techhub.social is one of the many independent Mastodon servers you can use to participate in the fediverse.
A hub primarily for passionate technologists, but everyone is welcome

Administered by:

Server stats:

4.6K
active users

#technostalgia

1 post1 participant0 posts today
My childhood in one picture.
My very first PC: a Compaq machine with a Pentium I (166 MHz) - slow by today’s standards, and honestly, even back then. Most kids already had Pentium 4s, but I made the most of what I had.
I started out playing DOS games like DOOM on Windows 98 - and I loved every second. But everything changed when I saw SuSE Linux 8.0 at a friend’s house.
His dad worked at AMD in Germany at the time - so of course they had Linux. I didn’t fully understand what it was… but I knew I needed it too.
So I got SuSE Linux 7.3. I installed it from CD1 - the other 6 CDs and 1 DVD just held software packages. Two boot floppies were needed just to start the installer.
I installed a Sound Blaster card myself at age 10, using the original driver CD. And since my CD-ROM drive was added later, I had to boot from a floppy with DOS CD-ROM drivers first. It was all a bit chaotic – but it worked.
Also pictured: my LEGO Mindstorms grabber arm - the first robot I ever built, following online instructions I hunted down with endless patience.
And of course: PC Games 11/02, featuring Unreal Tournament 2003 (and also No One Lives Forever 2, one of the most underrated gems of its time.) - a game (and series) I still love to this day.
Today, this very machine still works - and after some experiments with Minix and FreeDOS over the years, it’s once again running SuSE Linux 7.3. Just like back then.

What’s missing? My old bike. I didn’t bring it down from the attic.

#RetroPC #Pentium1 #SuSELinux #FOSS #LEGOmindstorms #SoundBlaster #PCGames #UT2003 #FloppyDisk #DOSGames #Minix #FreeDOS #NerdLife #TechNostalgia #FrüherWarMehrFloppy #MeinErsterPC #Kindheitserinnerung #Pixelfed #RetroLiebe #ComputerHistory #RetroHardware #OldHardwareStillRuns #CompaqLegend #SuSE73 #Linux

📢🚦Oh look, it's 1983 and Ivan Illich discovered that computers are the new overlords making us all robotic drones, stripped of our human essence! 🤖🔊 Apparently, our digital age is just one big cattle ranch, with Illich nostalgically longing for the days when silence was golden and not just a sign your internet is down. 🕰️🤐
davidtinapple.com/illich/1983_ #IvanIllich #DigitalOverlords #TechNostalgia #HumanEssence #CattleRanch #1983Reflections #HackerNews #ngated

www.davidtinapple.comSilence is a Commons by Ivan Illich

Ah, yes, another epic tale of bygone tech companies and pixelated nostalgia 🤔. Apparently, the founder's passion for producing buggy software tanks faster than a dial-up modem in a thunderstorm 🌩️. But fear not, dear reader, the tale of fading interests and corporate sell-outs is as old as Windows 95 bugs! 😆
filfre.net/2025/07/the-year-of #technostalgia #corporatehistory #softwarefailures #dialupmodem #Windows95 #HackerNews #ngated

www.filfre.net» The Year of Peak Might and Magic The Digital Antiquarian

Ah yes, the "revolutionary" IBM ThinkPad 701 with its ✨magical✨ expanding keyboard—because nothing says cutting-edge like a laptop that needed to unfold like a 🦋 to be usable. Meanwhile, Fast Company's design innovation: a website that only functions if you disable every modern convenience. 🙄💻
fastcompany.com/91356463/ibm-t #IBMThinkPad701 #ExpandingKeyboard #DesignInnovation #TechNostalgia #ModernConvenience #HackerNews #ngated

Fast Company · This IBM ThinkPad was astounding in 1995—and still isThe ThinkPad 701 was 9.7” wide, yet its keyboard magically expanded to a comfy 11.5”. How could anything so ingenious go away so quickly?

I adore the simplicity of "dumb" tech! My Casio F-91W and Sansa Clip+ bring pure joy. These classic devices really seem to shine lately, especially for privacy fans.

Your watch steals your data? Mine has a 12-segment LCD that barely tells the time. Paying for data to stream music? I beam tunes to my brain all day for free through my (wired) Sennheiser IE 100 Pro earbuds.

Ah, the glorious days when the X Window System didn't have X terminals! 😱 Now, you're probably blocked from reading this because your HTTP UserAgent is too "generic"—a fate worse than death! 💀 Remember, kids, if your UserAgent isn't as unique as a snowflake, you'll be banished from the kingdom of #WanderingThoughts forever! ❄️👑
utcc.utoronto.ca/~cks/space/bl #XWindowSystem #HTTPUserAgent #UserAgentSnowflake #TechNostalgia #HackerNews #ngated

utcc.utoronto.caChris's Wiki :: blog/unix/XTerminalsNotImmediate

make: *** [all] Error 1
fatal error: frobnicator.h: No such file or directory

If those lines don’t trigger a flashback, you weren’t there.

I dual-booted NT 3.1 and Red Hat when headers were missing, modems screamed, and time slipped.
You didn’t *use* Linux back then — you summoned it.

This MacBook? Now running Linux Mint Xfce.
Just to give Apple the middle finger... and those days a nod.

make: *** [all] Error 1
fatal error: frobnicator.h: No such file or directory

If those lines don’t trigger a flashback, you weren’t there.

I dual-booted NT 3.1 and Red Hat when headers were missing, modems screamed, and time slipped.
You didn’t *use* Linux back then — you summoned it.

This MacBook? Now running Linux Mint Xfce.
Just to give Apple the middle finger... and those days a nod.