Things you never see anymore

[Parafox]

On 27/03/2026 at 12:00, The Bear said:

80Mb was luxury compared to my ZX Spectrum with its 128k! 

 

Not to mention the Vic20 I had before that, which had games which ran off cartridges. 

When I first started playing computer games, you had to "download" the game from a cassette tape onto the game console.

 

It took ages to load up and then you got this:

 

 

Or this:

 

 

I seem to remember I could make my own games using some method of programming. 

Edited 28 March by Parafox

[The Bear]

I had the box that you hooked up to the TV to get pong on it, with the twisty knobs as controllers to make it go up and down. Literally minutes of fun. 

[Parafox]

1 minute ago, The Bear said:

I had the box that you hooked up to the TV to get pong on it, with the twisty knobs as controllers to make it go up and down. Literally minutes of fun. 

Spectrum ZX?

[davieG]

34 minutes ago, Parafox said:

A staple of the usherette 

 

[Parafox]

Just now, davieG said:

A staple of the usherette 

 

Kia Ora was the one I remember most. The tiny plastic straw that never quite reached the bottom of the carton resulting in lots of noisy slurping.

[davieG]

Just now, Parafox said:

Kia Ora was the one I remember most. The tiny plastic straw that never quite reached the bottom of the carton resulting in lots of noisy slurping.

[The Bear]

52 minutes ago, Parafox said:

Spectrum ZX?

No it was just pong in one big box. You hooked it up to any TV. 

 

It was one of these Binatone type things. 

 

 

 

[Zear0]

On 27/03/2026 at 14:57, Trav Le Bleu said:

My first computer had less memory than most gifs use.

 

Spectrum 48

Amiga 500

Atari ST

Amiga 1200

486 processor PC

Playstation 

Pentium 75 PC

Dreamcast 

Playstation 2

Pentium 133 PC

Playstation 3

Nintendo Wii

Dual core PC

Playstation 4

Quad-Core PC

 

 

 

Sack fact, I own every game ever released on Dreamcast. Wife loves those boxes

[Trav Le Bleu]

37 minutes ago, Zear0 said:

Sack fact, I own every game ever released on Dreamcast. Wife loves those boxes

I think the Dreamcast was my favourite console. Quirky controller and for it's time, way ahead. Some of those games would hold up today.

[The Bear]

9 hours ago, Trav Le Bleu said:

I think the Dreamcast was my favourite console. Quirky controller and for it's time, way ahead. Some of those games would hold up today.

I loved Virtua Tennis and Colin McRae Rally, which (I think) was the first racing game to use the analogue triggers for accelerate/brake. 

[worthosoriginals]

On 27/03/2026 at 11:16, adam1 said:

Wait until the day after easter monday.

Easter Tuesday?

[davieG]

On 27/03/2026 at 08:33, Free Falling Foxes said:

Floppy discs.

Mrs. FFF is sorting through a box of her uni work from way back and at the bottom she found one.

The storage capacity is a massive 1.44Mb.

Now you can get many, many gigabytes on something smaller than a grain of rice.

 

[Sampson]

I’ve always been a PC gamer, but PS2 was the best console for me -  Silent Hill 2-4, Metal Gear Sold 2 & 3, Forbidden Siren, Resident Evil 4, Killer7.

 

Great times.

[Trav Le Bleu]

One of my favourite games ever - Doomdark's Revenge - had over 6000 locations in it. On a 48k machine! And in each location you could look towards eight different directions.

 

In terms of memory size to map area ratio, it must be the largest terrain based game (not getting into any Elite or No Man's Sky arguments) ever.

[davieG]

[Parafox]

On 07/04/2026 at 10:06, davieG said:

[spacemunky]

Maybe because I'm old now, but it recently occurred to me that they don't sell sports trading cards in corner/variety stores anymore.

 

Honestly, they probably haven't for a long time, but I just thought of it with all the news about the cvnts that are going around buying up all the Pokémon cards as soon as they are put out.

 

When I was a kid I'd go to the store, grab a chocolate bar and a pack of hockey cards. They were always on the counter at the register.

 

Another thing that sucks about being a kid these days.

[Glovermagic555]

How about the chucking of toilet rolls onto the pitch? What was that all about??

 

Wearing your scarf around your wrist? 

 

Going for a slash in a rolled up newspaper at half time in the Kop underneath the old Double Decker stand at the much lamented Filbert Street??

 

Do you remember the old Typhoo Tea photos of famous players from the old Division One, you could send off for?? They were large A4 sized and on white card. Just brilliant.

[Free Falling Foxes]

12 minutes ago, Glovermagic555 said:

How about the chucking of toilet rolls onto the pitch? What was that all about??

 

Might be an idea to start doing that again, given how much s4it we are are seeing these days

[The Bear]

8 hours ago, spacemunky said:

Maybe because I'm old now, but it recently occurred to me that they don't sell sports trading cards in corner/variety stores anymore.

 

Honestly, they probably haven't for a long time, but I just thought of it with all the news about the cvnts that are going around buying up all the Pokémon cards as soon as they are put out.

 

When I was a kid I'd go to the store, grab a chocolate bar and a pack of hockey cards. They were always on the counter at the register.

 

Another thing that sucks about being a kid these days.

They still do world cup football cards for the players of all the teams going. 

[foxy tiler]

On 29/03/2026 at 16:03, Trav Le Bleu said:

One of my favourite games ever - Doomdark's Revenge - had over 6000 locations in it. On a 48k machine! And in each location you could look towards eight different directions.

 

In terms of memory size to map area ratio, it must be the largest terrain based game (not getting into any Elite or No Man's Sky arguments) ever.

Oh my god I loved that and Lords of midnight.....literally one of my all time favourites. Commanding whole armies and taking citedels and fortresses. Happy days ....even have lords of midnight on my phone.

[davieG]

Do any schools still wear caps as part of the uniform

 

 

Do any secondary schoolboys still wear short trousers

 

 

I had to wear them in my 1st year at senior school even through the winter, I was the only boy wearing them in an all boys school. 

 

I think it made me a target for bullying.

 

 

[spacemunky]

4 hours ago, The Bear said:

They still do world cup football cards for the players of all the teams going. 

I know there is still cards. It’s still a very popular hobby here. It's just that you can't pick up packs anywhere now.

 

I was at Walmart yesterday and they sell them mostly by the case and they are locked up.

 

They did have some packs for sale, but they were 15 dollars! I know I'm old but I'm sure they were about 15 cents a pack when I was a kid AND you got a stick of gum with it! 

[davieG]

Aylestone Swimming Baths, 1984

A proper local pool on Knighton Lane—simple, bright, and somewhere plenty learned to swim.

Later replaced by Aylestone Leisure Centre, but for many this is where the memories were made.

Who used to come here?

#Leicester #Throwback #SwimmingBaths #StoryOfLeicester

 

 

Used to go there regularly with the school, Lancaster Boys marching from  Victoria park

 

Never could swim properly apart from a very poor breast stroke.

 

Do schools still sponsor swimming classes / lessons?

[Grebfromgrebland]

Used to go there with Lancaster boys too, can't say I particularly enjoyed it.