When I was like 11 or so, we had a company called EarthLink for Internet, and when we tried to cancel one month because we were broke, they gave us 3 months free. After the third time of that happening we realized we didn’t have to pay for Internet anymore, and spent the money on a second phone line instead.
How would it start ringing? Wouldn’t the caller get a busy signal?
If you had call waiting, it would beep on the line which might fuck up your internet connection but it wouldn’t cause a phone to ring in another room, right?
If you wanted to play what is basically a LAN game today, you would have your modem directly call your friend’s modem for only the cost of the phone call. We did this for Doom “deathmatches”.
You could dial into a server for multiplayer but you would typically have to pay for that access because the server’s owner was paying for fancy multi-line service that could handle all the connections at once.
Ah, OK. Street lights weren’t a good indicator for time when I grew up. I live too far north. Street lights would turn on at 1400 in the winter and never in the summer. That’s why I was gifted a wristwatch when I was 8 or so.
That’s still a thing in the city & country towns with closely nit housing. Sure, these days most can just check their phone for the time, but not every kid has a smartphone, which is a good thing.
Millennial, Zillennials and GenZ had this rule, it’s only just started dying out with Gen Alpha.
A wire coat hanger shoved into the back of the TV to get it working
Going next door to borrow the phone because you’ve been downloading something all day and didn’t want to lose it
Being hyper aware of the current status of the street lights in summer evenings
Sprinting to the kitchen yelling “don’t pick up the phone!” when it starts ringing, for the same reason.
OMG, yes!
When I was like 11 or so, we had a company called EarthLink for Internet, and when we tried to cancel one month because we were broke, they gave us 3 months free. After the third time of that happening we realized we didn’t have to pay for Internet anymore, and spent the money on a second phone line instead.
It. Was. Glorious.
How would it start ringing? Wouldn’t the caller get a busy signal?
If you had call waiting, it would beep on the line which might fuck up your internet connection but it wouldn’t cause a phone to ring in another room, right?
If you wanted to play what is basically a LAN game today, you would have your modem directly call your friend’s modem for only the cost of the phone call. We did this for Doom “deathmatches”.
You could dial into a server for multiplayer but you would typically have to pay for that access because the server’s owner was paying for fancy multi-line service that could handle all the connections at once.
Could you please explain the one with the street lights for me?
Kids were out all day, with the only rule of being home when the street lights came on
Ah, OK. Street lights weren’t a good indicator for time when I grew up. I live too far north. Street lights would turn on at 1400 in the winter and never in the summer. That’s why I was gifted a wristwatch when I was 8 or so.
That’s still a thing in the city & country towns with closely nit housing. Sure, these days most can just check their phone for the time, but not every kid has a smartphone, which is a good thing.
Millennial, Zillennials and GenZ had this rule, it’s only just started dying out with Gen Alpha.
Lol I think gen x had this rule. And probably even boomers.
CRT TV shitty DIY antenna
AOL
Playing outside pre-smartphone era. (Rule was still around for Zillennials & Gen Z.)
Come on, you can do better.