What are your distractions today? (only for win95/win98/winXP era)

[u/guilia909]

okay guys, let's go back for a second to the 80s, 90s, and 2000s: browsing the internet with the old Internet Explorer, installing MS-DOS games, exploring CDs, dealing with slow internet, using floppy disks, etc. That was a great and unique time. But what are your distractions today? in the big 2026, what things do you love ?? are you still staying in the 90s, or do you guys also enjoy modern content and modern technology? lemme know, i am curious :)

[u/XiRw]

I like to “go back and live in the 90s” from time to time with comfort games, shows, etc. I don’t think anything will ever be better than that era for me. But I do enjoy modern technology too. Depends what it is.

[u/GeekBrownBear → u/XiRw]

I was born in the 90s so when I think about it, do I want to go back to a simpler time when tech was more humane? Or do I just miss naivety and being wondered by everything?

I do miss how simple things were. You didn't need 1000 features in products, sometimes 1 or 2 was good enough.

[u/No_Act_8604 → u/GeekBrownBear]

There is a minimalist trend that you can join

[u/GeekBrownBear → u/No_Act_8604]

Oh that's not what I meant. While I appreciate minimalism I breathe chaos.

It was more like "this water bottle is a water bottle" it doesn't also double as a camping stove and phone stand.

[u/mxtoor → u/GeekBrownBear]

If you look at the majority of users of softwares like Word, Excel, etc., in 2026, 99% of the features they use already existed in Office 4.8 or Word 6 back in 1995... ms office could run on just 4 MB of RAM. Today, however, you need gigabytes of disk space and memory.

[u/guilia909 → u/mxtoor]

libre office was way more faster and low hardware consuming.

[u/Boundish91 → u/XiRw]

Yesh i do that from time to time as well. Its good escapism.

[u/BtotheVV86 → u/XiRw]

It’s a double feeling. I too enjoy going back and feel very nostalgic about the late 80s and 90s, but I also enjoy my modern tech, modern car, current life. Just glad I got to experience it once

[u/Living_Roll_4729]

well making ai generated images wasnt much of a think back then so idk how you did this

[u/guilia909 → u/Living_Roll_4729]

its just a visual scene.

[u/mxtoor → u/guilia909]

lo fi scene

[u/guilia909 → u/mxtoor]

lol yeah i love this vibe, cozy room, night time 😍

[u/mxtoor → u/[deleted]]

20 minutes of blues1.mid

[u/kakakakapopo]

Finding the one floppy disk with the cd rom driver on it after fucking up Windows and having to reinstall it

[u/Euchre → u/kakakakapopo]

I remember when Windows 98SE showed up with the official installation CD that was bootable, so long as your CD-ROM supported booting to it. That was such a boon, and led to me being involved with my first build with no floppy drive at all.

[u/dwartbg9]

80s

browsing the internet

with the old Internet Explorer

And let me guess, you are just some teenager and nostalgic about times when you weren't even born

[u/guilia909 → u/dwartbg9]

who, me? judging a book its cover, huh!? in-te-res-ting!!

[u/Euchre → u/guilia909]

Be honest - you weren't alive when Windows 95 came out. IE didn't even come with the initial release of 95, you had to get it as part of the Plus! pack. So yeah, nobody was browsing 'the internet' (which was barely a thing at that point anyway) with IE in the 80s, or even the early 90s, because IE didn't exist yet.

Of course, those that were alive back then know the savvy were browsing the internet with Netscape.

[u/guilia909 → u/Euchre]

omg.. i was pretty damn alive when win95 came out, but i was a baby, i used win95 for a very short time cause in my grandpa's house he had a lot of old stuff, VHS, cassette player, vinyl records, etc. ive never used netscape but only IE, and the internet was pretty damn slow. my first video game was an Atari 2600 that my grandpa gave me when i was 4 yo, i was fascinated by video games and VHS at that age.

[u/Forward_Zucchini9738]

WinMX. Shhhh.

[u/Grabate]

I’m dowmloading a 20MB movie, it‘ll only take 15 hours.

[u/ka0us → u/Grabate]

20mb? 15 hours?
mp3 was starting to appear in 96-97 (widespread), filesizes were between 2-5mb per file. It took from 10-18hours in 28kbps dial-up.

[u/Longjumping-Youth934]

Having FIDO mates, using tmail and phone to get and send data, later TheBat!, Netscape Navigator and Yahoo. Never missed windows products, and later shifted to FOSS.

[u/Hottage]

defrag98.com

[u/edibleplastique]

Today I upgraded my OG crystal Xbox that I've had since 2004 with a 750GB HDD that I intend to load all my games onto so that I can preserve the disc drive. I used my XP machine to clone the original drive onto the new one, and had to steal an IDE cable from my 98 machine so that I could connect and boot from the disc drive. Later today, I'm going out into the country to shoot with my RB67. Though I'm not shooting Velvia, I hope to get some Bliss-like shots.

[u/Pajer0king]

I am installng the graphic drivers for my Ati 9250 so i can play some Underground 2 on my XP. And will probably boot up my P1 with Windows 98 to play some Pharaoh.

[u/Insub]

Just discovered MSN chat-rooms and learning how to type faster to keep up with the other chatters LOL.

[u/Drew96M]

Bejeweled 2 Deluxe, my first desktop ran Windows 98

[u/Fickle_External_4742]

Llegar del colegio y entrar a Microsoft comic chat

[u/Fickle_External_4742]

Estoy seguro que llegará el día que volverán a estar de moda la páginas web estilo 90s con gifs y coloridas

[u/Gamer_Addictionz]

Messing around in Microsoft paint on an old bulky XP laptop

[u/Finn_on_reddit]

Playing random games that I downloaded from the web.

[u/HelmsHoldfast]

I read books, use Microsoft encarta, and play games offline. Nature is also a great tonic for the mind. Listen to an album the whole way through, or watch a movie with family and friends. No phones though.

[u/skiddily_biddily]

Waxing nostalgic

[u/V15UAL_K3YS]

Doing the secret Star Wars movie in command prompt in Windows XP lol 😆

[u/Ok-Hotel-8551]

Disk defragmentator

[u/guilia909 → u/[deleted]]

??

[u/Suspicious_Doctor999]

xp and 7 is the same...

[u/hamburgerpancake → u/Suspicious_Doctor999]

not even close

[u/TimeCherry1758]

rage-baiting people on the internet