|
Source: (consider it)
|
Thread: Remembering the 90s
|
Mama Thomas
Shipmate
# 10170
|
Posted
Why not? They're getting to be a long time ago and times have certainly changed much more than we might care to admit.
I remember way back in 89 I was thinking that the 90s had already begun, what with the fall of Communism and all. Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Tiananmen Square: that dude with the white paper bag in front of the tank is seared into our collective memories, and finally, East Germany--who among middle aged people and above don't remember where they were when the Berlin Wall came down? This was the real beginning of the 90s, IMHO.
The real beginning of the Internet. I remember reading in a Time magazine in 93 about something called the "information superhighway" that was supposedly coming.. An English guy was fiddling with something called the World Wide Web. Then the Internet came. Were they they same? What happened to that "information superhighway" they had predicted? AOL was fascinating for a few minutes. Does anyone under 30 even know what AOL is (was)?
More and more rich people were getting mobile phones. Sometimes they were in a bag and kept in the car strictly for emergencies, they were so expensive to use. No flat screen TVs.
MTV showed music videos and they were awesome. CDs were finally driving out cassettes, though many people in the early and mid 90s still loved their Walk Men.
[ 04. May 2012, 15:53: Message edited by: Mama Thomas ]
--------------------
All hearts are open, all desires known
Posts: 3742 | From: Somewhere far away | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
WhateverTheySay
Shipmate
# 16598
|
Posted
The 90's were mostly when I was at school, so no good memories there. I hated school.
I liked Brit Pop. I thought Oasis were much better than Blur.
In some ways things were much simpler. Computers didn't do as much. There was only 4 channels on the TV. Channel 5 coming out was a big thing, and for a while not everywhere had it. I vaguely remember the advertisements telling us we had to retune our tellies to get the new channel.
Reading was my favourite hobby. I always had my head in a book. I wasn't interested in sport that most kids around me were. Nor was I particularly interested in socialising, something which only got worse as I got older. To be honest I think that was a lot of the reason why I hated school so much (well that and bullying).
I was in the Brownies, which I absolutely hated. Then when I left, my parents made me go to Guides. I went only a couple of times before saying 'no more, I don't enjoy this'. That would have been around 98 or 99.
I think we first got the internet around the time I left primary school. I remember my parents being excited about this. My parents' first mobile phone was massive.
I remember the fashion of wearing tshirts over jumpers, and the jeans that had pockets everywhere. I liked the latter.
To be honest I was glad to see the back of the 90's. There is no way I would go back there if I had a time machine.
--------------------
I'm not lost, I just don't know where I am going
Posts: 872 | From: Lost in Space, without a map | Registered: Aug 2011
| IP: Logged
|
|
ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by WhateverTheySay:
In some ways things were much simpler. Computers didn't do as much. There was only 4 channels on the TV.
What do computers do now they didn't do then?
OK, they are smaller, cheaper, shiner, and much, much faster now, but most of the things we use them for now we used them for in the 90s. Or even the 80s. Almost all.
--------------------
Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
What do computers do now they didn't do then?
Remember what it was like to exchange documents electronically back then? You had to call someone in the target office who knew what a modem was, negotiate what baud rate, parity and protocol you were both going to use, and set a time when one modem would dial the other. After all that, you hoped the document would actually transmit and would arrive in usable format.
--------------------
"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
What do computers do now they didn't do then?
Remember what it was like to exchange documents electronically back then? You had to call someone in the target office who knew what a modem was, negotiate what baud rate, parity and protocol you were both going to use, and set a time when one modem would dial the other. After all that, you hoped the document would actually transmit and would arrive in usable format.
In the 90s? We used the Internet. All that tricky modem stuff was really the 1980s. By the 90s they tended to work without you having to know any magic, and networking protocols tended to work over them. And if you worked in an office you were probably online all the time (even if you didn't knowo it).
The office I worked in converted to using Internet protocols for networking in about 1991/92. I know because I helped plan the work and installed a lot of software for it. We probably had our first use of the Web in about 1992, and our first corporate websites in 93 or 94.
The only modems we went near were for telex or fax, which we automatically converted into email.
Still used modems at home though - I'd been using CIX for social networking since maybe 1990 and it was dial CIX direct at first, then dial an ISP, and finally we got IP through cable TV provider in, maybe - I can't remember - probably when NTL took over the local cable franchise from Videotron - tyhat was very late early 2000s I think.
[ 04. May 2012, 19:29: Message edited by: ken ]
--------------------
Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Mama Thomas
Shipmate
# 10170
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by WhateverTheySay:
In some ways things were much simpler. Computers didn't do as much. There was only 4 channels on the TV.
What do computers do now they didn't do then?
OK, they are smaller, cheaper, shiner, and much, much faster now, but most of the things we use them for now we used them for in the 90s. Or even the 80s. Almost all.
Hmmm. Maybe you're right, Ken. I don't remember watching movies on them. No--I do too. Cheesy flicks on CDs, just before DVDs came out. We sometimes used them for faxes, rest their souls.
We played Patience or Solitaire on them in the 90s. Haven't even heard of anyone doing that in yonks, TTTT. Remember those .alt newgroups? Forums are their grown up children I guess.
Anyone remember doing the Macarena?
--------------------
All hearts are open, all desires known
Posts: 3742 | From: Somewhere far away | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mama Thomas:
We played Patience or Solitaire on them in the 90s. Haven't even heard of anyone doing that in yonks, ...
There is someone playing that game on a PC in our office right now, about three metres from where I am sitting ![[Smile]](smile.gif)
The great classic PC games were mostly 1990s - SimCity came out in 1989, Civilization in 1991, Doom in 1993 (and I downloaded our first copy by FTP over the Internet), Tomb Raider was 1996, as was Quake - which only really made sense when played over the Internet, and used software which is still the basis of lots of games being sold today.
Microsoft Flight Simulator actually goes back to 1977 (before Microsoft!) but the best-selling version was probably MFS 4 in the early 1990s, and MFS 5 introduced more realistic scenery and libraries of different places in the mid 90s.
I never played the likes of Mortal Kombat or Grand Theft Auto but they are from the same time period.
It was in the 1990s that the ordinary home computer got fast enough, and graphics cards good enough, to overtook dedicated games consoles & hand-helds in that decade. They gave a genuinely immersive and thrilling game experience - and perhaps more importantly enough people had them at home to make a big market - which is why the big games we remember are often from that time.
--------------------
Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
Remember what it was like to exchange documents electronically back then? You had to call someone in the target office who knew what a modem was. . . .
In the 90s? We used the Internet. All that tricky modem stuff was really the 1980s.
We used modems as late as 1993 at my office. We hadn't yet converted to Windows -- we were still running the WordPerfect Office shell on MSDOS 5.0 workstations networked via Novell NetWare. The IT Manager didn't trust the Internet -- she had it configured only on certain select standalone workstations running Windows 3.1 (as I recall) and a product called "Internet in a Box".
--------------------
"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Mama Thomas
Shipmate
# 10170
|
Posted
MSDOS..Windows 3.1...I had forgotten. Remember all the hype about Windows 95? When it came out everyone said, "Apple rip off!"
Basically it was. Even down to the fun of it. DOS sucked by comparison. Most people got on the PC bandwagon when they got their first computers, and for most people it was the 90s.
And not much was heard from Apple until the iPod and iPhone (except for die hard worshippers of course) The late 90s really were all PC and Microsoft, Steve Jobs was somebody from the 80s.
Remember the browser wars? Everyone love Netscape Navigator and proudly refused to use Internet Explorer. How we all ended up with it anyway is a mystery.
--------------------
All hearts are open, all desires known
Posts: 3742 | From: Somewhere far away | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Saviour Tortoise
Shipmate
# 4660
|
Posted
I'm under 40 (just) and I still think of the web as being quite new, really. I saw my first web page in my final year at university ('95). I'm guessing that the idea of doing a degree without web access nowadays would be regarded as bizarre.
The 90s were a great decade as far as I'm concerned: fab time at uni, moved to the South West which I love and where I settled, first job, bought a house, met the women who is now my wife, plenty of disposable income (small mortgage, no kids). Fantastic 10 years.
No one has mentioned the '97 Labour Landslide yet - the palpable sense of optimism and enthusiasm. Okay, we were let down, but the feeling was good while it lasted...
--------------------
Baptised not Lobotomised
Posts: 745 | From: Bath, UK | Registered: Jun 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Amanda B. Reckondwythe
Dressed for Church
# 5521
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mama Thomas:
Remember all the hype about Windows 95?
Yes indeed. Click Start when what you really want to do is shut the thing down. How logical! Still with us, though.
--------------------
"I take prayer too seriously to use it as an excuse for avoiding work and responsibility." -- The Revd Martin Luther King Jr.
Posts: 10542 | From: The Great Southwest | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Mary LA
Shipmate
# 17040
|
Posted
We've reached the 1990s?
February 1990 was of course the release of Nelson Mandela and we joined crowds on Cape Town's Grand Parade, waiting for hours and singing all the old freedom songs we wouldn't be singing any longer as well as Nkosi sikelel' iAfrika, which would become part of the new national anthem. Rushed home to watch it all on television again -- still surprised that press censorship was no longer in operation. Took out all the banned literature hidden behind the fridge and it all looked so dusty and innocuous.
Then Easter 1993 and waking to news of the assassination of Chris Hani by white extremists, fears of increased violence -- but in April 1994, those amazing and peaceful first elections, the long queues of people able to vote for the first time, the euphoria. Short-lived perhaps, but a relief to be living in a different kind of country.
And after that it was change upon change, reading about Gulf War syndrome, loathing the film Titanic, wondering about Y2k, celebrating the millenium way out in the middle of the Karoo looking up at stars, no fireworks, no champagne, a sheep bleating under a thorn tree.
What happened in the mid-90s? Can't remember a damn thing. Vague memory of loathing the Spice Girls. And I don't seem to have had a spiritual or religious thought for that entire decade.
--------------------
“I often wonder if we were all characters in one of God's dreams.”
― Muriel Spark
Posts: 499 | From: Africa | Registered: Apr 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Zappa
Ship's Wake
# 8433
|
Posted
I bought my first 386 to replace my aging portable type-writer with lift-off and had a difficult choice: Something called Windows had just come out. It looked clutzy and wanky to me so I stuck to the Wordstar for Dos option. Loved it. About ten floppies to load it and it froze horrendously, but (sometimes) it was better than my aging portable type-writer. It was 1992 or 1993, I think.
I found two games on it. A sort of snake that ate things and got bigger, and two gorillas throwing exploding bananas at each other from skyscrapers.
One day the gorillas simply weren't there any more. They must have had a 'use x-many times' clause or a 'use by' clause becuase they just disappeared from my computer. Which meant I had to get on with my thesis. ![[Waterworks]](graemlins/bawling.gif) I missed them.
Got a Masters, got divorced, got remarried (to kuruman), left the ministry, went back into it ... started a PhD ... not in chronological order. Yes, I agree with Mama Thomas, it began in 1989. In 1999 I gave up on my trusty 386, persuaded that it was old and my PhD might disappear in a puff of Y2K.
Last I saw it was sitting in a garage, several years later. Just for fun I plugged it in and turned it on ... but it hummed and then a screen I hadn't seen before (not the dos prompt) came up and it didn't seem to know who it was anymore. I nearly cried. ![[Tear]](graemlins/tear.gif)
By January 2000, not satisfied with the six girls from my first marriage, I was in the family way again, and kuruman produced kuruzapplet # 1 a few weeks into that year.
There were tumultuous years ahead. I hadn't heard of Al Qaeda, but I had heard of Monica Lewinsky.
--------------------
shameless self promotion - because I think it's worth it
and mayhap this too: http://broken-moments.blogspot.co.nz/
Posts: 18917 | From: "Central" is all they call it | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Zappa:
There were tumultuous years ahead. I hadn't heard of Al Qaeda, but I had heard of Monica Lewinsky.
Hmmm... using Wikipedia as a surrogate memory it seems almost certain that I first heard of both Ms Lewinsky and Al Qaida in 1998. Both due to Mr Clinton being a little rash.
I would have probably read news items referring to AQ before 1998 because they operated in Sudan, but I have no memory of them, and I don't know if they used the name or just called them something like "Islamists" or "Afghans".
--------------------
Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Mama Thomas
Shipmate
# 10170
|
Posted
Like every decade, it was tumultuous. I had forgotton about the Spice Girls, how they kept changing their monikers, Mel C and Mel B to Posh and Scary etc. Mandela! Mandela wore a suit to his inauguration then switched to those cool African shirts. I wanted one...
Free elections in South Africa, Hong Kong handed to China, right on your own TV! Cool.
I was much more on the side of Blur than Oasis, but I liked them both. Remember Take That? U2's work during that decade was refreshingly different from the glorious perfection of their 1980s work.
I was much older than a teen in those years, but being a secondary school teacher it behooved me to stay on top of the music world in which every song had an accompanying video. I knew at least one school where the staff room's telly was on MTV instead of CNN.
Remember CNN? It was in the 90s the world's news channel, before it became in recent years what one wag has memorably called, "the blonde leading the bland."
Clinton brought hope to the US, and a few years later there was indeed euphoria in Britain as Tony Blair took office. It spread around the world.
Eastern Europe was struggling with democracy. Yugoslavia went up in flames. The Romanian orphans brought tears to the world. All the while millions upon millions were learning how to use computers. I could sense a huge cultural shift happening. It was awesome.
--------------------
All hearts are open, all desires known
Posts: 3742 | From: Somewhere far away | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
cattyish
Wuss in Boots
# 7829
|
Posted
I went to uni, met my other half, got married, finished my degree and started work in 1998. After starting work I was pretty much an NHS zombie for a year, working an average of about 70h per week and often doing two nights a week on call on top of 5 to 7 days' work on the wards. After the European Working Time Directive came into force, our trust had to pay us a fair amount of extra cash to keep us on illegal shifts.
On the wards we had to be able to find original photographic films of our patients' scans and x-rays. Not finding them earned a sound telling-off from the nearest consultant.
I used ECG machines (EKG in the States) which attached to the patient using coper alloy suction cups and conducting gel. The machines were slimy with gel and I usually felt the need to clean them before I used them. They made a long strip of output, controlled by pressing the "next lead" button. We then either folded them up as neatly as we could and stuffed them in an envelope or cut up the strips and sellotaped them to a sheet of paper so we could interpret the trace more easily.
Junior doctors did procedures such as rigid sigmoidoscopies, chest drains and NG tubes at night and over the weekend, and we got help to do them from senior staff if we asked and they had time. Few of the nurses on the ward did any cannulations or took blood tests, so we did those too.
Our lab. results came on a unix workstation with either green or orange text on a black screen. It worked beautifully, never hung and could be logged into with pretty much any username I made up on the spur of the moment.
Our pagers were numerical. They showed the number someone was bleeping us from, but only if the caller typed it in correctly. I broke two by dropping them in the toilet.
I took the bus to work. When I finished late it took me 2 hours to get home.
Looking back, I wish I'd realised (through my sleep-deprived haze) that I could have afforded a car and a holiday somewhere nice.
Cattyish, traditionally trained.
--------------------
...to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived, this is to have succeeded.
Ralph Waldo Emerson
Posts: 1794 | From: Scotland | Registered: Jul 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
churchgeek
Have candles, will pray
# 5557
|
Posted
I was in college in the early 90s and having a lot of fun in the late '90s, with bad times in the middle.
I do remember a Communications prof (in fall '92 or spring '93) telling us people were going to be watching TV on their computers soon and I couldn't believe it. Who would want to do that, and why?
Other than grunge, though, which was really a subculture, I can't think of any typically '90s styles the way you can for previous decades. Is it just me? What would you look at and say, "Oh, that's soooo 90s!" - the way you'd say big hair and shoulder pads (for women) were "soooo 80s"?
--------------------
I reserve the right to change my mind.
My article on the Virgin of Vladimir
Posts: 7773 | From: Detroit | Registered: Feb 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
molopata
The Ship's jack
# 9933
|
Posted
I liked the grunge style. And the music somehow became good again too. A decade back it all sounded like canned peas that people danced to in ill-fitting clothes.
University was a cool time, and we students all got e-mail addresses in 1994. We didn't really know what to do with them though, so we sent the best part of a term time sending one another silly messages and love notes.
That was the best time. You had all the adult freedoms without yet having to face up to the full earnest of life. Things rocked with the first proper paychecks (or bank transfers) at the end of the decade, albeit without the clout to ride in on the dotcom boom.
--------------------
... The Respectable
Posts: 1718 | From: the abode of my w@ndering mind | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Zappa
Ship's Wake
# 8433
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by Zappa:
There were tumultuous years ahead. I hadn't heard of Al Qaeda, but I had heard of Monica Lewinsky.
Hmmm... using Wikipedia as a surrogate memory it seems almost certain that I first heard of both Ms Lewinsky and Al Qaida in 1998. Both due to Mr Clinton being a little rash.
Indeed. Pigeons fly slow in the southern hemisphere.
--------------------
shameless self promotion - because I think it's worth it
and mayhap this too: http://broken-moments.blogspot.co.nz/
Posts: 18917 | From: "Central" is all they call it | Registered: Sep 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
Gill H
Shipmate
# 68
|
Posted
I moved back to Swansea in 1990, where I'd gone to Uni from 85-88 and emotionally not really left.
By autumn 1992 I had moved to London to study performing arts, and met the love of my life.
Music was pretty dire in the 90s but I didn't care, as I was living on a diet of non-stop musical theatre, taking the opportunity to see every show I could. (Nothing's changed there...)
We married in 1995 and by the end of the 90s we were living in the same town we are now. Definitely a time of transition for me.
--------------------
*sigh* We can’t all be Alan Cresswell.
- Lyda Rose
Posts: 9313 | From: London | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
ChaliceGirl
Shipmate
# 13656
|
Posted
In the early 90's I signed on to AOL 3.0 with a 56K modem. ![[Killing me]](graemlins/killingme.gif)
--------------------
The Episcopal Church Welcomed Me.
"Welcome home." ++Katharine Jefferts Schori to me on 29Mar2009.
My KJS fansite & chicksinpointyhats
Posts: 710 | From: Philadelphia, PA, USA | Registered: Apr 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Jengie jon
Semper Reformanda
# 273
|
Posted
1990s
- Grandfather died
- Told permanent job was not permanent
- mental crisis
- found new job started April fools day & commuted for a year
- bought flat and moved over
- joined current church where F minister
- close friend went into convent
- started going out with X
- friend came out of convent
- Grandmother died,found X did not exist, turned 30, befriended by F, sisters wedding (2 week)
- anxiety illness diagnosed
- bought first computer
- decided to do some "Christian Education"
- F attacked and stalked for two years
- Uncle dies - only remembered as it was not a major crisis
- completed Christian training - started long haul toward doctorate
- signed up for ship-of-fools I think
Yes I think I remember the nineties.
Jengie
--------------------
"To violate a persons ability to distinguish fact from fantasy is the epistemological equivalent of rape." Noretta Koertge
Back to my blog
Posts: 20894 | From: city of steel, butterflies and rainbows | Registered: May 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Amanda B. Reckondwythe:
Remember what it was like to exchange documents electronically back then? You had to call someone in the target office who knew what a modem was, negotiate what baud rate, parity and protocol you were both going to use, and set a time when one modem would dial the other. After all that, you hoped the document would actually transmit and would arrive in usable format. [/QUOTE]
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Sir Kevin
Ship's Gaffer
# 3492
|
Posted
That's why I bought a fax machine about that time: I still have it.
--------------------
If you board the wrong train, it is no use running along the corridor in the other direction Dietrich Bonhoeffer
Writing is currently my hobby, not yet my profession.
Posts: 30517 | From: White Hart Lane | Registered: Oct 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Mama Thomas
Shipmate
# 10170
|
Posted
It was either the 80s or the 90s and faxes were so ultra modern and cool. I know they've been around since the 40s, but they were the epitome of What Is Now. I remember one bloke in about 89 or 90 or 91 thereabouts going on about his new computer, laptop did he call it? Everyone asked him, "Can it send faxes?" They replaced telex machines very quickly.
There was a movie showing future, and every room in the house had several faxes.
Every educational institution had to have them, people wanted them at home.
Little did we realise a few months later EMAIL was coming and going to be It until Facebook.
Wonder what is next?
--------------------
All hearts are open, all desires known
Posts: 3742 | From: Somewhere far away | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
rhflan
Shipmate
# 17092
|
Posted
How about the trial of the century? The OJ Simpson case? I remember coming home from school and having my father glued to CNN watching the trial.
--------------------
www.twitter.com/rhflan
Posts: 135 | Registered: May 2012
| IP: Logged
|
|
Mama Thomas
Shipmate
# 10170
|
Posted
It was obsessively followed around the globe. I was abroad most of the decade and a bit detached but everywhere I turned people were discussing the OJ trial. I remember the Dancing Itos on Leno. Beavis and Butt-Head, Ray Cokes, the rise of Gary Barlow after Take That, then he vanished and Robbie Williams took off. Tom Hanks in two great roles back to back. The decade had potential, it felt like the New World was just around the corner. Remember even respectable publications were warning about Y2K. The Euro was coming, as a precursor of the United States of Europe.
--------------------
All hearts are open, all desires known
Posts: 3742 | From: Somewhere far away | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Adam.
Like as the
# 4991
|
Posted
Given that over the course of the 90s I went from primary school to university, I realize that my memories of them are kind of skewed. My sense of when a trend or technology became popular is pretty much dictated by when I adopted it.
Hence, email is a mid-to-late nineties phenomenon in my head, which I realize is slightly off. I remember computers going from having black screens with white text, command prompts, and no pictures to having white backgrounds, WIMP desktop OSes and mice.
I got my first mobile phone in '97. It was large and had no screen. I know people not that much younger than me who find the idea of a phone without a screen pretty absurd. I remember myself as being an early adopter, but that might have just been among my friends.
My first political memories are from the 80s, but the first ones I really cared about are from the 90s. I remember John Smith's death. I fell for Blair but by the time I was old enough to vote, had become sorely disillusioned with him. I remember being very excited about the Chunnel, and somewhat disappointed when that term fell out of use. My impression of US politics at the time was based on two things: Monica Lewinski, and Clinton's role in the Northern Irish Good Friday agreement. I didn't really bother trying to resolve that contradiction in my head.
What might be most interesting is various debates that just seemed to die. Foreign footballers playing at English clubs seemed controversial at the start of the decade, and unquestioned at the end of it. On a more personal level, my hatred of school uniform gave way to thinking that wearing full academic dress for university exams was perfectly reasonable.
I'm sure the various discoveries of nascent adult life made much impact on me than the new developments of the 90s per se. Towards the end of the decade, mobile phones definitely made my generation's growing up very different than the experience of someone even five years older. The internet wouldn't really effect us until the early years of the next decade, though.
--------------------
Ave Crux, Spes Unica!
Preaching blog
Posts: 8164 | From: Notre Dame, IN | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Adam.
Like as the
# 4991
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by churchgeek:
Other than grunge, though, which was really a subculture, I can't think of any typically '90s styles the way you can for previous decades. Is it just me? What would you look at and say, "Oh, that's soooo 90s!" - the way you'd say big hair and shoulder pads (for women) were "soooo 80s"?
For boys my age in England, it was what we called the "French crop" -- shave on the back, sides and normally top, but with a tuft of hair at the front that was spiked up. This replaced the curtains that our parents had forced us to wear before we rebelled.
I think a lot of 90s fashion involved re-claiming older styles, so it doesn't look that distinctive. Think of the "turn to the preppy." In England, we rediscoverd the mod-style wear our parents had just gotten around to throwing out. I think the 90s was also the rise of "business casual" in the working world.
--------------------
Ave Crux, Spes Unica!
Preaching blog
Posts: 8164 | From: Notre Dame, IN | Registered: Sep 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
The5thMary
Shipmate
# 12953
|
Posted
Ah, the 90's! Remembered with equal parts sadness and fondness. I lived in Seattle and studied Multimedia/Animation/Graphic Design at a local community college. I loooooved college. I also worked at Nintendo as a video game tester and was a 2D artist on a little known computer game called "Bill Nye, the Science Guy:Stop That Rock!". I remember grunge and waiting for buses on University Avenue, "the Ave" and looking in the windows of a head shop that also sold great and funky stuff like hair dye and t-shirts with funny/offensive slogans on them. I was in a band that did Oasis covers even though I despised Oasis with a passion! I proudly voted for Bill Clinton the first time and nearly voted for George W. Bush when Clinton was up for reelection, I was so disgusted by Clinton. A bunch of people from my graphic design classes were heavily into computer games and they secretly installed Quake and some other similar game on the school's Macs. The instructors were not pleased and I got accused of doing all sorts of heinous computer trickery even though I was not and never will be a computer genius. I do claim responsibility for changing some of the computer's screen savers to a evil but funny animation of Barney the dinosaur getting shot, hacked to bits, and set fire while screaming, "Ohhhhhhhh!" ;-)
Music was really great and then not so great. Echo and The Bunnymen had new members and still kicked ass. U2 released "Zooropa", one of my favorite U2 CD's. I wore that CD out. Moby, Radiohead, Pearl Jam, Soundgarden, R.E.M. put out some spectacular stuff during the 90's.
--------------------
God gave me my face but She let me pick my nose.
Posts: 3451 | From: Tacoma, WA USA | Registered: Aug 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mama Thomas:
It was either the 80s or the 90s and faxes were so ultra modern and cool. I know they've been around since the 40s, but they were the epitome of What Is Now. I remember one bloke in about 89 or 90 or 91 thereabouts going on about his new computer, laptop did he call it? Everyone asked him, "Can it send faxes?" They replaced telex machines very quickly.
I worked for an oil company in the late 80s and the 90s and unfortunately we still used telex. Because as far as I could tell, we were an oil company, and that's what they did.
Fax cool in the 80s. In the 90s we were trying to get the old fuddy-duddies to give up their faxes and use email - cheaper, easier, quicker, and a hell of a lot more reliable. By the end of the 90s if you still used a fax machine it showed you didn't really know what was going on.
Setting up a fax machine was exactly as hard and as icky as setting up a modem because a fax machine is a modem. You need to know all the same details and by the 1980s they used the same codes.
Fax vs email was a bit like pagers and mobile phones. In the 70s pagers were the high-tech future, they showed you were Really Important. For a brief time in the 1980s all sorts of people had them. But if you still used them by the mid-90s you were a long way behind the curve - GSM and SMS had taken over and the kids were all texting. Us middle-aged types had mobiles but mostly used them as phones and didn't get into texting till about 2000 though.
--------------------
Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by churchgeek:
Other than grunge, though, which was really a subculture, I can't think of any typically '90s styles the way you can for previous decades. Is it just me?
The 1990s were the era of Britpop here. The biggest bands were Blur and Oasis. They seem to have indelibly marked a generation.
Also the time of the Spice Girls but we've happily forgotten about them. Well, apart from Mrs Beckham. Come to think of it the 1990s was also the decade of David Beckham.
And Tony Blair. If he'd gone to spend more time with his family we'd remember him as one of the two or three greatest Prime Ministers of the 20th Century. He was one of the two or three greatest Prime Ministers of the 20th Century. A pity he was such an embarrasment in the 21st. His repuation is ruined for ever by Iraq and identity cards and by his not going when he said he would. He hung on too long. A lesson for us all...
Come to think of it Radioplay and Coldhead. Or whatever they were called ![[Snigger]](graemlins/snigger.gif)
Yep. Strong stand-out style memories here. "Cool Britannia", "Girlpower", the "New Laddishness", Tony Blair, David Beckham, Blur, Oasis, Coldplay, Radiohead, the rise of Sky TV and satellite, the not unconnected Premier League, the Glorious First of May 1997. All sorts of stuff.
--------------------
Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hart:
On a more personal level, my hatred of school uniform gave way to thinking that wearing full academic dress for university exams was perfectly reasonable.
That's because school uniform is a mark of servitude and low status, academic robes are a mark of success and high status. So any sane person ought to hate school uniform.
--------------------
Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
Alaric the Goth
Shipmate
# 511
|
Posted
I remember 1990 as a good year. I got my first NHS job, which involved a (temporary) return to the North East, went youth hostelling in Scotland and climbed Ben Nevis with a mate, started to go out with (and later the same year got engaged to) the woman who became my wife (eventually ex-wife, but not in that century!).
In 1991 I returned to West Yorkshire. In July I got knocked over and nearly killed by a large orange car (didn’t see that coming!). I recovered and resumed my accountancy course.
In 1992 I got married and we bought our first house.
In 1993 we went on holiday to Co. Cork, Eire, my first (and so far only) time in Ireland.
In ’94 I did my accountancy (final) project and passed (failed the other element of the final year of the course).
In April 1995 I started a year working for a Health Authority which was mostly a good experience. We went in September to Austria, my first-ever holiday on the European continent (had been to France on a Uni field course in 1986).
In ’96 we holidayed in SW Scotland and North Wales. I moved into a more difficult job situation at a Hospital Trust in April.
In 1997 I passed my final accountancy re-sit and we became prospective parents. I got a new job in the NHS, basically the one I’m still doing. I climbed Scafell Pike for the first time when on holiday in the western Lake District with friends.
In 1998 my first son was born. We moved house in the autumn to a bigger one.
In 1999 my son started speaking (hasn’t stopped!!). I can’t remember anything else significant apart from going down in December to Derbyshire to see in the Millennium with the same (‘Rentacrowd’!) group of friends referred to above.
Posts: 3322 | From: West Thriding | Registered: Jun 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Nanny Ogg
Ship's cushion
# 1176
|
Posted
The 90s was a decade of change for me and not one I like to remember.
I started the decade with a wonderful job and got made redundant from it 3 years later.
I went went to university as a mature student and got a good degree but haven't used it or found work that acknowledged mu efforts.
I got married, and divorced 3 years later
My father died from cancer 3 days before Princess Di had her infamous accident.
I hated the rave music scene and was not too keen on Brit Pop or grunge.
It's a decade I like to forget
--------------------
Buy me a beer and I'm you friend forever
Posts: 4137 | From: Away with the fairies | Registered: Aug 2001
| IP: Logged
|
|
Yerevan
Shipmate
# 10383
|
Posted
quote:
The 1990s were the era of Britpop here. The biggest bands were Blur and Oasis. They seem to have indelibly marked a generation.
Oh yes. My teens coincided exactly with the 90s and I was very definitely Oasis not Blur, although I preferred The Verve and Radiohead to either of them*. And of course to love Oasis was to love the Beatles, who Oasis mercilessly plagiarised.
The stereotype was that Oasis were northern and working class and Blur were southern and middle class with mockney pretensions (liked to be photographed hanging out at dog tracks in the East End, that sort of thing).
* I still think The Bends is The Best Album Ever. It is also possibly the most miserable
[ 08. May 2012, 16:48: Message edited by: Yerevan ]
Posts: 3758 | From: In the middle | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Yerevan
Shipmate
# 10383
|
Posted
For boys my age in England, it was what we called the "French crop" -- shave on the back, sides and normally top, but with a tuft of hair at the front that was spiked up. quote:
I remember that! Although in Ireland it was very much the gurrier (troublemaker) haircut. I also remember platforms reappearing at some point in the mid 90s and the clip clop of hundreds of platform-shod feet up and down our school corridors at lunchbreak. One girl in my school broke her ankle falling off hers I also remember the first mobile phone in our family, which my uncle won on a radio phone in competition in the very early 90s. It was the size of a brick and he was the only non-drug dealer in our shitty council estate to own one.
Posts: 3758 | From: In the middle | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
ChaliceGirl
Shipmate
# 13656
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by rhflan:
How about the trial of the century? The OJ Simpson case? I remember coming home from school and having my father glued to CNN watching the trial.
Ah yes! I actually stopped my working to go find a TV.
People have since tried to play up other trials as "The trial of the century", i.e. Casey Anthony, Amanda Knox. Ummm, NO. Not even close.
--------------------
The Episcopal Church Welcomed Me.
"Welcome home." ++Katharine Jefferts Schori to me on 29Mar2009.
My KJS fansite & chicksinpointyhats
Posts: 710 | From: Philadelphia, PA, USA | Registered: Apr 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
|
Posted
Ah, the Nineties.
I definitely preferred Oasis to Blur in the Britpop war, and Pulp were pretty cool too. But this decade, more than any other, was all about rock and metal for me. Meatloaf, Counting Crows, Aerosmith, Def Leppard, Guns 'n' Roses, Metallica, Placebo, Smashing Pumpkins, Terrorvision and Iron Maiden became the soundtrack to my life - and I also saw every one of those bands live during the decade (except GNR, who I saw live in the 2000's).
The Spice Girls and "Girl Power" were all the rage, but apart from an epic crush on Baby Spice I wasn't too bothered.
It was a quality decade for movies as well. The Lion King, Jurassic Park, Independence Day, Men in Black, Toy Story, The Matrix, A Few Good Men, Savin Private Ryan, and of course the unforgettable Basic Instinct. Unforgettable, that is, if you were a teenage boy at the time - I discovered girls at least partly thanks to Sharon Stone. And Gabriela Sabatini. And Beccy from the Lower Sixth.
The 90's, as my teenage decade, was also all about sports. I captained the school Under Eleven cricket team at the start of the decade, and my club First Eleven at the end of it. And it was the glory years of Bromsgrove Rovers FC - between 1992 and 1997 we were in the Conference, just one division below the Football League! Winning cups, appearing on Match of the Day, travelling the length and breadth of the country to see away games. Happy days indeed.
I passed the 11-plus in 1990 and went to a local grammar school, strolling through GCSEs in 1995 and A Levels in 1997. I also vividly remember the introduction of SATs, and our headmaster telling us he was very opposed to them and that we wouldn't be taking part. I made friendships that are still going strong today. I had my first girlfriend, first sex, first pregnancy scare, first breakup and first rebound sex (all over the course of about six months).
We went to EuroDisney in the first year it was open, and unlike many others we loved it.
It was a decade of scientific progress. Dolly the Sheep. The Human Genome Project. The Hubble Telescope. Genetically Enhanced crops were going to solve world hunger. Shomaker-Levy hit Jupiter.
Of course, such great times couldn't last forever - and in 1997 the world started going to hell. Labour won the election, and set about their ten-year plan to wreck the country. I went off to university, and so began the worst four years of my life to date. I sucked at making new friends, and started to compensate by drinking heavily. My grandmother died on Christmas Day 1998, I failed all my exams in January 1999, had a nervous breakdown in February 1999 and that was that for the decade.
--------------------
Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
Aggie
Ship's cat
# 4385
|
Posted
The events I remember clearly:
- 1989: the revolutions in Eastern Europe. At that time I was an A Level student studying modern history, so it was all particularly interesting to me to think I was living in a period when history was being made.
The execution of the Romanian leader and his wife, and subsequent news footage of their public trial, and photos of their crumpled blood-covered bodies to show they were dead. I realise that they were an evil, ruthless couple, but I always thought this execution and its images to be disturbing and distasteful.
- The Gulf War, and the wealthy Kuwaitis who fled to live in southern Spain (where I lived at the time.)
- Leaving school in the early 1990's, and not being able to get a decent job because of the recession, (and my lack of work experience too probably), but £3.50 an hour - what a joke!!
- Going to vocational college - and yes, I remember learning word processing on Word Perfect 5.1 (yellowish-white letters on a deep blue screen, and lots of F keys to do commands)
- Travelling to Russia just as it was emerging from Communism.
- The advent of Microsoft and the Internet in the mid-1990's which revolutionised computing.
-However, i couldn't afford to buy my own home PC until 1997. It was £600, and had a large,heavy tower and huge cumbersome monitor, and it ran the early Microsoft operating system with the little castaway man on a desert island as a screen-saver.
- I liked the music in the 1990's:
there was some brilliant rock bands around, and a lot more "organic" than today - no reality TV talent shows back then. grunge (I liked this at the time, not so much now)
Oasis (always preferred them to Blur)
Manic Street Preachers (still love them!!)
Britpop and Britrock in general
Heroes del Silencio (I spent my teenage years in Spain, so I grew up with this Spanish-language rock band)
I hated (and still hate) rave, house music, hip hop etc.
--------------------
“I see his blood upon the rose
And in the stars the glory of his eyes,
His body gleams amid eternal snows,
His tears fall from the skies.”
(Joseph Mary Plunkett 1887-1917)
Posts: 581 | From: A crazy, crazy world | Registered: Apr 2003
| IP: Logged
|
|
mark_in_manchester
not waving, but...
# 15978
|
Posted
90s...where were you when Freddy Mercury died?
--------------------
"We are punished by our sins, not for them" - Elbert Hubbard
(so good, I wanted to see it after my posts and not only after those of shipmate JBohn from whom I stole it)
Posts: 1596 | Registered: Oct 2010
| IP: Logged
|
|
comet
Snowball in Hell
# 10353
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:
90s...where were you when Freddy Mercury died?
it was my 18th birthday. I was in my sophomore year in college.
that's one birthday party I'll never forget.
--------------------
Evil Dragon Lady, Breaker of Men's Constitutions
"It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.” -Calvin
Posts: 17024 | From: halfway between Seduction and Peril | Registered: Sep 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
Mullygrub
Up and over
# 9113
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Hart:
quote:
Originally posted by churchgeek:
Other than grunge, though, which was really a subculture, I can't think of any typically '90s styles the way you can for previous decades. Is it just me? What would you look at and say, "Oh, that's soooo 90s!" - the way you'd say big hair and shoulder pads (for women) were "soooo 80s"?
For boys my age in England, it was what we called the "French crop" -- shave on the back, sides and normally top, but with a tuft of hair at the front that was spiked up.
It was the "undercut" for fellas 'round my neck of the woods in the '90s... Looooooooong (generally greasy and smelly) hair from the top, shaved at 0.02 back and sides. Kind of a GenX flip-off to post-war "short back and sides" conformity. How deliciously ironic. And predictable.
And don't forget "The Rachel" for us ladies.
...Slap bracelets...
...Troll dolls...
...Hypercolour tee-shirts...
...Wheeler and Linka were engaged in an elicit love affair off-set, those crazy enviro kids (and Captain Planet and Gaia were actually married)...
--------------------
Smurfs are weird. And so am I.
Posts: 634 | From: Melbskies | Registered: Feb 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
|
orfeo
Ship's Musical Counterpoint
# 13878
|
Posted
On the technology front: CD-ROM.
I remember Dad buying a magazine specifically dedicated to CD-ROM programs. Two of the things that really helped to drive the sale of CD-ROM drives were the "Living Books" series, and the computer game Myst. The latter came out in 1993 and became the biggest-selling game of all time, a title it held for nearly a decade.
And then Myst's sequel, Riven, came out on FIVE CD-ROMs. I think the latter ones in the Myst series eventually came out on DVD-ROMs. But Myst really was a key thing of being "this cool game that you could never ever fit on floppy discs".
[ 10. May 2012, 07:35: Message edited by: orfeo ]
--------------------
Technology has brought us all closer together. Turns out a lot of the people you meet as a result are complete idiots.
Posts: 18173 | From: Under | Registered: Jul 2008
| IP: Logged
|
|
Mama Thomas
Shipmate
# 10170
|
Posted
Where were you when Kurt Cobain died? It was really an generational thing. It was amazing that 90s kids even knew of Queen and Freddie. The older teens were moved. The younger ones wore black at the death of Kurt Cobain. Remember Smells Like Teen Spirit?
When a colleague of mine asked as class why they were in mourning, a poet type girl stood up and bravely remarked about the late Cobain, "He was the voice of our generation." My friend said, "O please! You got that from MTV. He was 27, you're 15, get real!"
Loved her for that.
[ 10. May 2012, 13:58: Message edited by: Mama Thomas ]
--------------------
All hearts are open, all desires known
Posts: 3742 | From: Somewhere far away | Registered: Aug 2005
| IP: Logged
|
|
nickel
Shipmate
# 8363
|
Posted
I remember May 1st 1994 -- the day Ayrton Senna died.
I used to be a huge F1 fan in the 80's, watched every race on tv with Mr nickel, even attended the Detroit Grande Prix one year. Then our daughter was born in 1991 and child-minding took all my Sunday mornings for the next couple of years. "No problem," I thought "I'm missing a few seasons but I'll re-join in a while." Then that helicopter flew away with Senna, and a while later the announcement was that he had died, and I realized that if you look away, you can't count on things still being there when you're ready to go back to them.
Posts: 547 | From: Virginia USA | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by nickel:
I remember May 1st 1994 -- the day Ayrton Senna died.
There's a friend of mine who still wears a black tie on May Day in memory of Senna.
--------------------
Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
| IP: Logged
|
|
nickel
Shipmate
# 8363
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by ken:
quote:
Originally posted by nickel:
I remember May 1st 1994 -- the day Ayrton Senna died.
There's a friend of mine who still wears a black tie on May Day in memory of Senna.
I still wear his t-shirts!
Posts: 547 | From: Virginia USA | Registered: Aug 2004
| IP: Logged
|
|
The5thMary
Shipmate
# 12953
|
Posted
quote:
Originally posted by comet:
quote:
Originally posted by mark_in_manchester:
90s...where were you when Freddy Mercury died?
it was my 18th birthday. I was in my sophomore year in college.
that's one birthday party I'll never forget.
Eighteen and a sophomore in college??! Ahhhhhh, it all begins to make sense now. You're one of those super-brainy people, aren't you? Me, too! But not, apparently, as brainy as you are... Sigh... ![[Biased]](wink.gif)
--------------------
God gave me my face but She let me pick my nose.
Posts: 3451 | From: Tacoma, WA USA | Registered: Aug 2007
| IP: Logged
|
|
|
Printer-friendly view
