Jurassic Park
- Thread starter Bluce Ree
- Start date
Jim of WVa
Well Known GateFan
Thanks for making me feel old today.
Bluce Ree
Tech Admin / Council Member
shavedape
Well Known GateFan
I caught it in the theater on opening day in my early 20s.
Oh God, I wish I could go back in a time machine to when it premiered. I was working at this retail dump for peanuts with a bunch of crazy people that went and saw that movie with me. I had to get Crichton's books after that and then, when I finished them, I'd leave them on the time sheet at work so others could read them and it started a trend where everyone would leave books there as a sort of communal library. I'm a bit embarrassed to admit I also left a John Grisham book or two there also.
Anyway, at the time Jurassic Park came out I thought the job I was working sucked and I was making peanuts and it was a struggle to just get by but now, in retrospect, it was one of the best periods of my life. I'd do it all over again in a heartbeat. But you can't go home again. sigh...
Bluce Ree
Tech Admin / Council Member
That phrase just gave me a nostalgic feeling. I would love to go back to those days, if even for a visit. I had gone to see that movie with my dad that day and we had a blast.
Me too.
You are younger than me.--- merged: Sep 14, 2013 at 11:32 PM ---
I caught it in the theater on opening day in my early 20s.
Jurassic Park was my first download on Morpheus (remember that?)
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Bluce Ree
Tech Admin / Council Member
Me too.
--- merged: Sep 14, 2013 at 11:32 PM ---
Jurassic Park was my first download on Morpheus (remember that?)
Let me take you back further. Remember CompuServe and Prodigy, two of the most popular BBS services in the 80s and early 90s?
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Gatefan1976
Well Known GateFan
I used to be on CompuServe 
ANSI based BBS's, 4 inch screens built into tower sized "mobile computers"
Ahhh, the bad old orange days
ANSI based BBS's, 4 inch screens built into tower sized "mobile computers"
Ahhh, the bad old orange days
Prodigy! I had Compuserve and then Prodigy. That was in the days I would play Duke Nukem for hours on end, and Doom.
Freakin DIALUP!
Bluce Ree
Tech Admin / Council Member
Prodigy! I had Compuserve and then Prodigy. That was in the days I would play Duke Nukem for hours on end, and Doom.
I had a Commodore 64. I saved up to buy a modem that gave us a paltry 1200 bps. The moment I connected to Compuserve for the first time, i felt like a hacker. I was 12 and all i could think about doing with that modem was hacking into NASA or the Pentagon just like in the movies.
Gatefan1976
Well Known GateFan
*beats Bluce over the head with his Texas Instruments
Bluce Ree
Tech Admin / Council Member
*beats Bluce over the head with his Texas Instruments
That 16k piece of shit had a nice voice synthesizer you plugged into the front-side cartridge port.
I had a Commodore 64. I saved up to buy a modem that gave us a paltry 1200 bps. The moment I connected to Compuserve for the first time, i felt like a hacker. I was 12 and all i could think about doing with that modem was hacking into NASA or the Pentagon just like in the movies.
I had one too.
. OMG, I remember when I got my first 56K modem, which was an upgrade from 1400. 
The average game was about 10MB and it took more than an hour. 
--- merged: Sep 15, 2013 at 12:05 AM ---
That 16k piece of shit had a nice voice synthesizer you plugged into the front-side cartridge port.
I wanted that! Never got it.
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Gatefan1976
Well Known GateFan
That 16k piece of shit had a nice voice synthesizer you plugged into the front-side cartridge port.
You know, I still have that piece of shit, and it still works, so do the games cartridges
Bluce Ree
Tech Admin / Council Member
I had one too.
--- merged: Sep 15, 2013 at 12:05 AM ---
I wanted that! Never got it.
10 MB? Commodore 64 had 64k of RAM with only 38k free. The average game was 32k, bro.
I am amazed at the quality of software and games they were able to write for such small amounts of memory. The IBM PC only had 16k, expandable to 64k, and even it had fantastic software, though C64 was superior. It had a sound chip called SID (sound interface device) capable of synthesizing near real world sounds, and its graphics chip was capable of a rainbow of colors in high-res compared to IBM only capable of 3 color in its highest resolution.
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10 MB? Commodore 64 had 64k of RAM with only 38k free. The average game was 32k, bro.
I am amazed at the quality of software and games they were able to write for such small amounts of memory. The IBM PC only had 16k, expandable to 64k, and even it had fantastic software, though C64 was superior. It had a sound chip called SID (sound interface device) capable of synthesizing near real world sounds, and its graphics chip was capable of a rainbow of colors in high-res compared to IBM only capable of 3 color in its highest resolution.
Not Duke Nukem...but that was on my first 386DX machine...the first I ever built.
Bluce Ree
Tech Admin / Council Member
Not Duke Nukem...but that was on my first 386DX machine...the first I ever built.
Duke Nukem wasn't available on C64. Maybe I misunderstood you.
PC had games that were elaborate. My first RPG was King's Quest, which was on three 5.25" disks. Later versions used more disks and you could play them right off of the diskettes. The game would pause when venturing away from the current map and tell you what disk to insert.
Ohhhh! Then came the high density 3.5" disks with a whopping 1.5MB of capacity.
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shavedape
Well Known GateFan
OMG, Doom!
I loved that game! I remember the precursor to it being something like Wolfenstein, either that or they were one and the same. Does anyone remember that? Anyway, I loved the game and really loved Doom II. I played that one forever. Great game!
What sucks is that I recently realized how long ago that was but it still feels like yesterday. And the one thing I miss about PC gaming is the cheat codes. "God mode" in Doom II was hilarious!
I loved that game! I remember the precursor to it being something like Wolfenstein, either that or they were one and the same. Does anyone remember that? Anyway, I loved the game and really loved Doom II. I played that one forever. Great game!
What sucks is that I recently realized how long ago that was but it still feels like yesterday. And the one thing I miss about PC gaming is the cheat codes. "God mode" in Doom II was hilarious!
Bluce Ree
Tech Admin / Council Member
OMG, Doom!
I loved that game! I remember the precursor to it being something like Wolfenstein, either that or they were one and the same. Does anyone remember that? Anyway, I loved the game and really loved Doom II. I played that one forever. Great game!
What sucks is that I recently realized how long ago that was but it still feels like yesterday. And the one thing I miss about PC gaming is the cheat codes. "God mode" in Doom II was hilarious!
I had the original Castle Wolfenstein on C64. It was a 2-dimensional game. Wolfenstein 3D premiered on the PC in the early 90s, if I recall. It was the first 3D first-person shooter and it was addictive as hell!
Back then, we used to be able to acquire really expensive software for a couple bucks. Crazy Irving exploited a loophole in Canadian copyright law that did not prohibit renting commercial software.
http://www.thefreelibrary.com/CRAZY IRVING AGREES NOT TO RENT COMPUTER SOFTWARE WITHOUT LICENSE...-a017934997
Quasi-legal piracy, in a sense. They would make you your own copy for $5 under a "rental" agreement that you take home and try for as long as you wish and eventually decide whether you want to buy it or destroy your copy if you're not interested in buying it outright. No set time limit.
They eventually amended the law and Crazy Irving was forced to abandon its rental service.