Post AddgGcKLxmAVevrM48 by mikemathia@ioc.exchange
(DIR) More posts by mikemathia@ioc.exchange
(DIR) Post #AdZI85az50SVfRuCcC by mikemathia@ioc.exchange
2024-01-06T11:52:44Z
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#CDs
(DIR) Post #AdZUoz8WAYfFXLoMiW by anthropy@mastodon.derg.nz
2024-01-06T14:14:52Z
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@mikemathia not me still having stacks of them without even knowing where I left the last CD/DVD burner
(DIR) Post #AdZV2FckBFGCR8H6x6 by GabeMoralesVR@mastodon.gamedev.place
2024-01-06T14:17:19Z
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@mikemathia Christmas? Pft. There was a microcenter within walking distance of this PC Users club I used to go to around 1998-1999. That PC Users club would let you haul your desktop to their T1 connections on saturdays, so my routine was to get there around 10 am, walk to microcenter, and buy blank CDs in bulk, then spend all day on napster grabbing music. If you bought CDRs in bulk at microcenter, you could get them for like one penny a disc, assuming you bought like 5000 at once.
(DIR) Post #Add88AwYUk6ByIX0i0 by mikemathia@ioc.exchange
2024-01-08T08:19:33Z
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@GabeMoralesVR Have similar experiences here, but Kansas USA and a CompUSA instead of Microcenter.
(DIR) Post #Add8cY4T4UH2O7iPy4 by GabeMoralesVR@mastodon.gamedev.place
2024-01-06T14:18:49Z
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@mikemathia My dad and I would stay there all day and night, every saturday, till the place would close around 1 am, then go to my grandma's restaurant around the corner and have late night dinner. I cannot describe the level of piracy heaven this was. I had a mod chip in my PSX and a Dreamcast and a Sega CD and a Turbo Duo all at the same time, and managed to get into a bunch of FTP trading rings where we'd share ISOs and such. So thousands, and thousands of free games.
(DIR) Post #Add8cZ9p249Pl1ECx6 by mikemathia@ioc.exchange
2024-01-08T08:25:01Z
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@GabeMoralesVR Yes, YES. I was all over that scene, was really great back then. Still have CD books full of games from back then, like these:
(DIR) Post #Add8caJ4l99BK0Z70y by GabeMoralesVR@mastodon.gamedev.place
2024-01-06T14:20:21Z
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@mikemathia E-Donkey and the Digital Archive Project were in full swing, so I quickly managed to get my hands on the complete MST3K rip. Eventually got into anime trading, we would trade real player rips of cantonese-english dubs of dragon ball and evangelion and such.Eventually I met enough people trading online that we hosted an all weekend lan party a few times. People would come with binders full of CDRs full of pirated shit and it'd turn into a rip party, all day and all night copying.
(DIR) Post #Add8ccVuYObQAOaOIa by GabeMoralesVR@mastodon.gamedev.place
2024-01-06T14:22:08Z
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@mikemathia We would have entire rigs setup that would just copy CDRs 24/7. Someone would bring a spare tower and set it up with dual CD drives and you'd just walk up, pop in your disc, and copy. Then another person would show up with one. Then another. Eventually there would be a fleet of "use 'em if you need 'em" copiers going. There was always TOO MUCH to possibly copy, always "one more hour" needed. It was ALL fueled by how completely cheap CDRs were. Like an entire piracy economy. Memories.
(DIR) Post #Add8sqvCkkaBUA9nOK by mikemathia@ioc.exchange
2024-01-08T08:27:59Z
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@GabeMoralesVR Oh yes, did many a rip party here. About the closest thing I do now, is trading Plex servers, which is NOT the same at all.
(DIR) Post #AddZzWHkZg1mGx6dl2 by GabeMoralesVR@mastodon.gamedev.place
2024-01-08T13:31:24Z
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@mikemathia on the one hand, naughty naughty memories. On the other hand... I was a dead broke 14 year old teenager. None of my school friends knew about this stuff. It was like I lived an alternate identity in secret, where I cosplayed as someone insanely rich. That same year, 1999, I specifically got an ATI All-in-wonder 128. I chose that video card over the insanely drool worthy Voodoo 3 because the All-In-Wonder was made specifically to interface with TVs.
(DIR) Post #AddgDN0CU7cLGDsvFQ by GabeMoralesVR@mastodon.gamedev.place
2024-01-08T13:33:43Z
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@mikemathia I routed coaxial cable through my attic for that ATI All In Wonder, since that's how it outputted to a TV. It was live passthrough of the desktop, no encoding or anything. So you could push real media videos (like the anime or MST3K) to televisions. This was when emulation was blowing up too, so stuff like MAME or MEKA running on Televisions. It was *MAGIC,* my computer could do anything.Looking back, I have never gone back to a period without a computer hooked up to my TV.
(DIR) Post #AddgDNtr9C8Y2pvMzw by GabeMoralesVR@mastodon.gamedev.place
2024-01-08T13:35:43Z
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@mikemathia I actually made money this way. I would grab rips of still-in-theater movies and such, dump them onto a VHS tape through my ATI All-in-wonder, then sell them at school for dirt cheap, like $10-$15 a VHS with a couple of movies on them. I sold bootleg subbed anime this way too, the most insanely bootleg way to get them.Ironically, regarding the meme pic, I used to get blank VHS tapes for christmas, because I could sell them for good money.Sigh.... memories....
(DIR) Post #AddgGcKLxmAVevrM48 by mikemathia@ioc.exchange
2024-01-08T14:42:03Z
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@GabeMoralesVR Yes, same. Even today, one of my outputs go out to a TV. Not the same, and not as hard as it was back then.
(DIR) Post #AddgoqaLSVodj1f5bE by GabeMoralesVR@mastodon.gamedev.place
2024-01-08T14:48:12Z
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@mikemathia yeah, the move to HDMI was pretty amazing for making connecting your PC to a TV much easier. I remember being blown away when the first HDTVs came out and had VGA connectors on them, too. In a lot of ways, everything is so much better now. Instead of endless CD-Roms, I now have an actual NAS server tower I dump rips onto, that communicates with raspberry pi thin clients at every television. But it all started with lan parties and CD-Rs for me, they put the idea in my head.
(DIR) Post #AddhMhyhxxUcsQCgUK by mikemathia@ioc.exchange
2024-01-08T14:54:21Z
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@GabeMoralesVR Yep, same here. That VGA port on HDTVs back when they were primarily tubes, saved my bacon when I was DJing and needed beat-based video for a background, just fired up Winamp/Milkdrop and out to that screen, and everyone thought it was amazing. lol
(DIR) Post #AddhdimoDNpyJ1kZua by mikemathia@ioc.exchange
2024-01-08T14:57:26Z
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@GabeMoralesVR Everyone thought I was insane for having like a 50 foot VGA cable in my trunk. lol
(DIR) Post #AddhjGt4r5FZW5KRRQ by GabeMoralesVR@mastodon.gamedev.place
2024-01-08T14:58:24Z
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@mikemathia The summer to starting college in 2004, I went up to my school for orientation, and one of my older buddies had joined a fraternity. So after orientation, we went to his frat house for a party, and the very first image I have of college parties is seeing a bunch of tripping frat guys watching someone spin with milkdrop attached to a projector on a wall, haha. You just unlocked some wild memories in me haha.