Subj : Re: ANSI Dungeon World...
To   : Afraidmasynrlk
From : Nightfox
Date : Sat Jul 19 2025 01:09 pm

  Re: Re: ANSI Dungeon World...
  By: Afraidmasynrlk to Shurato on Sat Jul 19 2025 12:20 am

 Af> I get that it's just text and (maybe) pixel art but being on such a
 Af> minimal interface with only so much RAM amd the slowest dialup connection
 Af> is just pure cyberpunk-esque to me.

It's all relative.  By today's standards, dialup connection speeds weren't fast, but back then, as new modems came out, they were the fastest speeds available.  People still had different modems that could do different speeds, so it was still possible to have a relatively slow modem, but if you were able to buy a new fast modem (or even a decently fast modem, if not the fastest), it actually wasn't bad.  I think by the time modems reached 14.4kbps (maybe even 9600bps), displaying even entire 80x24 ANSI screens wasn't bad, and it was even better with a 28.8k or 33.6k modem.  And the interface was minimal by today's standards because of the connection speeds back then.

Also, compared to today, computers had little RAM back then, but back then, I remember when 4MB or 8MB of RAM was a lot of RAM.

I got my first computer in 1992, and it was a hand-me-down PC, so not the latest stuff, but I was still happy to have it.  It had a 12mhz 186 processor, 2MB of RAM (I think), and I got a 2400 baud modem with it too.  I started using BBSes right away, and I thought it was so cool. Initially I had a Hercules monochrome monitor with it, but later that year I was gifted a VGA graphics card and an IBM VGA (640x480) monitor, and I thought the upgrade from monochrome to color was so cool.  I also had a Sound Blaster card in my PC by then, and I remember playing Wolfenstein 3D on my PC - the first 3D shooter I had played.

Nightfox
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