Technical problems and joys that only children of a different era remember

Would you like a trip down nostalgia lane?

Many years have passed in the world of technology and gadgets have come a long way over the past few decades. Now we are worried about our smartphones spying on us and how much the latest smart device will cost us. But in the old days, we had very different technical problems.

We’re rounding up some of the best tech problems that 90s and early 2000s kids remember so well.

CD collection

Back in the old days, before you could walk around with a smartphone capable of streaming Spotify in your pocket, we had to carry around these bad boys. Or at least get through the hassle of flipping through to find just the right CD for an epic trip mix.

Small pockets, big tech

The ability to carry music with you may have been a step forward, but portable CD players were bigger than the classic Walkman and didn’t cause an end to problems. The choice was basically balancing it precariously in the middle, half it out of your pocket or carrying it around in your hand. First world problems of the old world type.

sound problems

Carrying around CDs and their players can be nice, but at least they’re not randomly unwrapped in the middle of a huge ’90s mix. The audio tapes had to be rewound regularly with a pencil. What is the time to be alive.

Films need to be wrapped

Before the joy that is Netflix and Amazon Prime video, movies appeared on old-fashioned VHS tapes. They were often rented from your local video store and came with the hassle of either remembering to return them when finished or enduring having to do it before you could even watch if the last one didn’t.

Painful download times

The download times were shockingly painful and it could take hours, days or even years before the download finished. This is if no one interrupts progress by answering the phone. Gone are those days now that we have ultra-fast home broadband, 5G signal, and nifty Wi-Fi too.

Learn patience

Kids these days it’s easy. Everything is available to them in almost an instant. In our dial-up days, we had to wait patiently for the web to load. Even a simple image can take a lifetime to display properly, and even when it’s fully loaded, it can be a huge disappointment.

Mice run with balls

In the early days, computer mice operated with balls rather than lasers. These are often clogged with all sorts of dirt but were remarkably fun to play with and a good way to finish off your classmates if you knock one out.

virtual pets

Back in the misty days of the ’90s, you either owned a Tamagotchi or enviously looked at your friends’ toys. Of course, if you own one, you’ll have a hard time trying to keep it alive. It wasn’t just fun and games, you know.

Games drama

Gaming is starting to be very relaxing and fun with the likes of GameBoy and Game Gear appearing on the scene. But even though the hardware came with some dramas. Like trying to play on a black and green screen in the dark.

overhead displays

Long before Microsoft Powerpoint or decorative touch-screen whiteboards, the classic overhead projector was a mainstay for making presentations. These simple machines appeared in schools all over the world and were loved or hated by teachers and children alike.

WordArt is awesome

WordArt was a classic way to go about any homework you had to turn in. A surefire way to distract yourself from the fact that you only put half the effort into your work.

Fun with Windows

Computers weren’t always reliable and software seemed to crash a lot in those days. Maybe it was the cheap school computers? But at least you can have fun drawing Art Nouveau with disabled dialogs in the program.

Classic games

PC gaming options may have been very limited in those days, but it was quite a classic. Minesweeper and Solitaire were favorites in our book. You had to search through a huge menu system to find them though.

Phone storage problems

Phone storage full issues have always been an issue but in the good old days, you ran out of space for message storage. Classic Nokia phones may have been solid, but they weren’t infallible.

Rotate your windows

Before everything in the car became automatic, the car’s windows had to be opened manually using a simple crank system. Life is much simpler now you just press a button.

Telephone wires

Landlines were tricky when the wires got tangled and tangled and generally turned into a mess. Everyone has felt this pain from office workers to families at home using their landlines. Some still feel miserable today.

Small floppy disks

Before the era of cloud computing, we had to store all our data on floppy disks. They were unreliable though, coming loose at the slightest sign of a magnet and easily destroyed if you were foolish enough to keep one in your pocket. They didn’t hold a great deal of data either, so many games, programs, and operating systems required multiple disks in order to install and work.

Damaged CDs

Sure, you weren’t likely to eat breakfast off a CD and they were certainly more reliable than cassette tapes, but the slightest blemish could wreak havoc. Everything from a scratch to a fingerprint can really ruin your music experience and potentially ruin your favorite album.

Blowing on game cartridges

In the heyday of video games, games featured cartridges that allowed for much faster load times (for the era), but they could stop working if not taken care of properly. Even a little bit of dust on the cartridge can stop the game from working. Nothing a quick hit can’t solve.

Don’t have one of those

The humble Talkboy was a cassette player and recorder who started life as a backing for the Home Alone movies. They were very popular and make a classic Christmas gift. Everyone wanted one and it proved very difficult to get. If you don’t own one, you’re not going to be cool enough for school.

Texting was painful

Even something as simple as sending a text message was a hassle in the old days. There’s no decent predictive text or smart keyboards, just number buttons that have to be pressed multiple times to get the right letter. It took a long time to master and is now a forgotten talent that no one needs.

Writing cheat codes

As the years passed, the games started to get better and it was possible to learn cheat codes for your favorite games to get extra ammo and infinite lives to make things more interesting. Players used to write these codes to look for them late. After all, there was no easy access to Google at that time.