[wDcBKgt66V8WDs]

I grew up with AIM and remember, even before AIM, the AOL CDs stockpiled in my house. They were quite handy as coasters and lids to wine glasses in the summer when the fruit flies came out. My parents still have some lying around for those purposes, not at all the classiest solutions but free and better than the landfill? There isn't even a CD drive in that house anymore.

More on topic, AIM as something to grow up with was ehhh. I kind of wish it didn't exist so I would have been more forced to push my parents to drive me to friends houses instead of hogging the family computer. Today I feel like the modern equivalents are probably Discord+Fortnite/Minecraft/whatever on personal machines which from my armchair looks a lot better from a social perspective.

[daveslash]

Before there were AOL CDs, there were AOL Floppy disks. There were gold to me. I had no money to buy floppies and I had stuff that I wanted to, uh, save. I think I still have an AOL Floppy in the original shrink-wrap somewhere.

[heymijo]

14.4 Kbps modem...sneak downstairs after bed, hold pillows over computer to muffle the modem's screeching, set one (1!) picture to download over night, set alarm to wake up before everyone else, find connection died and only downloaded top third of the picture.

Rinse and repeat until I finally had something worth, uh, saving on a floppy disk.

[daveslash]

A fun (troll) use that I had for an AOL CD... I borrowed a CD from a friend in high school. It was their favorite CD, but we were friends so they lent it to me. When it was time to return the CD to my friend...I took an AOL CD, ground it into the dirt, held a lighter to one side, shattered it, and then scotch taped it back together. When I "returned" my friend's favorite CD, I gave them AOL CD shiny-side up. After a short (fewer than 5 second) freak-out, I returned my friend's favorite CD in pristine condition. I was a bit of a jerk, but they took it in good humor.

[asdfman123]

> AIM as something to grow up with was ehhh. I kind of wish it didn't exist so I would have been more forced to push my parents to drive me to friends houses instead of hogging the family computer

So I was young enough to not know a time before instant messaging as I graduated from high school in 2005. Are you saying that I'm missing out because I never knew what it was like to not have AIM constantly at my fingertips?

Because I see kids today are absolutely missing out because they never have to be bored and make their own fun.

[reaperducer]

lids to wine glasses in the summer when the fruit flies came out

Are fruit flies not able to fly through the big hole in the middle of the CDROM?

[wDcBKgt66V8WDs]

Little late here but some masking tape