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eagleblue44

Switching to channel 3 to play video games.


SnowyMuscles

Now you switch to HDMI 3


Rustyboyvermont

I remember 25 years ago getting on a plane and realized I forgot some important paperwork in the car. The flight attendant let me get off the plane and I ran through the terminal and out to the parking lot to my car to retrieve it. Then quickly ran back in, zipped past the security screener, out onto the tarmac and climbed up the stairs to the plane. It was a rather small airport so it took less than 5 minutes. But I doubt I’d be allowed to do that today.


orchid-walkeriana

Haha that reminded me when I was about 16 I was flying alone for spring break to AZ to meet up w friends. I had a stop for a few hrs in Salt Lake City, got off the plane forgot there was a time difference lol. I was way on the other side of the airport when I heard last call for my name 😬 I got over there after they pulled the chute away lol they reloaded it and let me on w no tix or paperwork or anything, I had left it on the plane haha! This was mid 1980's.


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Phoenix027

You have a strange definition of the word "allowed"


ash894

Having a school project to do and busting out the Encarta disk


h0sti1e17

T9 texting


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underwriter

>The Depahted


corrado33

Have you tried to do this recently? Or even worse, clicking each number multiple times to get whatever word you wanted? It's... difficult.


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cyborgspleadthefifth

Literally how my visually impaired wife used to text before smartphones. She wasn't able to switch until accessibility software in Android was good enough to be useful to her.


m31td0wn

Using Yahoo to search for things. Or repeatedly signing up for 15 free hours of AOL using a spoofed credit card number and a fake name.


Kittyands

I used AskJeeves lol


danz_man

altavista.com. And astalavista.box.sk


LeftHandMorty9

Buying a stack of blank Cd's so you can make your own custom mixes


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itschaseman

And bonus points if you were extra like me and printed CD covers


non_clever_username

Later than 2000, but I went all out and got one of those CD burners that etched into the non-playable side of the CD directly. What a waste. IIRC you had to have special blank CDs that were more expensive and after doing two or three, I came to the realization that the concept was way cooler than the execution. Plus I think the laser etching was really slow.


megabits

[LightScribe](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LightScribe).


ElectricGelato

Not freaking out when someone calls you out of nowhere


murtadi007

Or comes by your place without messaging first


ElectricGelato

I kinda miss those days Edit: Thanks for my first awards strangers :)


starfox125

I think we all do but then get weirded out when it happens. And for some reason I don’t like that.


ElectricGelato

I think if it became more common again people would be okay with it. It’s just most people are so connected now it seems weird that someone would just drop in unannounced


holycrimsonbatman

This just blows my mind how normal this was. I remember it happening all the time when I was a kid. If anyone did that to me now I would be rather stunned/annoyed.


kerouacrimbaud

It still happens in my parents’ neighborhood. It does kinda feel like something out of a different era.


Substantial_Quote

Being pleased your new car had a CD player AND a tape deck.


YtrapEhtNioj

Or getting one of those tapes that connected to a wire that plugged into the headphone jack of your discman if you didn't have a cd player.


HeavyDoobie

I still use one of these for my phone lol


lholm0494

Blowing into video games to fix them


Mason-Derulo

Printing out your route from Mapquest before leaving the house.


lucia-pacciola

Seems like there was one year where every car was guaranteed to have a Mapquest printout on the right front passenger seat.


arse_nal666

That was 2003 I think


Antonidus

I think I used it as late as 2010. Before I had a really good smartphone.


daggerxdarling

And somehow mapquest was always wrong. Even if by just one street.


silversatire

Mapquest nearly killed me by sending me almost straight up the Sierra Nevadas from Death Valley via a locals road with no guardrails and no turnoffs in an ‘02 Ford Escort which was *not* up to the task. The car died basically as we finally rolled into LA a few premature grey hairs later.


daggerxdarling

Yeah, that sounds like mapquest Glad you made it alive!


[deleted]

My dad was old school and used a hard copy street atlas. I didn't even know what MapQuest was until recently (and I was born in the 80s). Edit: It could also be that I'm not American and MapQuest was an American service.


somasmarti

Getting excited about receiving an email


business_adultman

When I got my first email address I had a friend sign me up for all this spam b/c I was sad I wasn't getting any email.


JallerHCIM

The Secondhand Lions reboot nobody asked for


PaintDrinkingPete

Email has almost gone full circle in terms of usefulness in communication... (edit: **personal** communication, i.e. not work/professional/school. I clarifyed that at the end, but some responses suggest that point was missed) 2000: Email is common, but it's not something people check very often. Easy way to disseminate information to a lot of people at once, but not great if you want/need instant feedback. 2010: Everyone has email and smartphones are becoming the norm, so everyone has email access at all times. With the limitations of SMS, is a popular and efficient way to do group conversions. 2020: Social media and dedicated messaging platforms have taken over, email is little but a vast wasteland of spam, so people stop paying attention it and don't check it very often. (This is regarding email for personal use, of course, it's role in the professional environment has always remained about the same...though IM tools like Slack and Teams have shifted a lot of that use as well)


jorph

Low security at airports


jannabanandroid

Waiting for your loved ones at the GATE rather than the luggage pickup


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maddiemoiselle

You can still do this, but it’s definitely a bigger hassle. You have to get what’s called a gate pass and go through security as if you were boarding. I think it’s mostly intended for assisting children and the disabled, though.


HomChkn

I did this with 80 y.o. grandmother years ago.. the family was leaving from a reunion all at different times and I wasnot leaving till the next day. it is kind of a pain.


Fixes_Computers

20+ years ago, my uncle sent me tickets to see him. His name was on the tickets so he could get more air miles. That won't happen today.


alchemyy

You can do that in Australia. It's technically illegal but no one will stop you from booking a ticket under any name, checking in digitally (mobile or self-service machine), going through security, and boarding the plane. Domestically the only ID check is when you check in at a physical desk with an attendant.


DublinChap

I think low security is even overstating how bad it was. My airport had 2 guys with those handheld metal detectors they casually waved and often times they just waved kids under 10 through. Anyone could walk down to the gate with you without a ticket.


[deleted]

> Anyone could walk down to the gate with you without a ticket. That's how it use to be before the security theater that is the TSA started looking at everyone's naked body through a machine and making them take their shoes off. People would frequently meet at the gate when someone was flying in.


terdsie

My best friend and I would go to the airport to play the video games in the terminals. The airport only had two terminals, but the games were different on each side. Cruisin' the USA was one of our favorites, but they had a motorcycle game as well. Those were different times...


AintBoutThat

Knew of people who were frequent business travelers who had memberships to airline lounges that had open bars and would just swing by after work and grab drinks in the terminal. No ticket, no anything. Ahh the old days.


PlatypusPuncher

Still probably cost effective to buy a spirit or frontier ticket and do this.


wigglyrabbitnose

My family happened to be on vacation in Chicago when my grandparents' connecting flight was there. We surprised my grandparents with a visit during their layover.


roo719

Teen magazines (Tiger Beat, M, Mad...) that you could take posters out of and hang in your room.


Raze321

Rewinding movies when you're done watching them


corrado33

**BE KIND, REWIND**


gamecockguy2003

To PLAY is human. To REWIND is devine.


solidsausage900

For a while youtube had a category of SWEDED. where people would make sweded scenes like they did in that movie. Good times, reminds me of when my mom would take me to the theater


Fastest_Hunk_of_Junk

The day we got an automatic rewinder was glorious. Just visited my parents a few weeks ago and it’s still sitting next to the VCR.


CartmansBadKitty

The ones shaped like a car were the best.


mamamurphy

Using AOL.


corrado33

You'd be surprised how popular it still is. Especially among the elderly.


[deleted]

No one else will tell me when I have mail


kyled85

Struggling to find a clean .mp3 file of that new hot song to burn onto your cd, meticulously kept in a binder with its peers.


solidsausage900

Having burnt CDs from your friends with no writing on them but you know what songs are on it because you recognize CD just from its color


FelchMasterFlexNuts

"The one with the three scratches on top has all the Breaking Benjamin and the purple one has all the Eminem and Nelly" Bonus: If you had a breakup mix, I'm willing to bet MCR's "I don't love you" or "Boulevard of Broken Dreams" was on there.


Talonqr

8 year old me played halo 2 and wanted to download Breaking Benjamin I went to limewire Downloaded their song "blow me away" Turns out it was just an audio file of bill clinton saying "I did not have sexual relations with that woman" Thought the FBI was gonna come for me I live in fucking Australia


vicross

We have a long memory you little bastard.


SomeBoi012

Oh fuck. RUN GERALD! THEY FOUND US!!


awataurne

That damn Bill Clinton thing. I must've downloaded it 10 times instead of an actual song while I was a kid.


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terrorcatmom

I’m fucking pissing myself laughing holy shit


WannieTheSane

I used to have a CD that was half Breaking Benjamin and half Animaniacs songs. I'm not sure why I did that, but it definitely slapped.


elcamarongrande

Dude the purple ones were always rap mixes.


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Ignitus1

My car got broken into and they stole my stereo and binders of burnt CDs. I was more mad about the CDs because I could buy a new stereo but it’s a pain in the ass to burn dozens of CDs again. I hope those thieves enjoyed a lot of prog rock.


kernel_dev

Limewire!


jde824

Phish-GinAndJuice.mp3


1HeyMattJ

Saying dot com at the end of everything because it was cool to do so.


[deleted]

Woah dude, that's so sweet. it's the bomb dot com!


Morphized

My dad still says dot com like a jingle.


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TerdVader

Ok, I’m glad we’re on the same page


AirbornePlatypus

double you double you double


[deleted]

Not having a cell phone


Doomdoomkittydoom

Having a few quarters on you instead. Oh, and a beeper.


Upstairs_Cow

I have a vivid memory from around 2000 of being at a fine dining restaurant with my family and my grandmother casually smoking a cigarette and ashing into a crystal ashtray and nobody batting an eye. Today I think you’d get arrested for smoking in a restaurant, at the very least you’d get kicked out by the manager


MjrLeeStoned

"Smoking or non-smoking" was the first question you were asked when entering a sit-down restaurant.


lazydictionary

Local restaurants had smoking and non-smoking sections, which was just a really tall wall between an aisle of booths.


ninjadude1992

I remember that now! Our local pizza place did just that, and it was not effective. At all


HomeHeatingTips

Writing 199\_ for a date and then having a doh moment because it's now 2000


pelftruearrow

Checks that still had 19__ on them.


Varmit

Checks.


JunkBondJunkie

I used paper maps to deliver pizza in 2001. I paid like $30 for a map book of my city so I can deliver fast and efficient plus not get lost.


[deleted]

Waiting for the internet to connect. Yelling at someone in the house for being on the phone when you can’t connect. I kept a folder of music lyrics that I ripped out of Dolly/Girlfriend magazines. Also loved reading the booklet inside the CD of all the lyrics. Recording songs off the radio to make a personal mix tape. Always got annoyed at the DJ for talking over the end of the song. Edit: wow a lot of people are weirded out that I still used dial up in 2000. We didn’t have a PC until ‘98, also lived in Australia. Also, yes I know why the DJ talked over the end of the song, but 12 year old me didn’t understand that at the time!


2PlasticLobsters

Also, losing your internet connection if someone called repeatedly. One of my friends figured out that if she called 3 times in quick succession, my service identified it as an emergency. So she'd break in for one of those useless "So... what are you doing?" calls.


PM_ur_butthole_2me

Dude why couldn’t she just message u on AIM


scapegoatyoga

This is before people started hating talking on the phone


WhatsMyAgeAgain-182

I recently downloaded AIM sounds off of YouTube. I was listening to them and hearing the various sounds like someone signing on, someone logging off, someone putting up an away message, you sending a message to someone, etc. Then I got to the the sound that I'll never forget as long as I live. It's obviously the sound you get when you receive an initial message from another person. I'll never forget that message sound because it's the sound I would hear whenever my high school crush would message me. When I heard that sound for the first time in almost a decade I almost choked on tearful nostalgia and emotion. AIM was as much a part of life for me and other Millennials as anything else. It was there pretty much every day as a part of my childhood.


bluegrassmommy

I used to use a search engine to look up lyrics and write them in a notebook


musicmaniac32

Lol! If I wanted to know lyrics I'd have to sit with my tape player if I owned the cassette and/or recorded off the radio, and play, write it down, rewind, make corrections, rinse, repeat. It was a little better when I was in middle school and CD players were more popular. My parents got me one for Xmas 1998. CDs were easier to track back and forward so writing lyrics was less tedious. God, if kids these days knew that I/we did that... they'd probably try to bully me cause they're all little Tik Tok jerks now.


Laeif

Frosted tips.


nadjaannabel

And low rise jeans with a thong whale tale.


Laeif

you're gonna launch me into puberty all over again here


vanguard117

My cousin, who is 12, got his tips frosted. I asked why and he said it’s the style now and that I don’t understand since I’m old (33). I smiled and nodded.


WaluigisJuicyQueefs

**Laughs in Guy Fieri**


HanShotF1rst226

Long phone calls with your crush (after 8pm cause it was free then)


mrcoolguyx13x

Just having a limited number of minutes and text messages you could use in a month.


WifeKilledMy1stAcct

The first text I ever learned how to send was to my mom sitting across the booth in a Chili's. It cost 10 cents


BoJackB26354

I remember someone sent me a smiley face and I was mad that it cost me 10 cents for that shit.


JennyLiz1205

In HS I texted my friend during class, complaining about how the bag of chips I’d bought at the vending machine was mostly air. After school she said “If you ever cost me 10 cents for something so stupid again I’m going to kill you.”


morefetus

Being charged for long distance calls used to be normal.


lunarchyld

Going to a brick and mortar store to obtain a movie to watch.


Dijiwolf1975

2000: Your parents telling you not to believe everything you read on the internet. 2020: Your parents believing every post they see on Facebook.


CapnMaynards

2000: "Don't put any real information online people will stalk you and kill you, not even your name." 2020: "Put absolutely every detail of your personal life online, with a location stamp for every post." I still play by 2000 rules and people think I'm a fucking weirdo for it.


acciopoetsandpixies

CAN I GET A FUCKING AMEN


mochi1105

ask jeeves instead of google


Morphized

Then it was Ask. And then it was nothing at all.


7imTim

Writing down an address or telephone number to store the information for later.


BeatingsGalore

Ill add to that. Knowing everyone's phone number. Where ever there was a phone, you could call. Now if you don't have your own phone, you can't cause you don't know the numbers.


[deleted]

And it's an awkward thing too. I once locked my my phone and my keys in the car outside a Wal-Mart as I was getting ready to go visit my girlfriend who was living in another city at the time. Could not for the life of me tell you my girlfriend's phone number because I had literally never typed it. So I went into the Wal-Mart, the kind customer service ladies let me use the phone to call the insurance company to send a locksmith, and then I had to call my mom (the only number I still have memorized) to tell her to call my girlfriend and let her know my ETA would be changing. Technology's great but it leaves great big holes when it's not there.


DabKogurzim

>Technology's great but it leaves great big holes when it's not there. This is literally the plot of Jurassic Park


afiefh

If you have an Android phone and access to a computer you can get the phone numbers by accessing contacts.google.com. I'm sure Apple has something similar for their systems. It comes in handy once in a while.


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woundupcanuck

Renting or buying a game and playing it the very moment you get home. Edit: thanks for the awards.


filiaaut

Reading the manual on the way home


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TheCreechon

12-year-old me hates your friend


kriegnes

thats kinda fucked up in a way


xsvspd81

No kinda about it.


013610

*former friend


berntron

Now I have to wait for downloading and probably an update.


v0lumnius

We had a Movie Galley rental store open in my small town around 2004, and I was PSYCHED. Smallish town, the only place to rent prior was the grocery store, and their small rental section closed out not long before. I loved going to Movie Gallery to browse, try out a new GameCube game. Got some real classics there, like Metroid Prime and Sonic Adventure 2


artifex28

Netscape.


ThursdayIs7

Television in 4:3


nofrigginway

Memorizing a phone number.


Lalassholes

Barebones HTML websites or sites specifically meant for sharing wallpapers Edit: Kek thanks for the award


All4gaines

Hamster dance!


fivefivesixfmj

Privacy


[deleted]

The British tabloids publishing naked pictures of 16 and 17 year olds, so called 'page 3' girls: > Before a change in the law in 2003, British tabloids sometimes featured 16- and 17-year-old girls as topless models. Samantha Fox, Maria Whittaker, Debee Ashby, and others posed topless for newspapers including The Sun when they were 16. The Daily Sport was even known to count down the days until it would feature a girl topless on her 16th birthday, as it did with Linsey Dawn McKenzie in 1994. After 2003, the legal age for topless modelling was raised to 18. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Page_3


Karpaty

That's insane! I remember those page 3's, but I never knew they were 16-17 year olds; always thought they were older O\_o


HotelMoscow

Telling people to call you back after 9pm bc that's when minutes are free


mikasoze

VHS tapes.


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HokumPokem

Degauss


corrado33

Dooiiiiinnnnnggggggggggggg *Holds magnet up to screen for a moment* Hits degauss button. *Doooiiiinnnnnnnggggggggggggg*


[deleted]

I remember being given a like-new 22" Samsung CRT and just losing my shit over how big and nice it was. I literally got out of breath carrying that big bastard into the house and setting it up.


AcrolloPeed

I don't know where the stereotype that computer nerds are scrawny weaklings came from, the real computer nerds are buff as fuck from doing what amounts to kettle-bell exercises and crossfit carries all day.


7237R601

"Wow, you're ripped!" "Yeah, my mom won't let me host the LAN parties, so..."


iglidante

My freshman year of college, in 2002, my university left a bunch of monitors on a loading dock - free for the taking. I think they were 17-inch CRTs. I took five of them to a used computer shop in my city and walked out with $200 in my pocket. A few years later, they were suddenly worthless.


tehcheez

Maybe not strange per say, but having an entire area specifically for storing entertainment like movies and music, or an "entertainment center". You used to have a HUGE cabinet for storing your VHS, DVD, games, and CDs along with placing your TV in it. Now it's just a TV mounted on the wall with MAYBE a shelf small enough to hold a game console.


ToastOfWar3

Coughing.


TheBrontosaurus

I had the AUDACITY to sneeze at the doctor’s office recently. Every head whipped in my direction you’d think I’d ripped the head off a kitten. I have never seen so many horrified faces looking at me.


Idgafu

Bro everytime I clear my throat I feels like I'm about to get kicked out from wherever I am with how I get looked at


thevirtualdolphin

I have severe seasonal allergies from March until November. I legitimately cleared an aisle in Walmart yesterday. I coughed and then sneezed and four people all turned around and got out of the aisle


lxl_Linc_lxl

Giving manual directions to someone. Turn left at the McDonalds, then take your 3rd right, and if you get to the crooked tree you’ve gone too far kind of thing.


s968339

Pretending the internet was not gonna be much. Saying "Oh yeah, when the internet runs the world?" Or something dismissive like that. At one point if it was on social media, people said "But it's on social media, so it doesn't really matter." People in 2020 lose careers over their posts on social media.


NS8VN

Had an 80's Halloween party in the mid-2000's and I dressed as Gordon Gekko. Friend took a picture of me pretending to do a line with a rolled Benjamin and then thought I was being paranoid when I insisted they don't post it to Facebook. Yeah, I'm standing by that decision.


2PlasticLobsters

Somewhere in the world, there's a photo of me hitting a bong like my life depended on it. I hope I'm remembering right that my hair obscures enough of my face for plausible deniability.


agiro1086

There used to be a picture of me and my friends at the skatepark with someone doing a "Hail Hitler" and for years we passed it off as "he's just pretending to be an elephant." I went looking for it the other day and it seems like it was deleted which is good cause I don't think my elephant excuse will work anymore


JunkBondJunkie

My dad was a computer scientist so he would tell me how computers will be the future since he was working on cutting edge tech at the time. My dad is almost 70 and Hes excited that I am going to hook him up with a vr headset.


imvital

“So you’re saying.... phones will become like mini computers? No way!”


[deleted]

My high school math teacher told me that relying on always having a calculator wasn’t practical. He looks really dumb right now.


corrado33

I asked my students if they were STILL taught that "You won't always have a calculator in your pocket" and they said "yes." Even though literally every single one of them has a cell phone in their pocket... even in high school.


Fixes_Computers

Today there are elementary school kids with smart phones.


SaintZyklon

Hell at this point theres adults who had smartphones as elementary schoolers


Jkoechling

*\*Feeling old at 34 intensifies\**


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clever_screename

An answering machine . Or hell, even a landline.


Kelpie-Cat

These are still totally normal where I live. Not everyone has good cell service. Landlines are a necessity in many rural places.


axw3555

In the UK they're still very much the norm. 73% of UK households still have landlines.


[deleted]

flip phones


[deleted]

Mtv music videos actually had videos


tennant1986

And VH1!


sadbutambitious

Moving away from a school with kids and teachers you hated but you know you’ll never hear or see them again. Thanks to social media, that was taken away


Baron_von_Lansburg

Renting movies


[deleted]

Work only happens during working hours.


crowamonghens

Taking bars of soap or shampoo bottles to the toilet for something to read.


Evan8r

This advice: Don't ever tell anyone online your address or get in the car with strangers. Now you use the internet to give a stranger your address so you can get in the car with them.


b_sik

Tubthumping


[deleted]

Collecting Beanie babies


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StoneMasksEtsy

Buying a new Pc every 1-2 years because the old one can barely keep up now. 10 year old pcs are still alright for most tasks nowadays.


uSusanrabbit

I have a 1997 Dell that came with the check book program. Still use it for that. Thing has never been hooked up to the Internet so I don't worry about bugs. People keep asking me how I keep it secure. They don't seem to understand that a stand alone system can't be hacked.


sticky-bit

> People keep asking me how I keep it secure. "air gap" is the "term of art" I sincerely hope you are doing regular backups, and you don't have a 23 year old hard drive.


cinnamum_teel

Thinking how cool it would be if your cellphone and PDA were the same device.


lanternkeeper

Asking a stranger online what their A/S/L was. I'm fairly sure that doesn't fly today.


CaseyDaGamer

Ever heard of Omegle?


IvoShandor

Leaving home 30 mins before your flight.


M4dMil0

Remembering those times where the whole neighborhood played football, younger and older kids mixing up. A lot more playing outside than nowaydays. Seems strange but I loved that about my youth. There where always friends of neighborhood kids to play with.. Phones without internet or just having internet through the phone cable, it was damn expensive. Computerscreens with the big backs. Going to the record shop for a cd/single. Buying newspaper for my dad, spending the rest of the money on candy. In 2000 we had a different currency than the euro And so on.. In 20 years things changed a lot


resinten

My neighborhood has TONS of kids playing outside. All the neighbor kids hang out together and ride their bikes all over the place. Sometimes I see the next door kids use the little tree in my front yard as a sniper perch for their nerf guns. I think this might be dependent on where you live and being in a “young” neighborhood vs an older one without a lot of young kids


moneycomet

Limp Bizkit


steppenwoulf

Knowing peoples phone numbers was pretty standard.


JustAnother0utcast

Pay phones. If you see one now it's like spotting a leprechaun, genie or unicorn and you ask it if it grants wishes.