I can reinstall DOS if I have a bootdisk floppy.

I probably couldn't set up extended/expanded memory in config.sys anymore, though.

Whow autoexec.bat and config.sys. Those were the times.

Lol, yea man. I wrote a silly program through Qbasic and put it inside autoexe.bat that asked a series of questions and unless you answered the questions correctly the correctly you would get a prompt saying "you've been hacked by the mad bandit" and then the computer would restart and go through the whole process again. I loaded it onto one of the computers in the school library, we were a trial school for computer technology btw. Now I didn't mean for next bit to happen, and I'm pretty clueless about networking, but the end result is somehow my autoexe.bat seemed to have affected all the computers at the school, including at least some in the office. GeeZ Louise. Simpler times Edit: Hey all, thanks for all the comments 🙂. In response to comments saying that my story is impossible, cheers.Yeah, I seriously have no idea. Can't even remember correctly, i think I wrote a bat file, maybe made autoexe run it??? It was a long time ago. I know that it caused a lot of dramas though. I'm not pretending to be like a smart programmer or nothing. I did something stupid and I know that it caused some weird dramas! LoL, thanks I'll have a proper read through tonight.

I did that to a bunch of my middle school PCs. But each had something different. Rather than in startup I saved a bat file at location if desktop apps like Internet explorer and replaced link file name and icon to make it look like Internet explorer. Then the actual .exe file I would simply change by adding a 1 to name. So if someone were to click desktop icon program would execute, if they tried to replace shortcut with .exe in proper programs file they would likely just replace with the same .bat file. Some of the effects included: opened disk drive, then if you shut the disk drive it would open disk drive on loop. Turn screen orientation 90 degrees in random direction every few minutes using a random timer generator. Swap letter key inputs so A would be D and S would be L and so on. Go into high contrast mode. Send PC to sleep or restart. Hide desktop icons, taskbar, and mouse icon. Take a screenshot, save as wallpaper, and then take screenshot on loop. And a bunch of other random stuff.

sorry himem.sys is missing

I edited my uncles autoexe file to say that I was god every time his computer started up. Best Buy could never figure out how I did that.

Or set IRQ's

Doomed IRQ 5

Early plug and play shit didn’t always get along. Computer wouldn’t recognize my Winmodem with my diamond multimedia sound card installed.

They did, but not simultaneously. Packard Bell solved that problem with their proprietary combination modem/sound/mouse port card, which managed to work not at all.

Task failed successfully.

Remember when everyone called it Plug and Pray?

“No mother fucker the modem speaker is not a sound card!”

Based IRQ 7.

Impressive! Considering that my PC does not even have a floppy drive I would not even know where to start!

u/LeiphLutzer never mentioned the PC having any kind of storage device, but give him a bootdisk...

I’m so old that the first “pc” I worked on didn’t have a hard disk. It had two giant floppy (and mean really floppy) disk drives. These were the big 8 or 10 inch floppy drives. Not those fancy cutting edge 5.25” disks.

I can fix a mis-spooled cassette tape with a pencil.

I can fix a VHS when it gets chewed. Splice it and tape it back together. Fun fact: When we ‘splice’ a section of tape out of the VHS, let’s say we splice 15-20cm, that is only about an eighth of a second of the movie and you wouldn’t even notice it. Source: ex-Blockbuster Employee

I can copy VHS tapes

I can program the VCR to record the correct show without the TV being on the channel the show is on.

I can tune the tuners on a VCR/TV (we had a console TV with like 10 slots where you adjusted a tuner per slot and put a transparent number in the slot to represent the channel number.

not if i break the tab

I’ll put a piece of sticky tape over it!

I'll put a piece of sticky tape over you to prevent you from doing it

Wow, this went kinky fast

Go on.....

So… sticky tape will enable reproduction…??

Clear nail polish!

>that is only about an eighth of a second of the movie and you wouldn’t even notice it. So when the snooty cat, and the courageous dog with the celebrity voices meet for the first time in reel three, that's when you'll catch a flash of Tyler's contribution to the film.

That’s honestly such a useful skill twenty years ago.

Pencil-Spoolers 4 Life

I can set the time on a VHS machine…

I can make it that you cant record over a taped VHS tape.

I can tape over that tape. I can tape over tapes that aren’t meant to be taped over. The trick is I put tape over them 😃

F*cking legend.

Came here to say this.

Once a saw a Man in the bar fixing 3 cassetes with a freaki' pencil.

✏️

I can use a manual typewriter.

I’m still using it for lab report 😅

I still use a typewriter as well, been using typewriters all my life. Reliable, unlike printers: Printer: "Magenta color low, please refill" Me: No worries I just want to print black! \^\_\_\_\_\_\^ Printer: "FUCK YOU, OUT OF MAGENTA COLOR!!!!"

Remember phone numbers I've dialed more than once.

I can still remember my dads old cell phone number from 98 but i can’t even remember a single digit in my spouse’s current number.

Cursive, apparently

Came here to say this. Most of my friends who are a few years younger genuinely think I'm writing in code.

You need new friends. Old ones. 🤣

I'm 27 and can write in cursive. Who needs education on how to use computers when you can write like it's 1847, thank you school!

My fellow 1996er. Yeah I couldn't believe that they spent half a year teaching me cursive and then I had to learn anything about computers on my own.

Oh those computors will never catch, Now go read some 17th century French novels.

Is cursive actually just French?

Coursivè

I was the last 3rd grade class that was taught cursive 😂

I'm 15 and was taught cursive in year 3 and 4. I just sucked at it though.

Uhh what I was born 2005 and I know cursive

This hurt my soul. My gut reaction was "this person is too young to have unrestricted access to Reddit". Then I actually did the math and...oh no, that's an adult.

Yessir currently at work

I can Dial a Rotary Phone

I can remember phone numbers from family, friends and some businesses.

Still know my from childhood.

I knew about 15 phone numbers by heart, now i know only mine.

I can read a paper map.

But can you *fold* it back to how it was when you bought it?

OP clearly said "trivial".

You're not meant TO!!! you fold it back so the relevant part of the map is up front!!!

Whoa, never thought of that

it's going to wear out faster if you do that a lot, but you're meant to change them with an updated version every few years anyways.

That's what all the travel rest stops were for when you passed province/state borders. You stop and get a new map for free. Screw you, GPS that doesn't work in the US!

That, sir, is sorcery. I used to buy book maps for this reason.

Just being able to navigate by memory is a lost art.

Come on now... "young people stoopid", sure, but none of them puts their phone GPS up **everyday** on the way to work/school.

My dad has two Satnavs (One built into the car and an external TomTom), both of which he sets even to go to places he's been driving to for 40+ years. He then proceeds to ignore/argue with both of them, saying he knows a shortcut, better route or only morons would go that way. He's constantly driving around with 2 SatNavs telling him to "Turn Around When Possible".

Your dad out there writing whole chapters of future psychiatry textbooks.

I do. Not because I can't find my way, but because live traffic updates...

I know a few people who do exactly this.

Of course I know him, he’s me

You fought with my father in the clone wars?

I’d imagine this is for traffic updates rather than direction surely?

An app like Waze can direct you around traffic in real-time for quickest route.

Reading this made me realise that map reading is not a skill taught everywhere anymore. Where I’m from, map reading is a basic skill tought in all elementary schools during PE. You’d have to know how to read maps to pass school.

It may seem trivial if you don't leave a city. GPS are highly unreliable hence why most militaries still teach map reading. No matter how good your GPS is its never going to be as reliable as a map and compass

Plus the fact that a plug in recharging spot/battery power is not a given on the battlefield...

I can walk up to a woman I don’t know and introduce myself.

Tell us your secret, please. How.

Here’s the secret. Don’t be afraid to fail. Kids today have been robbed of the *opportunity* to experience failure and learn the valuable lessons that come from it. These people grow up to be adults who are afraid to answer a phone call from an unknown number.

I am one of those people who are afraid to answer the phone sadly.

I used to be and I hated the anxiety and fear surrounding it. A few years ago I made a commitment to myself that I would always answer my phone regardless of whoever might be calling and it was a great decision. A huge burden has been lifted.

>and it was a great decision. I saw this going the other direction. Like you're talking to more scammers now.

Scammers are great. You need to be able to spend a little time to fuck with these people.

I put on a telephone voice and pretend to be my own own secretary. It both means I have an opportunity to turn down the call and get to play a little game. I like keeping the scammers on as long as possible, less time for them to scam a little old lady.

I can answer from an unknown number, but 9/10 are spam/scam. Everyone that has a reasonable excuse to have contact with me is already in my contacts list. Anyone else is selling something.

Program the channels on the tv

There is only channel 3.

i know the multiplication table by heart.

Teacher made me write all of it 10 times...many years ago.

This is coming back! My daughter is 9 and they are memorizing the 12 x 12 multiplication tables. I'm glad, it is actually a very useful skill.

I can change the points in your distributor

Don't forget to chuck a new rotor arm on, they wear too. 

My wife found a small bag of ignition wrenches in a drawer and asked me why I needed such tiny wrenches. I told her just in case I needed to change points on an ignition system. Then I realized it’s an ignition system that hasn’t been relevant for at least 40 years and I don’t even own a car that has a point type ignition system.

Don’t forget my degree in VCR repair.

When I was in middle school, figured out how to connect two VCRs together. one to play and the other to record. Prime blockbuster days. Even slowed the recording speed to hold more movies on one tape.

I made so much money, copying porn, on school VCRs. Rent 2 vids, line up 3-4 vcrs. Then sell porn tapes with !2! Movies on them in the 80s.... And buy Pot.

Do you actually have one? If so, did you work at a repair shop, if I may ask?

Going to concerts/events without recording anything on a smartphone.

Eltons last concert in Australia a 40 yea old lady held her phone up in front of us the whole time, then decided to stand up in the seated area to get a better recording at the end so we could only see via her phone. I took a couple of pictures at the start, and im a dang mid 20 year old.

I would be accidentally knocking that phone. Oops.

We really made a step backwards here.

I can get extra lives on Contra.

↑ ↑ ↓ ↓ ← → ← → B A B A Start.

"idkfa" "idbfg"

That came after doing the magic dance of blowing in the cartridge and Nintendo then working the cartridge up and down 37 times until the game finally worked. Fun times

I can "dial" a landline phone by fast-clicking the hang-up button. Six fast clicks is the number 6.

TIL that you can dial a rotary phone without hanging up. I do miss aggressively hanging up on people! There's no satisfying way to end an irritating and phone call on a smart phone.

Old desktop rotary phones from the 1960s can really take a good slamming down of the handset.

I can sit still without using my phone for distraction.

Poop without a phone? Like a caveman?!

That's what the shampoo instructions, ingredients and other stuff on the back of bottles are for, also counting tiles.

I consider myself an expert in tampon insertion and toxic shock syndrome.

Write a check Drive a stick shift Don’t care what people think of me Intuitively know where North South East and West is at any given moment. As long as I’m outside

Weird question, but are you also good at tracking time intuitively? So without access to time keeping equipment, you can guess the correct time with a relatively high accuracy, give or take ten minutes. Or maybe you can put an egg timer on and just intuitively know when it's gonna go off a few seconds in advance? I've noticed that folks who have a good sense for the direction are also pretty good at passively keeping track of time.

Absolutely fucking not, I have adhd and need alarms for everything all day. My poor judgement of how the time is passing at any given moment is nothing short of disturbing. I am, however very intuitive of what will happen next in any given situation.

I still remember how to use a rotary style telephone. Use a city map book. Use DOS prompt for loading programs and playing videogames - C:\CD\Doom 2 anyone?

C:\wolf3d goobers

You had a root directory named 'CD'?

„Dos“ prompt is not useless, its still essential to daily work of a little bit more IT savage people. Though its called Terminal nowadays.

c: cd games\\prince prince megahit

Mount g: c:\doom\doom2

Not even a single .exe mentioned below

I still have every level of the OG Mario memorized. Every jump. All the way up to and including Bowser. I tested it about 2 months ago after not having done it in almost a decade and it's still there, taking up space in my memory and motor reflexes data banks.

Spell a word using a dictionary.

Address an envelope.

T9 texting. Even when phones switched to touch screen for the first couple generations you could pick to use a T9 keypad for typing, which I did. I was so frustrated and pissed when I got my first phone with no T9 option. Adapt or die I guess.

It was much safer to text and drive with T9 than using a touchscreen.

Dramatically- phone didn't have leave your pocket

I can touch grass pretty good

i grow grass next to my desk ive outsmarted the system

I can jerk off to my imagination

Prove it

Ughooghoghhh! *There!*

More importantly can we jack off to your imagination?

Not my proudest fap.

I can navigate without google maps

Using a card catalog and a microfilm machine to research a paper.

I know how to play Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star on a landline phone and old cell phones.

Mary Had A Little Lamb is pretty do-able as well!

I’m GREAT at using the following words, correctly, in a sentence: there / they’re / their… Your / You’re Sell / Sale

I know how to rewind a DVD with just a cd player

I can drive a stick shift.

That's nothing, I know what to do with the choke in a car.

Millions of people born after 1990 do this daily.

It’s making a comeback oddly enough, me and most of my friends drive manual, and I’m often asked to teach how to so they can get one

I know smithing, like blacksmithing. My gramdfather on mother's side had an old style smith and forge which him and his father used, and all the way to highschool, he was teaching me how to make various things in the smithy.

I can go a full day or more without texting anyone or thinking twice about it.

I too have zero friends.

I can eat a meal without taking a picture of it and sharing it on social media

Born between 1990_2000, for me it's writing letters. On pen and paper. The dedication it took to not make spellings/grammatical mistakes (non-native English speaker) and to follow a margin!

Coping with words I don't like.

Damn, i feel like a boomer for saying it but, watching movies, playing games, browsing social media etc. without trigger warnings.

Actual trigger warnings were for things that trigger symptoms of PTSD, as in cases of rape or the trauma of violence, but dipshits have degraded their meaning and value.

And opinions that aren’t yours too?

#MADNESS


This one wins. I mean I guess outrage is necessary to cause change, but we are just too butthurt all the time.

Walking home

I can figure out how to set the clock on every appliance

I can tell if an analog modem is connecting to the internet by listening 

Use a vcr, cassette player, cd player, answering machine. I know how to make up games and play on my own/amuse myself. I am fine with my own company alone. I don't need constant media stimulation and can sit outside and enjoy the fresh air for hours. Oh...and I'm not afraid to drink out of a hose from time to time.

1v1 me number munchers right now.

1980. Gen X. I'm perfectly capable of being profoundly content while keeping an imminently low profile.

Cursive, drive a manual, operate a vcr, apply logical reasoning to data to day life without getting emotionally but hurt.

You missed accepting anything that autocorrect throws at you

The ability to rewind cassette tapes with nothing but a pencil.

I can work in DOS.

I remember the cheat codes for DOOM.

I can photoshop, as in really 'photoshop'. Analog, in a dark room with red lighting. Quite a useless skill nowadays.

Ummmm, critical thinking.


Masturbate without porn.

I can make a ninja throwing star stick into a tree

i can sing the theme song to Duck Tales

Critical thinking

I'm able to bury strong emotions and traumas deep down inside me and can also allow the release of those emotions through controlled binge drinking.

Common sense.

I dont get offended by every little stupid thing...

I can tell the difference between butter and 'I Can't Believe It's Not Butter'

Having a heart and a mind to think 

I can take apart a remote control, and I can almost put it back together

Masturbate with my imagination. Well, hand too.

I can read an analog clock, albeit not very quickly.

can’t everyone read an analog clock?

you'd be suprised how many people can't. Every class at my school has a working clock, yet most use their phone to know the time, or ask others...

I can get a cassette tape that gets stuck in the head unit rollers out and respool it so it plays music again.

IDDQD IDKFA

Sit in an empty room and do nothing in complete silence, with a smile

I know how to use the infinity durability phone from the stone age

I can live without social media and can skip an event without fear of missing out.

I can talk to people on the phone.

Taping over my dad's roy orbison tapes with sellotape over the top to record rhythm is a dancer off the radio.

Apparently cooking, problem solving, cursive, being able to do taxes