Question Weekend Question: How Did You Learn About Tech Before the Internet?

[SHaines]

Greetings!

We're kicking off our Question of the Week series today with a look back in time. In the days before the Internet put everything at your fingertips, what was your go-to method for learning about the latest tech?

My absolute favorite thing in the world was to get the Sunday San Jose Mercury News and go through the ads for places like Fry's Electronics and Circuit City. They had some glossy catalogs that described magical new tech that I could never afford (being about 11) but I still pored over every item to learn all that I could.

So, how did you scratch the tech itch in the olden days?

 

[getochkn]

PC magazines in which I would type out all the code at the back for the game of the month, spend another day debugging where I missed a semicolon, play it, then shut down my PC and loose it because I couldn't afford a tape drive for storage at the time.

 

[SamirD]

Computer shopper and other magazines--I would read about 2-3hrs a day of articles--many of which I didn't understand until years later.

3com faxback system and other company faxback systems. We had a fax machine so this was as close to today's instantly getting a pdf spec sheet off a website.

 

[Frag Maniac]

I would make use of the local public library, as well as asking a repairman here and there. By doing that I was able to get my hands on tech manuals for my vehicle, various electronic devices, etc. I repaired a friend of my neighbor's ghetto blaster after he trashed it in a fit of rage losing at a game of pool one night. I did everything from buy and adjust a new tape head, and even repaired broken screw pillars and torn speaker cones. I brought it to him one night and when he heard that it sounded good as new, he couldn't believe it.

We now live in a world of over convenience and sheer laziness. ER rooms all over the place are inundated with people who have fallen flat on their faces, into maintenance access holes, and even walked straight into traffic because they were preoccupied with their beloved cell phones. We are now faced with a global pandemic in the corona virus, and we'll be lucky if they can get it under control because people are basically idiots anymore.

 

[NightHawkRMX]

Wait, there was a time without the internet? -GenZ

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

I worked at comp USA , so everything was FREE. Knowledge and products.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

Wait, there was a time without the internet? -GenZ

Yeah, it was called ARPANET, and it was the shiznit, what with no email, http://, DNS, or early on IP/TCP. We had Archie, Veronica, Jughead, Gopher, USENET. Fun for the whole family!

 

[USAFRet]

Yeah, it was called ARPANET, and it was the shiznit, what with no email, http://, DNS, or early on IP/TCP. We had Archie, Veronica, Jughead, Gopher, USENET. Fun for the whole family!

Don't forget AOL/CompuServe/Prodigy.

 

[boju]

Swap meets and magazines.

This topic made me reminisce the dialup days and the alienating sound the modem made.

 

[SOlidwire]

BBS and trade mags early on... Worked at CONNECT Computer Corp from the late 1980's through the late 1990's and created a web from these activities.

 

[Karadjgne]

My dad was a cockpit instrument engineer, one of a few outside the US certified to work on 'black box' circuitry at the time, so I was always inundated with 'gadgets' like Simon, Pong, rc cars and high end stereo equipment. Also one of the first Vic20 pc's with a Casio tape recorder in the country, which took 15 minutes to load up Spaced Invaders.

Fast forward a few years and multiple hand held ancient lcd games, and landed a job at Radio Shack.
Which led to the discovery of BBS, where I had a few actual conversations with Tom, and multiple hours of doing nothing but reading bulletins about others discoveries and interests.

When not playing the latest versions of Starwars like X-Wing vs Tie online via modem-modem direct addressing.

Then came Windows 95, AOL and Netscape, and the rest is history

 

[DookieDraws]

I bought computer mags, or browsed through them in my local book stores, or the various other stores these type of magazines were sold. I would also visit RadioShack and Circuit City, once those stores came to town.

My best friend built his first custom PC back in the early 90s, and I'd say that's when I also became more interested in tech, especially computer-related tech.

 

[COLGeek]

The local and school libraries were great sources for tech info when I grew up. When I could buy my own reading material, it was Computer Shopper and every rag known to geekdom at the bookstore. Many were kept on a porcelain shelf in my "reading room" to be read many, many times (sorry for the TMI).

The computer bug struck me VERY early on, while in the 3rd grade, when selected for an educational program (2 girls and a boy...me) during the 1971-72 school year. Several moves and schools later, I was re-infected in 1980, when I took a computer science class during my senior year of high school. By the second semester, I was teaching an extra class as a student. The "knack" had kicked in, much of the things learned via the MANY books and magazines I perused over the span of those years.

I didn't purchase my own personal computer until 1988, when MrsGeek and I bought a Tandy 1000 TL at the Nurnberg PX in Germany. It was a beast.

BBSes, Compuserve, Bitnet, AOL, and Prodigy were all used until the Interwebs became a thing.

I still read computer magazines. A favorite is Linux Format.

 

[Phillip Corcoran]

From PC magazines --- I bought every one I could find each month and read them over a coffee at Costa Coffee Shop!

 

[Wolfshadw]

Ok. Now I'm getting nostalgic:

View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pGvshhzqUE

This was how I learned about BBS. If you got stuck playing this game, you hit up the BBS to get you through.

-Wolf sends

 

[derekullo]

Before 2000 I was more interested in Diablo 2 than tech.

I started high school in 2000 and started playing Diablo 2 with kids at school.

Then disaster struck and my computer broke ... probably bad power supply but it wasn't as glaringly obvious as it would be now.

I ran around school frantically asking if anyone knew how to fix computer stuff !!!!
Embarrassing videos didn't exist back then due to the iphone not being invented till 2007.

Eventually I found a Techy and they were able to fix the computer / replace the power supply.

I distinctly remember searching for power supplies on Ask Jeeves.
Fancy Butler > Anything else

In my search for power supply information I eventually stumbled upon Tom's Hardware.

And so to protect me from any future threats to my gaming I became a Techy myself

My story is pretty much the definition of "Necessity is the mother of invention"

 

[sobakowa19]

Greetings!

We're kicking off our Question of the Week series today with a look back in time. In the days before the Internet put everything at your fingertips, what was your go-to method for learning about the latest tech?

My absolute favorite thing in the world was to get the Sunday San Jose Mercury News and go through the ads for places like Fry's Electronics and Circuit City. They had some glossy catalogs that described magical new tech that I could never afford (being about 11) but I still pored over every item to learn all that I could.

So, how did you scratch the tech itch in the olden days?

I worked at circuit city back in the late 90's as my first job. The "nerds" there not only taught me about alcohol and vagina but introduced me to the world of PC's... ive been like a crack addict for anything electronic since.

 

[Phaaze88]

[The Question]
Me: Uhh... I didn't. I was into consoles and aquariums before then.
It started for me after I bought an HP Pavilion 17 well over 10 years ago, for ~1700USD, to play WoW on. It wasn't until May of 2012 that I would build my first PC.

 

[CountMike]

Tech stores mainly in Toronto,Ont, CA. about PC computers but I was always interested in tech and I'm electro-mechanical engineer specializing in machine controls and automatic controls so everything came naturally.
Made my own semi autonomic robot (small child size ) at 16 but lost some interest until university, late '60s.

 

[RTV-5]

I ran a BBS (=Bulletin Board Sysem via dialup modem to dialup modem) and when we really got things going in the 80's and 90's we started carrying multiple nodes and mail networks such as FIDONET; You could leave 'mail' on your local BBS (avoiding long distance tolls) and then either immediately or based on a schedule your local BBS would "toss" and then transfer all messages gathered locally and from downstream (other nodes (BBSs)) to an upstream node. Eventually these messages would be carried on all nodes of that particular network and/or also directly to the person that the message was addressed to. That person could reply, etc. These networks would carry varoius 'topics' (think forums) and there would be both public and private mail withinthese networks. It was possible to transfer information in this manner and files as well. In my opinion it was a more secure method of commmunication than the internet, It was also very interesting and also challenging to set these networks up efficiently while also avoiding the pitfalls of the telco and long distance telephone call fees. All of this was done over telephone lines and in some rare instance "packet radio' (ammateur radio based BBS's which actually used radio think wifi over tremendous distances but at a 'slower than a snail's pace 300-1200mbps) (If you think your DSL is slow then you might be 'spoiled rotten!) We carried all manner of 'email' and 'file archives' and if you were lucky you would have a BBS within your local dialing area. Great fun. The internet is rather bland and sterile in comparison but its definately the type of environment that we were working towards back then, i.e. multi node and more than just one person online at the same time. With poor multitasking environments, volunteer supported hosts and expensive operating environments this was often a challenge to make happen. But really, it was a blast and you really got the picture that the world was a much bigger place than it is now. (I remember the day I uppgraded one of my 2400 baud modems to a Practical Peripherals PM9600SA 9600 baud modem. I still have that beauty!) (Hopefully I'm not the only person who remembers the 300 baud accoustic coupler!)

PS I do remember the Computer Shopper, oh how one could just get lost in that 'magazine'. And friends were also important sources of information and especially 'technical information'. If you got stuck on a probelm or you didn't know how to accomplish something then you were on your own until you could get a reply through FIDONET (days or weeks) or a friend that you could get in touch with. But rarerly was there information at your fingertips like there is now.

 

[Endre]

I was asking questions to the personnel of PC stores.

Also, heard about certain things from friends.

 

[Olle P]

I would go to the magazines section at my local library.
But honestly I was rarely that interested in knowing the very latest but more into knowing the basics, so reading books was the way for me to know more.

 

[Archaic59]

Not before the internet but....Everyone was playing Quake deathmatch online. I bought a Packard Hell Pentium 100 with 14.4 modem and added a Diamond 3D 4 meg video card and joined the slideshow on Quake servers. I remember buying a Monster 3D card. Quake in open GL was very satisfying. Message boards were full of players talking about building their own computer and others comparing builds. I'd shuffle furiously through the newspaper to find the Fry's add, discarding the rest of the sections as worthless. Often I'd go to Fry's just to look at the pc parts section to see what people were buying. I never looked at prebuilds. I wanted to build my own from the beginning. Eventually I did and never looked back. I still have my Quake shareware and Worldcraft CD's.

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

Wow, well, it all started when my dad brought home our 386 and I started learning from him. Then we got a 486 and by that time I was 10 or so and started getting hands on with hardware configurations. I read manuals, took electronics electives in school, met a lot of people that I swapped knowledge with, and ZD Net had a channel on Satellite TV. I learned a BUNCH from watching Leo Laporte and other stuff on there. In the beginning it was all to play games, but by the end of those first few years I had a real love of hardware. I inherited my father's old 486, then I got the 200 MHz K6, then finally built my own K6-2 500MHz based system. All the while I was doing anything and everything to upgrade hardware along the way. RAM, cache, HDD, video cards, sound cards, controller cards, disk drives, and whatever else I could get my hands on for cheap or free. I'd swap them out, identify problems, fix problems, and do it all over again. Troubleshooting was a game, in many ways it still is for me. I'd go to the dump and pick up old computers that were thrown out, fix them up and at one point had about 17 systems ranging from 286 based IBM all in ones to Pentium II systems, all in various states of operational status. Most of the time most of them were working.

At the same time I was also learning about electronics in the Ham Radio community. While most were playing around with BBS over telephone, I was playing around with communication over radio. My father had a subscription to CQ Magazine and I soaked that stuff up like a sponge as well.

Not having the internet didn't actually hamper me at all looking back on it. It wasn't until 1997 that we got our first dial-up connection. At that point all I cared about was looking at Star Trek fan sites, reading about games, and the eternal quest for lewd images. Heck, looking for computer information on the internet didn't cross my mind until 2001 or so. Everything before that was out of a book, hands on, talking with friends, or ZDTV.

 

[slash3]

Manuals, magazines, technical texts (for things like computing concepts), email/usenet groups, dial-up BBS services and last, but not least, asking other people questions.

That said, there's a lot that was learned by simple trial and error, or logical problem solving.

 

[sc2lines]

It all started with a Commodore 64........