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What did slackers do before the internet?


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This has been on the backburner since Stuntcok asked it in the chatbox.

 

I vaguely remember. We played LAN based games. Crude rude and very slow. The IT manager said we shouldn't use the LAN like that. And?.....

 

Those were the days of memos being printed out and couriered to other departments, days later you'd get a reply 'cos phone calls were not "black 'n white". Ah... those were the days. How the hell did anything get done???

 

Do you remember?

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If you are talking "before the internet" I doubt that anyone here actually remembers ... the 'net was devised and implemented during WW2 so US military research could happen on multi campuses and the whole be available if one of the central nodes was bombed. (hence the multiple pathways and reassembly of messages, also the text only features)

 

If you meant the www, then that's a different matter ...

 

We used to scan the newsgroups, chating amongst ourselves using text only. We used to read the newspaper (physically!) do the crosswords (and get into trouble when someone else wanted to do it and found it half completed), we'd take a long stroll through the works (I was at a steelmaking plant in them days - covered acres and acres, so took a few days to get right around it), we'd complete "time and motion" surveys, inventing stuff we'd done to make the job look more impresssive.

 

And, we'd drink copious mugs of coffee, congregate around the water cooler, and basically just goof off. Making paper aeroplanes for "longest flight" and "most aerobatic" competitions.

 

In fact, more or less the same stuff we do now.

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I know slackers in who the late 80's and early 90's sent joke faxes: faxes with amusing jokes, drawings, poems etc. One collected them all in a ring binder.

The internet killed that pastime.

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but even the www was around in the late 80s!! Can't blame the internet for the demise of the faxed jokes. Maybe you could blame the more readily accessible web, but not the internet.

 

Yeah, I know, I'm a pedant.

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Later than that here. I'm not an 'early adopter' or whatever you call us.

 

I usually spoke and had fun with real people who I knew, rather than type with strangers that I don't.

 

I doodled a lot as well.

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Will,

 

I was using text only by trunk phone calls in the early 70s, moved to a "semi-graphical" internet by the end of the 70s. WWW came around mid 80s (AFAICR) and I was soo there! Mind you, with 33kbps dialup and slow computyers, it really was the World Wide Wait!

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Originally Posted By: SG
I know slackers in who the late 80's and early 90's sent joke faxes: faxes with amusing jokes, drawings, poems etc. One collected them all in a ring binder.
The internet killed that pastime.


not true, my dad still has that binder full of jokes. I went through and read it for a good hour or two one day while he was in a meeting. I havent laughed that hard since the last time Dr. Lolly, Tsonda, and I got together lol
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Originally Posted By: Creek Boy
I havent laughed that hard since the last time Dr. Lolly, Tsonda, and I got together lol


That was a great weekend, full of surprises and suspense. wink
I might meet Shun for some drinks tonight. smile

Back on topic with a question, if you play online games from work are you a slacker?
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Oh my...how easy my University degree would have been if only I had the luxury of the www (see JA *I* am listening!) and a decent computer. At that point in time we had a Commodore 64 and I spent ALL DAY typing in BASIC code just to get a bouncing ball go across the blasted screen!

 

I typed my assignments on an old heavy clunker typewriter (it had been my mothers for many years before that - so yes it was ancient even then!), and corrected the mistakes with tipex strips (much better than the fluid). I added diagrams by hand and then took the whole mess to Uni to photocopy it so you couldn't see where I had LITERALLY cut and pasted!

 

I went back to Uni when I was 29 - and I had a computer, a dial up internet connection, and a printer. My passes became High Distinctions...hmmmm...wonder why? Maybe I was able to free up all that brain space for LEARNING rather than for trying to work out HOW to get the info onto paper to hand in!!

 

This 'new age' of fast computers, super fast access to all types of information (try finding in a BOOK in the library only to find the outdated information is already being used by another student!) etc etc etc means that we can get our work/research/study whatever done real quick....so we have more time to slack off.

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Originally Posted By: Mamabear
Oh my...how easy my University degree would have been if only I had the luxury of the www (see JA *I* am listening!) and a decent computer.


Glad someone is! lol
horse
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I remember one time in the office, all the managers were in a meeting somewhere.

 

All us slackers gathered around the airgun freak and started target practice.

 

You place a pencil vertically on a cubicle and try to hit it from 10 yards. The gun used compressed air shooting small plastic balls.

 

Some idiot forgot to close the department head's door and when he arrived back there were like several hundred plastic balls in his office.

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I only worked from 8am to 10pm. The rest of the time I was slacking.

 

As an undergrad I migrated from longhand to a typewiter. The University Computer was kept in a concrete bunker, and serviced by acolytes in white coats. Jobs were submitted overnight on punchcards. "Did not compile". It could take a week to get the simplessed job to run.

 

Reading was high-tech. That's here I learned to use the BBC.

 

At Cretin, I had my own PC. The interweb thingy came soon after. It was called AARNET in those days. Oh joy, you could print without having to take a floppy to the printroom. DOS 3.2!

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Oh, the joys of cassette tape program files and 4K RAM.

 

remember them well. grandpa

 

And, the trip to EDP with the trays of cards. Only to be called back a day later with "You can pick up the cards - and the error is located with the card upright." Took upwards of 6 weeks to get a decent program to run, then took another 6 weeks to get the blardy thing to actually do what it was supposed to! lol @ soubriquet

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Originally Posted By: 2pints,mate
I remember slacking from studying on my Spectrum. Horace Goes Skiing was a favorite, once it bloody well loaded properly.


quality game, as was Jet Pac and Fearless Frank.
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