Computing was great when only nerds did it

[willhelpme]

It was tough, even though it wasn't, if you get what I'm saying?

These days things just work, look nice and are super fast but back in the days we had to give a DMA about our IRQ in order squeeze as much out of that base memory. Don't get me started on XMS vs EMS and the rest but, as you can guess, you needed to be nerding on a hundred thousand, billion just to hang with the kewl kids.

That barrier to entry dropped and everyone flopped over the winning line. Hooray! "Thank you for coming, here is your participation trophy" *hands them an AOL free disc*.

Back then it had this edge, a sheen of newness and the whole "I didn't know I couldn't do that" method when it came to unconventional thinking with fresh tech to pimp free phones and the rest. Its like listening to a genre that is still fresh and no one gets. As much as you want people to dig it when they do the corporate shills whore it out and it loses that spark that made it so immense.

Computing was like this because the super duper nerds that were drawn to it, back when were amazing. That and they all didn't fit the stereotype you'd expect (although a lot did) as some folks were either super reg or "How the hell does a guy like you know about this?" as folks were from all sectors with really diverse interests and skills but all were drawn to the chip.

The other amazing thing, beyond the ignorance of youth and effects of increased hormone levels in combination with laying new neural traces, was that there was a very clear demarcation between the underground circuit and mass reality as it stands where most people didn't know, didn't show or didn't care about what was going on in the bands whose width was really quite narrow in comparison to what would kick but felt absolutely immense as the territory was fresh, totally uncharted and we sailed the high seas, digital, in search of buckles to swash.

And by that I mean making anything digital do more than it was supposed to, just because. Then throwing a cracktro on it just to let em know how truly l337 you were. That was the style at the time, you see?

 

[sungen]

I *kind* of agree. I think the accessibility is nice, and I believe that by things being more accessible it really allows those who have the potential to become great the ability to try, while also weeding out those who just aren't meant for it, and allows those who are passionate about their digital craft to show themselves. Obviously yeah things have gotten easier so the barrier for entry is far, far lower than it was when I was a kid, and I'm not even that old, leading the overall quality to dip as an unfortunate result. But it only helps to accentuate the skill and ability a programmer or developer has if they are able to understand the microcosms of what they do and how it impacts viewable metrics. I'm all for gatekeeping, especially if its stuff I can understand, because the amount of bloat in browsers, software, games, and a shit-ton of other things that I'm forgetting at 2 in the morning is fucking unreal and I don't remember it being as bad whenever I was younger. I wouldn't be surprised if this was a way to vent and reminisce, but c'mon, things becoming a bit easier isn't ALL bad imo.

 

[mesaprotector]

Just switch to Linux. Trying to draw a circle in GIMP will save you from wishing for less accessible technology ever again.

More seriously I think we're just all looking for a place we belong. It feels bad to have the exact people we're trying to get away from take over the culture of the Internet. But that's why Agora exists, and Agora's not unique. There will always be niche forums and random IRC chats for hanging out.

 

[4d1]

It feels bad to have the exact people we're trying to get away from take over the culture of the Internet. But that's why Agora exists, and Agora's not unique. There will always be niche forums and random IRC chats for hanging out.

Yeah. I was gonna say, if you hang out in mainstream places you find mainstream people/normies. Same goes for the Internet. All the normies hang out at the big corporate places like Metaland/TikTok/Twitter where they live at the mercy of the tech overlords that sungen was saying. All the counter culture nerds hang out here and do their own thing.

We'll always find a way.

 

[morus]

These days things just work, look nice and are super fast

A lie repeated a thousand times...

 

[Svind]

There are times when a similar, not the same but similar, thought crosses my mind but at the end of the day I disagree.

I get that Agora is leaning towards internet nostalgia / old web etc. but "back in the day" the computer nerds were a very specific kind of nerd. I am old enough to know the internet before social media existed-hell when I was a kid mIRC was installed on basically every computer I interacted with-but those kind of nerds predate me by like 3 whole decades, even then most of the actually cool stuff (IMO) that I know about computing happened much later than that.

That barrier to entry dropped and everyone flopped over the winning line. Hooray! "Thank you for coming, here is your participation trophy" *hands them an AOL free disc*.

Back then it had this edge, a sheen of newness and the whole "I didn't know I couldn't do that" method when it came to unconventional thinking with fresh tech to pimp free phones and the rest. Its like listening to a genre that is still fresh and no one gets.

Was the barrier to entry lowered? Yes. But with that the skill ceiling was also raised to a crazy degree. I think a lot of people are just stuck on surface level communities (and I don't mean the retarded "hurr the dark web" kind of surface level) and they don't even know about what goes on in the underground scenes. The "holy shit you can do that?" factor is still there. There are people making insane shit with FPGAs, SOCs and SBCs thanks to how cheap is a "computer" nowadays and the fact that you can literally conjure whatever you can imagine with cheap PCB printing services and dirt cheap 3D printing. On the software side you have entire p2p networks that are seperate from "the internet", and entire non http/https protocols like gemini.

I'm all for gatekeeping, especially if its stuff I can understand, because the amount of bloat in browsers, software, games, and a shit-ton of other things that I'm forgetting at 2 in the morning is fucking unreal and I don't remember it being as bad whenever I was younger.

Depends on how far back you'd like to go. Remember browser toolbars? Flash? All the competing standards? The bloat was always there, and just like now you just had to know what to use and how to use it to navigate around it.

And by that I mean making anything digital do more than it was supposed to, just because. Then throwing a cracktro on it just to let em know how truly l337 you were. That was the style at the time, you see?

The scenes are not even dead, we even have more varied scenes nowadays than before, especially on hardware side since it's much cheaper now. They're just not that into making demos anymore, instead they make their own consoles, their own p2p internet, their own digital swiss army knives, their own protocols etc.

 

[e2eww]

regarding the name of the thread, i feel like calling the internet a type of "computing" is disingenuous. i mean, even back in the 90's it was still easy enough to learn about using a computer and even learning the ins and outs of it if you had enough patience. i would argue the biggest barrier of entry at the time wasn't the fact that it was "too nerdy" for most people, it's that the idea of a personal computer with internet access had only started to become a reality. add onto this fact that most of the software of the time just wasn't ready for most consumers, and that computers were previously only found on college campuses, and you get the whole nerdy subculture attached to it (not to mention the allure of finding a like-minded group of people to people who were already considered nerds).

what i'm trying to get at is that it was inevitable that the internet, or even computing as a whole would become accessible eventually, because it was ultimately meant to help people. what's the point of inventing a computer that only a small percentage of people even know how to use properly? at that point, it just becomes more of a toy than an actual useful piece of technology.

 

[willhelpme]

Yeah, there are some really cool things now possible due to the way the web has spread. That is for certain. I mean even just take emulation into account and the talented devs etc... as well as hardware hacks, mods and all that so its not all bad but the signal to noise ratio is immense.

I think exploring the psychosphere is going to become the new internet as we map the inner terrain as that is still (relatively) fringe but man those gringo shamans and their drumming! Thats actually a big part of it as there simply wasn't a poseur class back in the days of beige tech as it was real in the field whereas these days there are loads of veneers and the glib that follow them.

Not just the net but life itself and this is a far deeper topic when it comes down the computing of consciousness in the simulation and the downside of increased resolution. Mentioned it here:

"The fact that there are 8 billion Souls roaming around this realm at present means, by my estimation, that each of them are only half as aware (and potent) as those who came before them when the population did sit at half of this, back when. Use any level you wish because hormone levels have tanked as have fertility rates as well as general intelligence as per the Idiocracy Effect:

Now, the IQ test isn't the end all, be all, gold standard, proof of what I said. Far from it. I just sprinkled it to lace you with some Game because can you imagine your grandparents doing the Tide Pod Challenge? How about gurning for a pic in order to ensure some extra social media clicks as well as the rest of the generalized madness that has been normalized in this realm where Black folks bleach their skin and Whites inject melanin in order to become someone else".

Creativity Is Not of This Realm

One of the most interesting things about the simulation we're within is the fact that creativity is not of this realm. I mean, how can it be? This place is hermetically sealed as there is a f...

willhelp.me

To me its a palpable felt sense you can spot in this realm but many do not notice it. Suppose thats what keeps things interesting as the implications speak for themselves as well as offer hints about whats coming for those who are one up on the frequency.

 

[dreamsphere]

Computing is still great if you stop using all the mainstream garbage that 98% of the population does.

Here's a (partially) exhaustive list of what to do:

Switch to Linux/*BSD from mac or Windows
Make your computer whatever you want it to be
Frequent forums and image boards, not social media
Learn to program, not just as a code monkey but as an art form
Use IRC and/or XMPP, Decentralized communications, and stop using your phone so much
Learn how to actually use a search engine instead of receiving back normie results
Educate your friends and family
Value your privacy and data
Understand where you are the product and stop being productized
Own the platform you use - have your own site and build a community on censorship resistant architecture
Learn continually about everything, find better ways to do things always, streamline your processes continually

None of this is gatekeeping, it is stuff that the average person is just not going to do. But in doing so, you start to see the freedom that was promised in the internet and the early days of computing. The protocols and solutions exist - if they don't, be a part of the solution and help to create them and stop complaining - computers allow you to create something from essentially nothing.

 

[Some_porcupine]

View: https://youtu.be/YKSyWqcKing

 

[Captain]

Don't worry...soon enough computer literacy will be down to 90s levels again. The younger people today are like the old people of the 90s. They don't know how to use Computers as everything is iPhone and iPad.

 

[Theologian-kun]

I'm sure there will be a new frontier for us eventually. Just a shame that all that 3.0 crap had the stench of snake oil salesmen. But for now places like this work just fine.

 

[dreamsphere]

I'm sure there will be a new frontier for us eventually. Just a shame that all that 3.0 crap had the stench of snake oil salesmen. But for now places like this work just fine.

There are people building great technologies on the great ideas of Web 1.0 (HTMX and the tooling around it come to mind) - there will be a resurgence of the internet in the coming years, I know how disenfranchised people are by the nonsense of Web 2.0 (Should be called Web: giving all our data away)

 

[Some_porcupine]

There are people building great technologies on the great ideas of Web 1.0 (HTMX and the tooling around it come to mind) - there will be a resurgence of the internet in the coming years, I know how disenfranchised people are by the nonsense of Web 2.0 (Should be called Web: giving all our data away)

thats web2.5
web 2.0 was before soc. media, but midst myspace

 

[Svind]

Don't worry...soon enough computer literacy will be down to 90s levels again. The younger people today are like the old people of the 90s. They don't know how to use Computers as everything is iPhone and iPad.

This is true, actually. Some of the kids I work with (young adults, really) don't even know how to make new folders on their desktops.

 

[Some_porcupine]

have you ever noticed how same the threads get,...

What would we do in the case of an incursion from a place like Tiktok

So you're just larping as an oldfag. Got it. Uhh no? I left because mtts and frens were turning the place into a twitter esque political shithole. I made this internet shitlord account because I don't want this persona to be associated with the music production account that is tied with...

forum.agoraroad.com

 

[willhelpme]

A lot of people here are evidently yearning for a past that still felt the sense of hope their present is lacking. In that way its an elegant coping mech and something, via the process of realization, I no longer need as a fantasy regression is nowhere near as effective as the actual progression that comes from total Self acceptance.

Thanks for your assistance, may you all find what you're seeking.

 

[Some_porcupine]

A lot of people here are evidently yearning for a past that still felt the sense of hope their present is lacking. In that way its an elegant coping mech and something, via the process of realization, I no longer need as a fantasy regression is nowhere near as effective as the actual progression that comes from total Self acceptance.

Thanks for your assistance, may you all find what you're seeking.

well, quite... late, to figure all of this, JUST now! it was always THE case, raison d'être. Vaporwave, is in itself(,) nostalgic...