Read on Twitter
IRC/phpBB/Jabber then, Telegram/GitHub/WhatsApp now https://twitter.com/ExtraSmallRobin/status/1284601959526342657
A cousin of mine maintained a fork of Guppy, a phpBB alternative. I used broken English on javagaming dot org to coordinate with Americans — we pushed our code to Sourceforge via SVN. Pidgin was relevant, non-tech friends were hanging out on MSN.
As a teen I probably grabbed freeglut over FTP and built it more times than I played football. I wrote music on a Win95 laptop and copied MIDI files onto a floppy to show them to my piano teacher!
Before I got a CD burner (remember using K3B & Brasero?) I remember receiving early Ubuntu releases (8.04 maybe?) in the mail. I'd lend it to friends who would in turn try to convert me to Slackware.
I got detention a bunch of times for programming on my TI-89 in maths class. The teacher got halfway off my back when I showed him what I was up to. I think apart from games I was working on a problem solver - I figured, less homework this way!*
*it was actually a lot more work
*it was actually a lot more work
The first computer I assembled was paid with the money one of my dad's coworker gave me in exchange for Office suite coaching. I think towards the end she was less into computer training and more into just talking about random stuff but hey, that computer lasted me years!
Before computers, my dad let me play with a Minitel - but offline, to avoid excessive phone bills.
I tried forever to get anything interactive going, and eventually just used it to do ASCII* art.
*probably wasn't ASCII
I tried forever to get anything interactive going, and eventually just used it to do ASCII* art.
*probably wasn't ASCII
Eventually my dad got a PC running DOS - an Olivetti 286. It was quite an investment, for him to learn to use accounting and office software. For me, well, I discovered shareware.
I had to wait until we got a 486-DX2 to play Jazz Jackrabbit: Holiday Hare (1995). But it was worth the wait!
I liked the Turbo button a lot, even though it broke some games. I just figured everything was better with Turbo, I just needed to get better.
I liked the Turbo button a lot, even though it broke some games. I just figured everything was better with Turbo, I just needed to get better.
The first graphics card I bought myself, specifically for gaming, was a GeForce 2 MX400. It was obsolete already but that's all my savings could get me - and it got me into 3D stuff.
3D stuff like... Cube! And Blender (you think the UI is confusing now? haha). And I never owned a PlayStation or a Nintendo 64, but an older kid graciously let me "borrow" his copy of Bleem!
I got into 3D dev too, got into the JOGL vs LWJGL holy war. I always forgot where to put native libraries in the .jar so JNI would find them.
I ended up working on OneClick, a Java Application Packager (I was 17!) https://sourceforge.net/projects/oneclick/
I ended up working on OneClick, a Java Application Packager (I was 17!) https://sourceforge.net/projects/oneclick/
It wasn't all about 3D stuff though - when I wasn't switching back and forth between Eclipse and NetBeans, there was plenty of time to calm the nerves with a game of Interactive Buddy (RIP Flash golden age..)
What about music? Well, after years of juggling cassettes and CDs, my dad got ahold of an old Creative Zen Jukebox - when everyone else had iPods.
Someone brought an Archos to school, which could do video, and he instantly became the coolest dude ever.
Someone brought an Archos to school, which could do video, and he instantly became the coolest dude ever.
