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A whole generation of computer nerds are growing up and never knowing the joy of making your own crossover cat 5 cables.
- Thread starter Slayven
- Start date
Cat5? I grew up on 10BASE2 coax cables with BNC connectors. My dad put them in the floor when doing some work on the house, so it was instant LAN party when I had friends over.
Nothing compared to commercial levels of tape drives/backups that never restored or even loaded correctly. Mount me if old.
How about forgetting to terminate some coax LAN cable when your buddies have brought over their DOOM or Duke PC rigs for the weekend? Any takers? Hmmmm. I'm going to have nightmares tonight about this shit, thanks.
If you've never carried your 21"+ CRT around in your car are you even a gamer?
How about forgetting to terminate some coax LAN cable when your buddies have brought over their DOOM or Duke PC rigs for the weekend? Any takers? Hmmmm. I'm going to have nightmares tonight about this shit, thanks.
If you've never carried your 21"+ CRT around in your car are you even a gamer?
If you weren't messing with HIMEM.SYS you weren't putting in effort. ;)
But if you want to mess with a younger PC geek, just drop a jumper over the internal reset pins on their PC. See how long it takes them to figure out why their PC is "dead".
DWANGO was amazing.
Made more than a few of those so we could connect PCs in the dorms for DOOM. When we got ethernet the next year, it was an amazing upgrade.
Not really needed with new hardware that has autosensing ports.
Then a terminator or t-connector isn't connected properly and you can't figure out why the shit doesn't work and a fight breaks out.
Good times.
Real computer nerds don't deal with IRQs
they raise IRQs themselves, programmatically. They are the IRQ "problem."
they raise IRQs themselves, programmatically. They are the IRQ "problem."
I don't remember having to ever do this. But the joy of dealing with sound cards, config.sys, IRQ conflicts, etc is something I'll never miss, my god. The Gravis Ultrasound was ahead of its time but some of the compatibility problems were annoying as hell.
Was this a thing primarily for LAN play / LAN parties? Never did anything like that, always relied on dial-up for my multiplayer or ISDN.
Was this a thing primarily for LAN play / LAN parties? Never did anything like that, always relied on dial-up for my multiplayer or ISDN.
I built my own PC with a turbo button. I managed IRQ conflicts. I edited config files, autoexec files, and so on. I manually configured IP addresses.
But I never made a crossover cable. Nope. Just had one provided to me by a friend, just one, to keep at hand for years.
Good riddance to all that crap.
But I never made a crossover cable. Nope. Just had one provided to me by a friend, just one, to keep at hand for years.
Good riddance to all that crap.
I was not techhy but boy do I remember soundcards screwing up my whole computer after it died or had a bad driver or something and removing it being the key to peace.
Also even earlier how me and bro were stupid and deleted much-needed system files to make "extra space" :) .
Gonna miss not having to install CD/DVD drives into my chassis anymore on my next upgrade.. a new era..
Also even earlier how me and bro were stupid and deleted much-needed system files to make "extra space" :) .
Gonna miss not having to install CD/DVD drives into my chassis anymore on my next upgrade.. a new era..
That is why I don't get why people recommend starting off with A+ certification to get an IT job.
I went from an Amiga 500 to a Playstation, so I didn't have to deal with cables much. But damn do I remember swapping floppy disks on the former and lugging a PSOne and 9 inch portable TV to a mates house for some 2 player Doom, Need for Speed and Red Alert sessions. Streaming to mobile can fuck right off!
You know what they say, "when you work in assembler, you make an ass out of 'em, and bler".
I had to do that in a college course.
Recently I had to use one to un-brick a firewall that didn't like its new firmware. It involved a trip into the musty storage basement to find a laptop with that port.
Back in my time you had to construct your own RF adapter out of gravel and sticks, and then personally get it blessed by the Vatican to get YouTube in high-def 240i for 3 and a half minutes.
YouTube? When I was a teenager we had to fuckin install REAL PLAYER.
RealPlayer? pfft. I had a DOS program that could show ANIMATED GIFS. Porn was never so glorious!
Remember games on cassette tapes?
A whole generation now is growing up never knowing a time when there wasn't internet, and younger kids never knowing a time before smartphones. Back then, if you didn't know something, you didn't know it, simple as that. Unless you had 18 volumes of already outdated encyclopedias.
A whole generation now is growing up never knowing a time when there wasn't internet, and younger kids never knowing a time before smartphones. Back then, if you didn't know something, you didn't know it, simple as that. Unless you had 18 volumes of already outdated encyclopedias.
OP
OP
When I wanted to watch tv on my computer i had to hook a coaxial cable to it
I bought one from the local computer hardware store to play two-box eight player Halo. Cheaper than buying the equipment.
I remember writing data and BASIC programs to cassettes. Finding your saves on a 30-minute cassette was an art form.
I've done it all.
Crimp my own cables
Null modem Doom
IRQ jumpers on sound cards
Jumpers on IDE drives
SCSI and termination on cables sucked too.
Trying to get enough conventional memory to get a game to run. You had Memmaker and QEMM386 for the easy ones.
You have not lived until you tried to get Ultima 7 to run. That thing needed like 620K/640K, protected mode only.
DOS=HIGH,UMB
STACKS 0,0
Still not enough.
*rip hair out*
Crimp my own cables
Null modem Doom
IRQ jumpers on sound cards
Jumpers on IDE drives
SCSI and termination on cables sucked too.
Trying to get enough conventional memory to get a game to run. You had Memmaker and QEMM386 for the easy ones.
You have not lived until you tried to get Ultima 7 to run. That thing needed like 620K/640K, protected mode only.
DOS=HIGH,UMB
STACKS 0,0
Still not enough.
*rip hair out*
Downloading stuff over Zmodem with an UNREGISTERED copy of Telix. Those were the days.
We made crossover cables in our cabling class.
Not sure I'll ever need to do it outside of the classroom, heh.
Not sure I'll ever need to do it outside of the classroom, heh.
Old cables that were forged deep underground by dwarvish artisans.
I freaking hated coaxial cables so much. That goddamned weird pin.
This stuff isn't really needed for an A+.
Defragmenting was relevant way closer to now than anything IRQ related.
OP
OP
that little pin went under a fingernail so many times for no reason at all
