[soseng]

It's so easy to bait me with this nostalgia. There is something mysterious and enjoyable about dialing-in or connecting to a server in the unknown. During those days, many things were not easily discoverable which added to the fun.

For a brief time, this extended to the early internet with IRC servers. I spent most of my early teenage years downloading warez, .wav music files, and trying not to be a n00b on #c while asking n00b questions

Now that I am an old man, I wonder what today's youth do that is equivalent to this fun nerdy culture? Maybe I can partake, LOL.

[giancarlostoro]

They do it on Discord now, witch their crackling voices on full display in Voice Chats. I was on an Arch Linux discord and one kid hopped in with a voice changer (was maybe 15) because he didnt want people to make fun of him for being a squeeker.

[esafak]

I don't remember a .wav era. Roughly speaking, there was .mid, .mod, .mp3

[bombcar]

I remember a period of time where my computer was too slow to play MP3 but it could play WAV files. So I'd process a song from MP3 or similar to WAV and play it that way.

Not sure why I bothered, really.

[amatecha]

yeah, I sought out 96kbps mp3s because I could listen to those and still use my computer without too much lag. 128kbps was enough to really bog things down lol >_<

[bombcar]

My first foray into Linux was because it could burn a CD without errors (when reniced) while doing other things; the same computer under Windows had to be absolutely left alone when burning or it would make a coaster.

Kids these days with their multitasking and interfaces!

[amatecha]

Oh wow I totally forgot about that -- leaving the computer alone while burning a CD because even the slightest action might render your burned CD a coaster! Actually, that period lasted quite a while, as I remember quitting programs to reduce issues when burning even in WinXP... lol

[hecanjog]

I remember folks trading u-law or a-law compressed wavs before mp2 and mp3 and the perceptual codecs started to take over.

[drob518]

Indeed. Ah, the thrill of a 300 baud modem! :-)

[sanderjd]

I worry that the sad truth is that there isn't anything similar for "kids these days". But hopefully there is something fun and deep like this for the youths in the AI world that I'm just too old to know about.

[woleium]

is it still roblox and or minecraft?