20 Pieces of 90s Technology Today’s Youth Will Never Understand

Ah, the 90s and early 2000s. It was an era of technology that made today’s sleek and shiny gadgets seem like something out of a sci-fi movie. It’s hard to fathom, but the clunky gadgets, dial-up internet, and bulky computers were considered cutting-edge at the time. Oh, how things have changed. We’ve pulled together some nostalgic photos that will immediately resurface core memories from your childhood. We dare you not to feel old as you walk down this memory lane of vintage tech.

#1: The Ultimate Set-Up

One look at this retro computer set-up will have you spiraling back to the days of the early 2000s. Somehow, parents across America knew that the “family computer” absolutely needed to be set up in the living room in this same way. There was nothing like sitting in your dad’s computer chair, turning on the computer tower, and dialing up the internet after dinner.

The elaborate style of the computer desk that had multiple shelves and drawers may have gone by the wayside for many, but it holds a special place in our hearts. This particular set-up is top-of-the-line, with perfectly placed speakers and a CD holder to the side of the monitor. The only drawback was that pesky pull-out portion that held the keyboard.

If you’re younger than an elder millennial, you most likely have no idea what this is. Back in the day, computers had way less hard drive space than they do today. There came a day in every computer user’s life when they realized their hard drive was clogging up and making everything much slower. That’s where defragmenting came in.

Savvy computer users could defragment Drive C to create more space on their computers and stabilize operations. Plus, the program was oddly satisfying to watch. Once that progression bar reaches 100%, your computer will start operating much more efficiently. Defragmenting is still a thing. It just looks less hypnotic and mesmerizing these days.

Picture this. It’s 2002. You’re in 6th grade. You just finished that 500-word essay about ancient Mesopotamia, and you want to add something special to your cover page that will convince your teacher to give you an A+. The only natural solution to this problem is to turn to Word Art on Microsoft Word.

The youth of today will never understand how incredibly cool Word Art was back in the day. Why type out a boring Times New Roman title when you could add wavy block letters in your favorite color? We might have Photoshop, AI image generators, and TikTok filters, but nothing will ever top the classic artistry of the Word Art Library.

The aesthetics of the 90s and early 2000s might be back in fashion, but only true OGs know what it was really like to see those incredible early-tech visuals for the first time. If you’re a millennial who spent way too much time staring at your Windows screensaver, you’re not alone.

Honestly, how could you not? The original screensavers were absolutely mesmerizing. The classic “Pipes” screensaver was a popular favorite. The way those colorful 3D pipes expanded and intertwined was fascinating. There was something completely soothing about the repetitive nature of this masterpiece. If you’re feeling nostalgic, you can watch the “Pipes” screensaver for 10 hours straight on YouTube!

Sure, we have smartphones that give us access to all kinds of information at our fingertips. But who remembers the legendary Nokia 3310 from the early 2000s? This was THE phone to have if you were anybody worth knowing. And if you had a special phone cover with hearts or flowers on it? Forget it– you were the coolest.

The analog screen and buttons may seem ancient now, but they were cutting-edge at the time. When it came out on September 1, 2000, the Nokia 3310 became many people’s first-ever cellphone. Most people spent more time playing pre-installed games like “Snake” and “Space Squids” than actually calling people.

Modern-day video games have incredible graphics and narrative arcs. But there’s something about old video game graphics that is truly magical and nostalgic. “Full Tilt! Pinball” was a game you could play on Microsoft Windows way back in the mid-90s. The most popular pinball game was “Space Cadets” because it was literally the coolest.

“Space Cadets” brought the vintage thrill of pinball into the future with its 3D graphics and addictive gameplay. Many of us are scared to admit how many hours of our lives were spent playing this game. There’s no doubt that kids of the 90s still hear the game’s sound effects as they drift off to sleep. It’s a core memory at this point.

Oh, Internet Explorer. The internet browser we all used before we knew any better. During the days of dial-up internet, we all got this notification from time to time. We’re sure you remember it well. You’re minding your own business, surfing the world wide web, when your computer suddenly freezes. Ugh.

The dreaded notification box would pop up, telling you that “Internet Explorer has encountered a problem and needs to close.” It was perfectly normal to drag the box around the screen in retaliation. At least it made this cool effect all over your screen. Making elaborate designs on your malfunctioning screen was sometimes way more fun than actually going online. Good times, good times.

We take for granted the ease with which we can install programs and operating systems today. Back in the 90s, it took guts, determination, and many, many floppies. This photo of the Windows 95 installation pack may have unearthed a deep core memory for you. We tend to forget just how much effort it was to install a new operating system on our computers!

The original Windows 95 operating system pack came with a whopping 13 floppy disks needed for installation. You had to insert each one in order to install it properly. If you lost one, you were doomed. Believe it or not, these 13 floppies held more data than the average floppy disk of the day. According to Windows whiz Raymond Chen, this cut the floppy count by two. There are some aspects of retro tech that we definitely don’t miss.

After playing solitaire and creating artistic masterpieces on Microsoft Paint, it was time to shut down the family computer. If you were doing this routine after 2001, your computer most likely had Windows XP. You’d go to the bottom left-hand corner, press the “Start” button, and the shut-down screen would appear.

Seeing the XP shut-down screen today is like seeing an old friend. The way the home screen would change to black-and-white while the “turn off computer” box stayed in full color was simply magical. So many of us had this operating system back in the day, and we all probably had the shut-down routine of our old computers embedded in our muscle memories.

If you’re a kid or teen of the 90s, you probably have a favorite screensaver. The “3D Maze” screensaver was by far one of the most popular and mesmerizing screensavers of the day. We all remember that sense of excitement as the red brick walls would rise to meet the office-core asbestos ceiling.

Once the Windows “Start” button appeared on the screen, it was all over. We knew we’d be glued to the screen for at least a good 30 minutes. Who knew what would happen as we traversed the endless, virtual maze? We could run into anything from a mysterious black object that would turn our world upside down to a somewhat menacing smiley face that would let us exit the maze. What a time to be alive.

Personalized Bitmojis are a dime a dozen nowadays. Love them or hate them, there’s no denying that their origin story probably began with the Windows XP account pictures. These were the coolest things when they came out. With the account feature, super-cool teens could create a password-protected home screen all their own on the family computer.

One of the biggest decisions when creating an account was which profile picture to choose. No, you couldn’t choose a picture of yourself. It was so much better. You got to base your entire personality on fun, pre-selected images of guitars, frogs, dogs, and more. To this day, most of us can probably remember our go-to profile picture. It’s part of our personal identity at this point.

This screenshot is the epitome of nostalgia. The Windows 95 operating system really was the best. There’s something so comforting about the blocky 16-bit visuals that take us back to the good old days. Minesweeper, Internet Explorer, and the built-in CD player program were all we needed for a thrilling Friday night at home.

Sure, we have endless entertainment at our fingertips now, but nothing compares to the terrifying thrill of winning an intense Minesweeper game while taking a break from typing your burning questions in Ask Jeeves. If your mom made you get off the internet because she had to make a phone call on the landline, you’d roll your eyes, log off, and switch to an angsty song on your CD.

Stop what you’re doing. We have an important two-syllable word for you: LimeWire. If you know, you know. LimeWire was the one and only place to find all the music your heart desired for the low price of free ninety-nine. For those too young to remember, LimeWire started off as a peer-to-peer file-sharing platform where you could download pirated music.

The risk of downloading a virus to the family computer was absolutely worth it. How else were you supposed to get Chingy’s hit single “Right Thurr” downloaded onto your iPod mini? LimeWire is a perfect example of internet evolution. It was an incredible tool that the powers that be couldn’t control for a few years, and it was amazing. In case you’re wondering, yes, it was illegal. For plausible deniability purposes, no, of course none of us used LimeWire… We bought it off the iTunes store instead, duh.

If your parents were tech-savvy in the 90s, they quickly ditched the clunky Internet Explorer web browser for the way more efficient Netscape Navigator. Netscape was the bee’s knees in the 90s and was the dominant browser of the time. Microsoft was probably salty that its user base hated Internet Explorer, but oh well.

There’s no denying that Netscape was simply better than Internet Explorer. Sorry, Microsoft! Plus, Netscape was free to use and made browsing the internet much more efficient for non-commercial users. It was revolutionary, in a way. Although Netscape declined after the new millennium, its memory lives on in computer nerds’ hearts everywhere.

Boomboxes could be quite expensive back in the day. If you were a music head, the type of boombox you had was a big deal. It could make or break your reputation. We’re not sure how much this Randix HG-40P cost when it first came out, but it seems extremely fancy and top-of-the-line.

Not only did it have a cassette and radio player, but it also had a pull-out record player. This thing combined all audio mediums into one console, which was probably incredible for the time. The fold-out LP player probably didn’t have the best playback quality, but who cares? You brought the party with you wherever you went as long as you had the radio and cassette features lined up.

Name a more iconic opening scene than the Windows 98 start page. That’s right. You can’t because this thing is absolutely universally timeless. If you’re of a certain age, you definitely remember the excitement of booting up the family computer and seeing the colorful Windows icon on your screen.

There’s something so wholesome and hopeful about the simple graphics and optimistic blue sky. And who could forget the iconic start-up music? It’s literally playing in our heads now. Our technology might be much more advanced today, but nothing can compare to this first operating system that many of us used on a daily basis in our childhoods. Ah, simpler times.

CDs have gone by the wayside, but back in the day, they were considered cutting-edge technology. There was nothing fancier than having a laptop with a built-in, hidden CD drive. With a hidden CD drive, you could travel around without having to worry about a pesky computer tower. What a time to be alive.

This picture of an old Panasonic laptop has probably unlocked some deeply buried memories you didn’t know you had. These CD drives were kind of flimsy, so you got a dangerous thrill every time you opened it up. Would it work this time? Hopefully! Nowadays, all of our laptops have touch screens and high-tech touchpads. For some reason, it was way more rewarding to get hands-on, physically insert a CD, and click the trackpad.

Some people will argue that the late 90s was the height of PC gaming. If you ever played “Age of Empires,” you would probably agree. “Age of Empires” is a real-time strategy video game that was all the rage in the 90s. There was no better game where you could play as the leader of an ancient civilization.

This game, considered to be one of the best PC games ever made, is actually kind of sneaky. The game developers were really out here teaching us about the history of civilization from the Stone Age to the Iron Age, all under the guise of having fun. It’s pretty genius, actually. Anyone who says video games are mindless has obviously never played “Age of Empires.”

Ah, the Windows XP Control Panel. There was nothing better than opening up this Pandora’s box of settings and options. With the Control Panel, the virtual world of your computer was your oyster. The hardest part was choosing what to do first. Should you change your screensaver? Tweak the audio settings of your speaker? It was truly overwhelming.

Forget “Age of Empires.” Who needed video games when you had all the Control Panel categories to choose from? This tiny window could lead you down so many paths, it was almost like a choose-your-own-adventure video game. Would you figure out why your printer was only printing Wingdings? Only time and patience will tell.

Okay, kids, buckle up. Back in the day, 90s and early 2000s kids would lug their PC computers to their friend’s house to play video games together. If this makes absolutely no sense, you simply had to be there. Back in the 90s, the word “connection” had a totally different meaning. Sure, you could play online using your parent’s dial-up internet, but it wasn’t the same.

If you remember the glory days of LANNING, you probably have cherished memories of endless afternoons and nights playing “StarCraft” while on a sugar high of Mountain Dew and cookies. Some may have labeled you as a “nerd,” but you knew the truth. There was nothing better than pulling an all-nighter with your squad, screaming at your computer game, and forming life-long memories