Chronicling the Nineties: Part 1

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It came to my attention, that, while there are plenty of people who lived through the nineties, not everyone has the same kinds of experiences with what was essentially a decade of technological revolution. A revolution that brought us to exactly where we are now, for better, or for worse, depending on who you ask. So, I figured it might be neat to write down my memories of the decade. Both, because there are people younger than me who apparently wish they lived this decade, and also because, my memories may not last forever.

I was born in the capitol of Pennsylvania, and I briefly lived in Miami, Florida as a toddler. From there, my family, who moved around a lot until about 1996 or 1997 (it’s foggy now), moved over to Little Silver, New Jersey. I spent most of the late eighties in this location, and another in NJ. My memories are brief and only flashes, but I remember: Horse-race tracks, a large wooden tube-television, my NES, Super Mario Bros (the game, and the eventual live-action in 1993), an Italian family we spent a lot of time with, their kids and their gas-powered dirt bike they drove around their backyard, The Goonies, our next-door neighbor who was a kid that I remember as the perfect personification of what you would image an eighties kid to be.

I remember playing pretend as if I was a Ninja Turtle, running down the driveway, into the street, and then someone else’s driveway, where I slammed my forehead into a side-view mirror and passed out. That was the first time I had stitches. The second time was when I fell flat on the gravel and cut open my hand to the point part of the muscle was sticking out. This was terrifying for me at the time!

I think we had a pet bird at some point, too, and with the aforementioned family, we also took road trips in a big blue van with wood on the side that you could use as a place to sleep. I don’t remember where we used to take those road trips to.

But then, after, I wanna say maybe three or four years, we moved back to Pennsylvania. Back to PA, to some kind of ferry town (Millersburg), where I remember the main attractions were, of course, the ferry, and a large Ames complex that was a precursor to the Walmart I believe is there now. This was about 1990 or 1991, and is exactly where my memories begin to be clearer.

Which is good. Because these blog posts are going to be about the nineties.

It was here that my Dad brought home the first computer we ever had. A thing that predates the 386 by quite a few years, if I recall. It was a tan box that only did DOS. A primitive version of DOS with green text and menus that looked like something customized specifically for that machine. It definitely wasn’t Windows 3.1, or Windows at all. But I do remember watching the very first installation of Windows 3.1, and the informational videos that would play during the install process.

Which took hours.

But he had the big eight inch floppy discs we slapped into the “B” drive, and he borrowed quite a few from the neighbor in the cul de sac, some of which I remember not working. Either because the neighbor had a different kind of PC, or a Mac. Computers were much more complicated back then, because they all needed different drivers, and you had to manually select IRQ numbers for soundcards and so on and so forth.

My Dad used it to communicate with people over BBS that he’d dial into, and I used it to play, I believe, a text adventure Twilight Zone DOS game that I can’t remember the name of. But it did have graphics of some sort to represent each “room” you navigated.

Then, after the Windows install, there was Wolfenstein, Commander Keen, Doom, and Whacky Wheels.

I remember clearly that I’d be rushing home from school, just to play Wolfenstein 3D.

I also remember sitting up late at night with the glow of my night light in the room, as I hallucinated the demon skulls from Doom entering my room. That was … horrifying.

I remember when Jurrasic Park was brand new, and this kid at school would hum the theme tune from the opening credits, and the girl who, after I asked if she’d be my 3rd or 4th grade girlfriend, told me I wasn’t her type!

Being a coke-bottled glasses kid, I wasn’t really what people considered anything other than a nerd. People hated nerds in the nineties.

This section of memories leaves off living in that same house, and the very first 3D chat software ever released, Worlds Chat, and the one time my Dad let me use it.

I think Worlds is why I’m so intrigued by Second Life, today, in modern society.

But, I chose my avatar, I recall that clearly as some kind of boy with a Hawaiian shirt, and I navigated the rooms available to users to see (which, I think, still look the same today, if you download the app). It was like Doom or Ken’s Labyrinth type graphics, except the sprites moving around in front of you were other people, and they were chatting in a little box.

The reason I was only ever allowed to “play” it once, is because, while I was exploring, with my Dad sitting behind me watching, an adult user, a man who must have figured out that I was just a little kid, followed me around, and when I was alone he turned to me and asked me if I liked men, along with some lewd questions I don’t remember all-too-clearly anymore. I was very young at the time, so I didn’t really understand what was going on, or why this guy was asking me these questions. Especially because my Dad ripped the keyboard out of my hands and typed a flurry of messages I don’t think I ever saw. But that was the last time I was ever allowed to log onto Worlds Chat, and it would be something that I would remember, forever. Both as me, being able to experience the first 3D online software that allowed user communication, and my first experience with an online predator.