I always thought ME was okay. I think it just wasn’t that much different to 98.
came across some family heirlooms today, hahaha!
Submitted 2 months ago by orionsbelt@midwest.social to retrocomputing@lemmy.sdf.org
https://midwest.social/pictrs/image/887dd7d5-58bd-4030-965c-d2db5ea78b03.jpeg
Comments
twinnie@feddit.uk 2 months ago
Psythik@lemmy.world 2 months ago
You were lucky. I never had to shut down my WinMe PC, because it would blue screen and shut itself down near the end of the day, every day. I’m glad it introduced System Restore because I had to use it often due to constant data loss.
SidewaysHighways@lemmy.world 2 months ago
i reinstalled ME sooooo many times
grue@lemmy.world 2 months ago
2000 was better, though.
BurgerBaron@piefed.social 2 months ago
Windows ME they decided to include the WinNT driver model (can't remember what it's called) alongside the legacy VXD drivers. It's actually quite similar to some of the complaints when Windows Vista did it again.
The problem was shit/rushed driver support. If you built a new PC with well supported hardware, or just got lucky, ME wasn't any less stable than 98SE in my opinion.
Of course the nuance is lost to time, all anyone remembers is "ME bad."
TragicNotCute@lemmy.world 2 months ago
My friends and I used to get those AOL CDs in bulk and toss them like frisbees. We were little shits, but it was fun.
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 2 months ago
They used to be 3.5” floppies and if you put tape over the copy protection hole you could get a ton of free disks
dan@upvote.au 2 months ago
We had AOL in Australia for some reason, but my family could never use the trials because they required a credit or debit card. In the 90s and early 2000s, a lot of Aussie families had “bank cards” which worked at ATMs and in shops but not online. They used an Australian payment network (EFTPOS) rather than Visa or Mastercard.
In Australia, debit cards today are dual network - EFTPOS for local usage, and Visa or Mastercard for online and international usage.
mariusafa@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
What is the runnig guy disc for?
orionsbelt@midwest.social 1 month ago
a relic from the ancient past
Nay@feddit.nl 2 months ago
Did anyone else know people who would say they’d just get a new disc to “add more hours” even though it very much did not work like that?
Kolanaki@pawb.social 2 months ago
It did if you made a brand new account every time.
Nay@feddit.nl 2 months ago
But you didn’t need a new CD each time, iirc.
user224@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
Sorry if this is a stupid question, but did you still pay for the call itself, or was this fully free?
WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world 2 months ago
It depends on where you live. I lived in a rural area so the nearest local isp was far enough away that it cost. The cds and floppies that constantly came in the mail didn’t charge though. There were a bunch of those free services and ad supported isps. I had dial up for a long time and watched the business model go from portal style sandbox like AOL to literal "all internet is free if you keep this ad open. " towards the end before I left for college.
jawa22@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
You just gave me flashbacks of NetZero nightmares.
cmnybo@discuss.tchncs.de 2 months ago
When I used dial-up, local calls were free.
Zachariah@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Not free. Included in your monthly phone line subscription.
Psythik@lemmy.world 2 months ago
AOL used a combination of local and 1-800 numbers. The only additional fee you had to pay was the AOL subscription.
bamboo@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 months ago
I’m pretty sure you still had to pay your phone provider who may have charged $0.10/call unless AOL was using 1-800 numbers to dial to?
jqubed@lemmy.world 2 months ago
You would’ve had to pay for the call itself, but probably only if you had to make a long-distance call. I think by that time local numbers were pretty universally unlimited minutes, but long distance was 25¢/minute or more. I was too young to be buying phone service myself, then, but remember TV ads promoting 25¢ or 10¢ or something like that as a good deal. Around 2003 when I was first living on my own I used to buy prepaid calling cards to call home and those got me as low as 3¢/minute, and that was a bargain.
WhiteOakBayou@lemmy.world 2 months ago
10 10 3 2 1. Bobwehadababyitsaboy. I forgot about those ads. They were super bowl ad popular in my memory.
Nay@feddit.nl 2 months ago
It was free, but iirc, you had to sign up for a monthly subscription, and the 700 hours was just your first month free.
bulwark@lemmy.world 2 months ago
So they were just giving away America Online by the 700 hour quantity? I now blame AOL for more than I had previously considered.
Stillwater@sh.itjust.works 2 months ago
It started small and they kept growing in how many free hours. It didn’t stop at 700. I’m not sure where it stopped, but I’m sure it was in 4 digits.
700 hours is around a month if connected nonstop, but back then it was more likely that many people connected a few hours a day at most, so that could probably last the better part of a year. Not a bad offer from AOL’s perspective, if you rolled into a subscription lasting years.
jqubed@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I seem to remember our first disks/discs coming in with 5 free hours. That might’ve even been included with a Packard Bell we bought.
bulwark@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Yeah, I guess if they would have framed it as one month free it wouldn’t sound as good. I remember using it and completely ignoring everything but the actual Internet. Trolling on AIM back in the day was pretty fun.
InvalidName2@lemmy.zip 2 months ago
And I’m guessing enough boomers DID subscribe for years to make it worth it, if my anecdotal experience is anything close to normal.
grue@lemmy.world 2 months ago
I now blame AOL for more than I had previously considered.
Look up the phrase “eternal September.”
groucho@lemmy.sdf.org 2 months ago
For a while, if you were broke, you got as much internet as you wanted as long as you left the registration screen open and the modem connected…
SpaceNoodle@lemmy.world 2 months ago
hahaha
Kaput@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Trinitron display!? Those thing were top quality.
grue@lemmy.world 2 months ago
Those things are still top quality, for retrogamers looking for authenticity in how the pixel art in their old games gets rendered. High-quality CRTs need to be found a good home, not discarded.
dan@upvote.au 2 months ago
Working ones are getting harder to find (and thus more expensive) and are impractical for a lot of people.
At least CRT shaders have come a long way (in particular, RetroCrisis has some fantastic ones for RetroArch: github.com/RetroCrisis/Retro-Crisis-GDV-NTSC) so we can at least make retro games look more CRT-like.
stephen@lazysoci.al 2 months ago
I had one of those bad boys for years. It was the best.