It’s hard to explain the excitement that those CDs packed to newer generations. The internet was 14.4 or 33.6kbps. My HD had 250MB.
That meant that 650MB was just colossal. Thousands of exquisite icons, games, productivity, utilities, etc. It was vast.
Besides, the drivers were 2X or 4X, so it really took you a while to browse the whole thing.
Every reading noise would correspond to another portion of the screen being partially painted, something to look forward to.
I swear I'm into computers because stuff took forever. Listening to that floppy drive, listening to that hard drive, watching that loading bar fill, swapping out the disk, anticipation and excitement growing ever greater. The result maybe wasn't that important, but the PROMISE of the result...that was special.
Same thing hit again later with Napster and building up collections of albums. I didn't even care about the music, but those loading bars hit a primal spot of "acquire," "forbidden fruit," and "anticipatory glee."
MacFormat, a UK based magazine with a CD full of shareware and demos, would unexplainingly appear every month at a magazine shop in my hometown of Puebla, Mexico, at around ‘94-98.
Without a doubt I would have a different career should I have not have access to this information.
I wasn't born in Mexico, but I had a similar experience. There was a fancy magazine shop/bookstore/coffeeshop that sold MacWorld, MacFormat, MacUser, MacAddict, etc. And they were expensive. Everything seems so when you're 10, of course, but I imagine it truly was, if you account for currency exchange, shipping, etc. It sure consumed every christmas, birthday present and dime I could get my hands on at the time.
I learned so much from those magazines: tips and tricks, reviews of products I could never afford, industry analysis. Being featured on a Q&A session was ecstatic.
A few years ago I had coffee and a Cuban cigar at that store when I visited my parents. I heard it went out of business recently.
That meant that 650MB was just colossal. Thousands of exquisite icons, games, productivity, utilities, etc. It was vast.
Besides, the drivers were 2X or 4X, so it really took you a while to browse the whole thing. Every reading noise would correspond to another portion of the screen being partially painted, something to look forward to.