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Department of Post-Mortem Communications
#26 Old 25th Nov 2017 at 11:00 AM
Quote: Originally posted by igazor
(...)
Now if we could get someone in here to talk about a typical day in 1891 where things like electricity were pretty new and motor vehicles could not be taken for granted, then we might have something.

(...)
Ah yes, those were pretty wild times. Whenever I felt like listening to some music I had only two choices: either go to a concert or make it myself.
Befriending and subsequently visiting someone outside your immediate circle of family required the sending back and forth of visiting cards.
And if you hadn't stocked up in time on lamp oil you were in for very dark winter months.
But we lived in the unmitigated confidence of being in the possession of an unsurpassable height of civilization, culture and comfort. We really thought it couldn't get any better.
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Mad Poster
#27 Old 25th Nov 2017 at 11:42 AM
Quote: Originally posted by Don Babilon
But we lived in the unmitigated confidence of being in the possession of an unsurpassable height of civilization, culture and comfort. We really thought it couldn't get any better.

Not entirely convinced that it ever really did. Pity you couldn't afford a gramophone (or phonograph if you prefer), though. Might be off by a few years, but they should have been available right around then.
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#28 Old 25th Nov 2017 at 8:01 PM
Quote: Originally posted by Don Babilon
Ah yes, those were pretty wild times. Whenever I felt like listening to some music I had only two choices: either go to a concert or make it myself.
Befriending and subsequently visiting someone outside your immediate circle of family required the sending back and forth of visiting cards.
And if you hadn't stocked up in time on lamp oil you were in for very dark winter months.
But we lived in the unmitigated confidence of being in the possession of an unsurpassable height of civilization, culture and comfort. We really thought it couldn't get any better.


Don't forget long skirts being uni-sex until boys were school age.
(I remember my grandfather telling stories of when he finally got his first pair of pants and couldn't wait to show them off to the neighbor who had been teasing him about being a little girl.)

I am Ghost. My husband is sidneydoj. I post, he downloads, and I wanted to keep my post count.
Group for Avatar Makers* Funny Stories *2017 Yearbook
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#29 Old 25th Nov 2017 at 9:29 PM
Quote: Originally posted by igazor
going online to text chat with my online friends (Compuserve or local bbs boards)

Woah, shit. You were way ahead of the curve.
Quote: Originally posted by igazor
(whispers: and there were gay people around in both decades)

Yeah, but not in the magical TV universe of Family Matters, Saved By The Bell, Married with Children or whatever it is I'm basing this thing on. And I haven't even seen 2 of those 3 shows so who knows how out of touch I probably am.
Quote: Originally posted by Wojtek
Here's a mod which makes it possible to disable cell phones. I tested it and it works flawlessly.
http://modthesims.info/t/562581

Yeah, I've been using that one. It's very refreshing to not have cell phones in your game, because it means Sims have to put some actual effort into keeping in touch with their friends.

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( Join my dumb Discord server if you're into the whole procrastination thing. But like, maybe tomorrow. )
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#30 Old 2nd Jan 2018 at 2:58 PM
Quote: Originally posted by igazor
I remember 1991 very well. A typical day would consist of working really hard, coming home and putting on some music (CD or radio), going online to text chat with my online friends (Compuserve or local bbs boards), and eventually having to hang up on them so I could order a pizza (only one phone line). When out and about, one had to put coins into a box commonly located in a not very hygienic booth, although those were being replaced at the time by standalone payphones with no booths in many areas. Many of us tended to watch things on television at the time they were actually scheduled to be on. Yes, things were different then but for many of us they didn't seem that different.

By the way - yeah, I know. I know what it was like. My mind works in weird ways, so when I read something like this, I somehow convince myself that I was there.
I've seen Wayne's World, but I wasn't actually there. My stupid head just has me believing I was.
That's what 1991 was like, right? Wayne's World? But without, you know, Wayne?

insert signature here
( Join my dumb Discord server if you're into the whole procrastination thing. But like, maybe tomorrow. )
Mad Poster
#31 Old 2nd Jan 2018 at 3:51 PM
Quote: Originally posted by GrijzePilion
By the way - yeah, I know. I know what it was like. My mind works in weird ways, so when I read something like this, I somehow convince myself that I was there.
I've seen Wayne's World, but I wasn't actually there. My stupid head just has me believing I was.
That's what 1991 was like, right? Wayne's World? But without, you know, Wayne?

For some of a certain demographic group whose everyday vocabulary included things like "Party On"and "Schwing" and who really did live in their parents' basements, maybe. Tell you what, let's just go with "Sure, it was exactly like that for everyone."
Scholar
#32 Old 2nd Jan 2018 at 5:28 PM
Quote: Originally posted by GrijzePilion
Crap, you're right. I can't believe I forgot about those.
See, here's the deal. I'm like 3 years old. I mostly have to pretend that I'm all down with the Gen X'ers and various other shades of old. I reminisce about how much better music used to be, and how much simpler the world was when we didn't have the internet. I mostly grew up with 80s/90s pop culture and stuff like that, because I was surrounded by people with good taste. So it's really easy for me to pretend that I've been around for much longer than I have, when I haven't. But the truth is that I haven't seen a real live phone booth since I was a kid, and I've certainly never had to use one. And I haven't watched a movie on VHS since grade school. So while I may know about 99% of these things, they don't exactly come naturally to me. An old man, who claims to be my father, told me that he could tell I didn't grow up in "his time" by the way I hold a phone when talking into it, and that I would have a mental breakdown if I had to spend my days the way he did at my age. Apparently, 1991 was hell (despite how fond he seems to be of the era).

So I like to pretend that I'm really old and worldly, and that I really miss the 80s and shit, but in reality I'm just another one of those teenaged-ish hipsters who ironically wears old clothes and listens to vaporwave on Soundcloud. I give ten times as much shits about The Breakfast Club or Weird Science or any other 80s teen movie than any actual 80s teen did, because that's what stupid little shits like me do...amongst other things like wearing Nirvana shirts and bringing bad fashion trends back. Seriously, who the hell thought mom jeans were a good idea?

[/stupid self-deprecating rant]


You're also going to want to make a great bank of payphones in any sets that are supposed to be airports/big train stations/ferry terminals/bus stations and outside the movie theaters.

http://www.silive.com/northshore/in..._st_george.html

You can kind of see what I mean in the video behind the shoeshine guy. If you're making a 80s NY, you are gonna want to make a bunch of kiosks, stands, and shoe shine chairs to sprinkle throughout the world. Also, there weren't very many proper phone booths in NYC because of a tendency for people to use them as urinals and Bell Atlantic didn't like the maintenance/upkeep involved. By the 80s/90s they'd moved to a phone that sat recessed into a box on a pileon like these from wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Payph...xes_toronto.jpg
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#33 Old 2nd Jan 2018 at 5:41 PM
Yeah, I know. Lots of payphones. I'll need a bunch of other urban clutter as well. I don't want the whole city to be super dirty everywhere, but cities simply were a lot grittier at the time and I need to do something with that.
Quote: Originally posted by igazor
For some of a certain demographic group whose everyday vocabulary included things like "Party On"and "Schwing" and who really did live in their parents' basements, maybe. Tell you what, let's just go with "Sure, it was exactly like that for everyone."


insert signature here
( Join my dumb Discord server if you're into the whole procrastination thing. But like, maybe tomorrow. )
Scholar
#34 Old 2nd Jan 2018 at 6:30 PM
Quote: Originally posted by GrijzePilion
Woah, shit. You were way ahead of the curve.


Depends on where you live and what circles you moved in. My uncle married my aunt in 1988, they'd met in 86 on a message board for Queens College. You have to remember that in NYC in the 80s and 90s, they were building the systems that run the financial markets now and these are all computerized systems. Networks and the internet itself were created to allow for the seamless transfer of funds. Most of my friends dads worked in computers as programmers, technicians, or whatever. All of us had a computer in the home and we were allowed to use to play games. In school, we had a computer lab and many of the kids at school got their introduction to computers there. We moved off DOS and onto Windows 3.1 in the third grade, and I was allowed to go onto the internet with supervision to do research for school projects.

You might want to check out Halt and Catch Fire for a depiction of the 80s computer scene.
Scholar
#35 Old 2nd Jan 2018 at 6:35 PM
Quote: Originally posted by GrijzePilion
Yeah, I know. Lots of payphones. I'll need a bunch of other urban clutter as well. I don't want the whole city to be super dirty everywhere, but cities simply were a lot grittier at the time and I need to do something with that.



CycloneSue at TSR has a corner on the grit with all kinds of textures and build/buy objects. Sandy from Around the Sims 3 has some neat patterns for cement, paint, and bricks. The brick patterns strongly remind me of older areas of Brooklyn.
Mad Poster
Original Poster
#36 Old 2nd Jan 2018 at 7:35 PM
Quote: Originally posted by tunafishfish
Depends on where you live and what circles you moved in.

Well computers, yeah sure. I know a few people who in '88 not only had consoles, but actual home computers and even PCs. But the internet, hell no. That was purely academic.
I'm aware of the whole BBS usergroup thing, and they were novel, but it was something the average Joe had very likely never heard of and thus I doubt there is any chance it'll be relevant to my Let's Play thing.

Though I do have a character who would perhaps hang out with geeks, whizzkids, hackers, crackers, phreaks, Reddit addicts avant la lettre, demosceners and god knows who else. But everyone else will just have to go to the library.

And yeah, ATS is awesome. Sandy makes and converts just the coolest stuff. I make sure to remind her of that every so often.

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( Join my dumb Discord server if you're into the whole procrastination thing. But like, maybe tomorrow. )
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