I see your nostalgia and raise you this:

Computer class in high school back then for me was treating them as glorified typewriters. I fooled around with some VBScript as that’s all we had available (I was very fortunate my grade school teacher taught us LOGO) and I managed to script kiddy my way into admin access for the internet filter for my friends so we could play stuff on Newgrounds. My career advisor told me to get a science degree because there was no future in computers, haha.

Computer lab day!

Yes and no.

Computers and computer systems weren’t so much enshittified back in those days.

But the bulk CRT screens, I don’t miss those…

By the way, at those times almost every screen had one of those stupid placebo ‘glare filters’ . I don’t miss those either.

Computers were still exciting. And hadn't been enshitified.

I remember essentially turning a BASIC prompt into a spinning, geometric rave decoration back in 5th grade, and thinking it was the coolest shit ever, but really… it was all about Math Blaster and The Oregon Trail in the years up to that point, and for several years later.

And yes, I'd go back in a heartbeat.

Don't they still use computers in schools?

Yes, computers were fun and exciting. Now they just suck.

Unless Linux. But even then it takes an effort to disable all the bloat and spyware bs in the bios.

The tech has evolved a lot. Especially in the FOSS area! And I am thankful for the progress. But along the way, the average culture is what I miss the most. Do I miss the very convoluted, fragile, non-standardized, and hard to configure hardware? Heehee naw.

This image is nostalgic because it recalls when personal computers were conceptually personal, even when they were public. New tech was fun and exciting.

Some of my fondest memories were easy LAN parties and collabing on XP-era machines in my 3D Studio MAX class. Also, computers didn't feel near-useless without an Internet connection.

It's been said before but bears repeating: "The Internet was a place." It didn't follow you everywhere, spy on you, sell you out. You weren't supposed to divulge your whole life to strangers, but somehow you still made new friends.

People logged in to hang out. Heck, know what I miss most? People seemed to have TIME to log in and hang out. Even busy people. These days I feel hurried to smash out a text message while in motion.

People made personal, expressive, whimsical websites for fun, and not just as a hopeful web-dev portfolio. The Internet was only about making money for tie-wearing squares; everyone else just did things for the fun of it.

I think that's what we miss. People were learning and using these miraculous machines that were capable of anything.

Now the machines are consumption-first appliances primarily aimed to drain your wallet and personal information, and the people have gotten so dumb. Computer literacy dropped with all the rest of kinds of literacy, and I long to find a way to push against that tide...

In sixth grade we could rent the laptop brick for the weekend; it's where I played Police Quest 1.

In the early 90s I went to computer camp at Aldersgate in Rhode Island and we had a whole room in the retreat center for the TRS-80 Model 4's.

In university in 2000, nothing beat the networked computers with the cables running the ceiling in the metal trays.

Windows 95 in high school was peak though.

I miss youth and the sort of reckless abandon and constant sense of wonder. The easy friendships and stuff. The discovery of learning tech. The tech was cool and new and dramatic but our tech is def cooler now.

Things are pretty cool now too if you look for it. Sure there are problems but there have always been problems. I look for things to trigger my sense of wonder and it still feels amazing. Just harder to find cus I'm more experienced and well traveled or whatever.

I dunno I was a goofball kid working at tech then and I'm a goofball kid in a old body oggling tech now too :D

I used to love lifting my feet, putting one hand on the monitor screen, turning it off, and shocking the hell out of whoever was sitting beside me.

I miss most of all when the internet was the domain of nerds only. Us nerds are nicer than other people on average.

I miss not being exposed to every low IQ chode's trashcan opinions on social media. And I really miss not watching those low IQ chode's trashcan opinions influencing large numbers of other low IQ chodes into doing things like making a felon rapist pedophile our leader.

I miss computer time being something special.

Ah, the good old automatic information processing class lol.

Yes, comprehensible systems? Just enough to be very exciting? Positive energy? My youth? The music?

Uh, yes?

Playing Unreal Tournament and Duke Nuken 3D with everyone else in the lab.

I only miss running down the row and pressing the degauss button on every monitor.

Yes, but because it was completely pre-enshitification internet, with so much hope and promise to be something good for everyone.

Yes. Although, more than the technology or the culture, I probably miss being a kid with a bright future ahead of him...

I can smell this picture

I was more in team starfield and pipes and later flying toasters.

Despite having a very nostalgic soft spot for my 16-bit and 8-bit home computers, these labs do nothing for me. I worked in so many as an technician at a uni and in various other tech support roles in my 20s that these generic cream boxes leave me kinda cold. Give me an Amiga, an ST or even a ZX Spectrum any day. Probably cos I'm old AF 🤣

I miss the community of it. As with a lot of things having it at home seems easier and better but so much more lonely.

As someone who had to maintain school computers I will say with certainty that I don't miss those old ball mice.

I'll be honest I don't really miss a lab full of win95 shit boxes further crippled by net nanny. It was just a partial escape from the other abuses of middle and high school.

Hell no

I used to write the software to refresh and update student labs like that. There's nothing quite as satisfying as seeing the entire lab reboot simultaneously .. and nothing quite as frustrating as seeing all of them fail at the same point in the boot process .. thanks to Microsoft.

Proof: https://www.itmaze.com.au/articles/zen