More Tech Nostalgia

Tech nostalgia

Mashable recently posted an article on ‘tech nostalgia’ and as the name might suggest this comprised a list of technological sights, sounds and experiences that send us back to tech-times gone by.

Great though the list is, it leaves me wanting more, and there are a whole range of other things that came to mind while I read it, so here are some more technological highlights from times gone by that some of you may remember…

The Spectrum Loading Noise

If you’re old enough to have owned a ZX Spectrum then there’s no way you’ll have forgotten the horrendous screeching noise that you had to endure before loading any game or software. Combined with the scrolling multi-coloured lines this was practically a form of cruel and unusual torture. And sometimes this would last over 5 minutes

Windows 95 Loading Sound

There are various loading jingles for different Windows products throughout the years, but the Win95 loading sound, and the loading screen for that matter, have a particularly iconic place in history.

Nokia Mono Ringtones

I nearly added polyphonic ringtones here, but even before those mono ring tones ruled the roost. And because everyone had a Nokia these little chirps with obscure names like ‘persuasion’ were everywhere. I always used the spy-esque one and even now hearing it sends me back to receiving texts from the girl I fancied at the time (and leaping across the room to get to my phone).

Animated GiFs

For a while it seemed like most websites consisted of a selection of GiFs that kids had collected in a nice vertical strip. I think the one I saw most regularly was Pikachu being buzz-sawed by a Pokeball…

Marquees

This was about the first thing that anyone learned in HTML, and so they were used on practically every page on the entire internet. That’s probably the reason you don’t see them any more. Heck, I don’t know if they still even work

SEGA

I don’t mean the company, I mean the little chant at the beginning of Sonic games. ‘Seeeegaaaa’. I love that they’ve brought it back.

Chip’s Challenge

The Mashable list pointed to SkiFree as Microsoft’s best free Windows game, but my personal favourite was always Chip’s Challenge â?? a top down puzzle game that challenged you to collect keys. I loved it because I wasn’t allowed a games console and this was the closest thing I had to a real computer game for a long time. Those are my personal demons though.

BonziBuddy

I seem to be the only person who remembers this weird purple Gorilla that got forcefully installed on my computer when I installed Kazaa. The idea was that Bonzi would help you surf the web while telling jokes, singing songs and helping to manage downloads. Essentially he was a piece of adware, but his likeable appearance seemed to make the pill a bit sweeter to swallow for some people (not me â?? I hated BonziBuddy).

Habbo Hotel

Apparently Habbo hotel is still going and from the looks of things it hasn’t changed one bit in decades either. However it’s still a blast from the past visiting this online chat-hotel that’s basically internet dating for kids… Isn’t that… really messed up?

Snake

As I included the ring tones, we shouldn’t forget Nokia’s most significant contribution to the world â?? the original Snake. This game is to phone games what ‘Pong’ is to PC games, a classic that will never be forgotten.

The Tetris Music

Ah the original Tetris music surely must be one of the most classic game jingles in the world. Amazingly addictive, but oddly absent from apps and remakes this sends you right back to throwing your brick-shaped Gameboy across the room… Ah, good times…

Games That Came on Twenty Floppy Disks

One of the most lovable things about floppy disks was that they could hold barely any data. Even back then games like ‘Space Quest’ would come on several disks and require regular swapping. Oh, and who can forget the joy of having to type words by page, paragraph and line number to prove you hadn’t copied the games?

The article is contributed by Jeet, founder of link-building company GetLinksPro and tech enthusiast. He frequently writes guest post on SEO and tech. To get all updates on his work, articles and SEO latest trends, you can follow him on twitter @getlinkspro.

 

Image from: Posterize / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

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