I Was a Computer Nerd in the 1980s Then Fell Away How Do I Become a Computer Nerd Again
Acclaimed horror author Stephen Rex once wrote, "Sooner or later on, everything one-time is new once again." If you're in a sure age group, and you've witnessed the last few decades of the development of everything geeky and nerdy, then you know that what King wrote is nigh certainly truthful.
For all the talk about the latest technologies and the exciting changes that social networks bought to the world, it may surprise some of our younger readers to know that many of these technologies were around every bit far back every bit the 1980s.
They were effectually, merely they weren't so cool. In fact, the people who were actively participating in them were considered "nerds", and back then, existence a nerd wasn't considered a skilful thing.
Using a Estimator
In the 1970s and 1980s, computers were fringe. People who knew how to use them were considered in par with scientists and academics. The earliest computers filled an entire room, they were noisy, and they took a lot of manual effort to operate.
At least in the early on 1970s, when the floppy disk drive entered into the loonshit, the personal computer became a real possibility for regular geeks around the world to own and play with at home.
Movies like War Games in 1983 and Weird Science in 1985 were manifestations of the sort of dreams every immature reckoner aficionado had, but even in the 1980s those young afictionados were nevertheless social pariahs. They were teased relentlessly in school. They were portrayed throughout the media every bit socially stunted weirdos wearing thick-rimmed spectacles with tape fastened to the span.
The give-and-take "nerd" was a stinging insult. These kids, for the most office, only found solace in the clickety-ballyhoo of the mechanical keyboard and the soft, dark-green glow of the monochrome monitor. Computer nerds were a minority, and they were outcasts.
Fast forwards over two decades, and the term "nerd" is i of the highest compliments you could dish out to someone. Musclehead jocks and popular cheerleaders in high schools now don thick-rimmed black glasses and vesture t-shirts professing their love of all things "nerd". These days, anybody's a reckoner expert. Or at least, they retrieve they are.
Because, hey, now it'south cool to be a computer nerd.
Making Permit's Play Videos
I recall back in 1988, a friend of mine figured out how to hook up his VCR, his stereo, and his Nintendo panel to his tv. This task wasn't quite as easy dorsum and then as it is today. All yous had to piece of work with was this silly TV/COMPUTER adapter, a collection of splitters, and Television set audio connections (if you were lucky).
https://flic.kr/p/862z3U
After piecing this organization together through a tangle of wires and adapters, he managed to tape himself playing Mario Bros for half an 60 minutes onto a VHS video cassette, consummate with a groundwork soundtrack of Metallica'southward Enter Sandman.
He lent me the tape for a weekend, and I take to say that at start I was very amused that my friend would get through and so much problem to create something and so absurd, and I was confused why anyone would e'er want to practise such a featherbrained matter. What a nerd.
Fast forward a couple of decades, and at present you take an entire customs of popular "Permit's Play" gaming enthusiasts and streamers who record themselves playing video games (or streaming it live) to audiences of thousands.
My friend was patently ahead of his fourth dimension.
Electronic Wearables
While clothing electronics are at present all the fad, the nerds of the 1980s had already capitalized on the whole "wearable electronics" concept.
In fact, wearing a computer on your wrist was a signature of existence the ultimate nerd in the 1980s. Even though those watches were around since the 1970s under brands like Pulsar and Hewlett Packard, it wasn't until the 1980s when computer watches came in vogue amid the young nerd oversupply.
At that fourth dimension, the watch to wear that would identify you as the king of the nerds was Casio's Databank calculator sentry.
Of course, back in the 1980s, being king of the nerds was non exactly a proficient thing. In fact, it got you targeted past bullies and jocks throughout eye schoolhouse and high school.
Fast forrard to 2015, and things like Android article of clothing are all the rage. Now, it's no longer a "nerd" watch, it'south a "smart" watch.
Everyone's wearing them. Anybody wants Google Glass, or some cool alternative heads-upward display for humans. Everyone needs a Fit Bit tracking their health habits. Suddenly, wearing electronics is the coolest thing in the world, and anybody forgets that it'southward the nerds who thought of it first.
Instant Messaging
Today, people are instant messaging just almost everywhere you wait. In the supermarket with their iPhones and Android, at work via Corporate solutions similar Microsoft Lync, or from home with the countless IM services and spider web platforms scattered effectually the net. Of course, instant messaging wasn't ever this widespread, or even very popular.
Chatting via computer systems was actually an action that was born in 1988 when Jarkko Oikarinen wrote the globe'south first IRC client-server software at the University of Oulu in Republic of finland. It was ultimately meant to be a realtime extension of the existing UseNet academic bulletin board forum-style organization.
Past July of 1990, there were virtually 40 of these servers across the world, with only nearly 12 users using information technology at a fourth dimension on average. However, that IRC code would class the basis of all futurity IRC networks like Anarchy net, Eris Free Network (EFnet), TubNet, Undernet, Dalnet and IRCnet.
Past the mid 1990s, effectually the time when I was at the University, there were thousands of users on these networks, all across the world. Dormitories had defended computer terminals in a pocket-size room, where nerdy students could connect into the mainframe and log into IRCnet to chat.
On a typical Friday night, when all the residual of the higher kids were off partying in some frat house and getting drunk, the nerds on campus were all gathered at these computer clusters, snacks and drinks scattered all effectually, chatting with other nerds at other Universities all across the world.
Want to dive in further? Cheque out these celebrities who are really quite nerdy!
Today, you lot aren't considered a nerd for hanging out in a calculator cluster on a Friday night, or hanging out with friends at the local college dive, everyone chatting with everyone else on their smartphones. It isn't even really anything unique these days – chatting or "IMing" with family and friends is just what everyone does, all the time. But keep in listen the next fourth dimension you sit down down to Skype or have a Google Hangout with someone, that those nerds who were teased relentlessly were actually mode ahead of their time.
Source: History of IRC via Daniel Stenberg
Images: @ablekay47 via Flickr, CC BY-SA three.0, Maridav via Shutterstock, Goodluz via Shutterstock, Everett Collection via Shutterstock, rangizzz via Shutterstock
Near The Writer
Source: https://www.makeuseof.com/tag/previously-nerdy-things-everyone-now/
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