I have still have a cassette that my bestie and I recorded at Intensity of use singing karaoke to Pretty Woman. Dear lord.
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Hahaha soo funny! Gah, the worst was not having a cordless phone. No wonder 12 yrs old are having sex now, they can sneaky text from their beds. I remember having the most awkward convos with the boy I liked in the living room on the old-school-attached-to-the-wall-phone while my parents pretended to watch TV about 2 metres away!
I also remember only being allowed to use 2 internet source on my yr 11 assignments because the internet was, and I quote “not a reliable source”! Nope for us it was off to the library to photocopy hundreds of pages in the hope of one useful quote.
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How weird was it not being able to wander around the house while talking on the phone? I can also remember the cost of phone calls being an issue. I’ve barely thought of that since Skype and Unlimited calls.
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