Things that remind you of your age

[Imperioratorex Caprae]

While having a talk with a friend I met through gaming years ago at a LAN party, I suddenly realized how much time has passed in my life as a gamer.
I remember when Captain N was a new show, and had 80's songs during action sequences. Same goes for the Super Mario Bros. Super Show. Now these shows have cheesy music attached to them where my memory shows different. I know, they probably let the rights expire by the time they were transferred to DVD.
I also remember arcades used to be awesome, now they're all cheesy shooter games, DDR, Guitar Hero and fruit ninja crap. Except Time Crisis, thats still awesome.
I remember when you could send in pictures of you and your awesome High Scores on NES games to Nintendo Power and they might print them. Hell I remember when having a high score on local arcades granted bragging rights. Now we just have Achievements.
I remember being the weird kid on the block who had a PC and it played games! Kids in my neighborhood were fascinated by what my PC was capable of. I was also the only kid with a Genesis apparently. That granted auto-cool status when Mortal Kombat was released for it since it had the blood code.
Speaking of codes... You know you're old when you remember sifting through Nintendo Power mags and (later) Game Genie books for codes to make games fun, or just plain cra-cra. I still have a little red book with tons of NES cheats/hints. Anyone else remember hint lines that cost your parents an arm and a leg because you had no concept of money?
Meh, so many memories... I could go on, but damn I just feel older every time I do this.
So, what are your memories that show your age?
BTW... I've been eaten by a shitload of Grues.

 

[KarmaTheAlligator]

Well, everything you said (except the Grues, I don't remember playing Zork) and my grey hair. I remember spending a few sleepless nights playing Boulder Dash on my C64 (and getting yelled at because I was supposed to be asleep).

 

[Redd the Sock]

My first computer was a vic 20 that used cassettes as the medium. 20 minute load times for a stickman version of hangman.

I actually did have my scores published in Gamepro a few times. I don't mind achievements, just the people that think trying for them sucks the fun out of things.

Frustrating over text adventures, both in figuring out what to do, and what exact phrasing the computer recognized to do it.

Forget Captain N. I was there for Saturday Supercade.

50 cents was the expensive arcade game, but always worth it.

 

[shrekfan246]

Oh, everything. And I'm not even that old.

I remember being so excited to get up early on the weekends to watch Saturday morning cartoons.

I remember when VHS tapes were still the biggest things, and I'd go down to the local Blockbuster with one of my parents to rent tapes of Sonic SatAM or Batman: The Animated Series or Rugrats (we didn't have cable...) and N64 games like Banjo-Kazooie before I owned a copy for myself.

I remember how easily my clumsy self could ruin cassette tapes. Seriously, keep those things away from children...

Over a decade ago I used to be on Neopets.

I had the Harry Potter books when they were first released. Too bad most of those have fallen to the abyss with the move to Florida my mother took a while back...

Toy Story and Toy Story 3.

Where have all the cheat codes gone?

"Hi! I like shorts!"

 

[IllumInaTIma]

I remember PlayStation 1 games costing 350 tenge (around 3$)

I remember waking up early to watch TMNT

I remember having to get up to change channel

I remember having to adjust antenna to catch clear signal on TV

I remember teacher confiscating my Tamagotchi

I remember playing "9999 in 1" tetris handheld

 

[The Madman]

Seeing people a fair bit younger than I am reminisce about how old they are in this topic makes me feel pretty old, which will only make the people older than I am feel even older as I'm fairly young all things considered.

It's a self-perpetuating circle of oldness.

 

[TehCookie]

I was 3 when the PS1 was released. At that age I played more Sega Genesis games so I feel like an older gamer than I actually am. I grew up with win 98 and played Duke Nukem over a lan before Quake was made, and I'm only 21.

 

[Asclepion]

DELETE

 

[FrozenCones]

Being able to play out in the street with friends until dark.
Having a Sega Game Gear and Classic Gameboy when I was 8 or 9.
Going to a friends house and his dad had a Laser Disc system. I thought that was the hottest shit ever!!
Getting mobile phones where you had to insert the entire credit card sized SIM card into the back.

 

[Diddy_Mao]

Movies I watched in Grade School are getting "Anniversary Editions."

All of my friends who had younger siblings in preschool now have younger siblings in College.

Have you seen The Ghostbusters recently?

 

[Jamieson 90]

I remember a time when we didn't have the internet or mobile phones, shocking I know

 

[tilmoph]

I remember when DVD players were a bit hoity-toity, then social media a. being MySpace and b. not being some thing we were suppose to give a damn about, then smartphones were for douchebags with too much money and too little intelligence.


Nowadays, whenever someone goes on about Twitter, or just takes it as a given that you have a Facebook page, or that you own some kind of smartphone, I feel like the stereotypical old man, lost and annoyed by how impressed these kids are with their pointless little gizmos and bullshit.

 

[HoFT013]

I remember the Game Gear's launch and the six batteries I had to have on hand to play the ************.

 

[Vern5]

I remember waking up early to watch Monkey Magic.
I remember when Toonami first aired.
I remember what life was like before the internet and cellphones.
I remember playing Intellivision.

I don't feel old. Just older than I should.

 

[SilkySkyKitten]

I was born in the same year that Wolfenstein 3D was released. Said game had its 20th anniversary last year...

I remember owning a Walkman when I was younger.

The SNES was my first gaming console, and my second was an N64. Thus, I have many memories of the days in which if a game wasn't working, you blew on the cartridge until you were blue in the face.

I owned every Pokemon game... when there were only three versions: Red, Blue, and Yellow.

Dial-Up internet. I remember the days in which that's all we had, and it was impossible to use it and use the phone at the same time. Thus, it was pretty easy for my parents to tell if I was online when I shouldn't have been.

Oh, and I also remember the days in which the internet wasn't the primary usage for my computer, and when computers were the only way to access it.

 

[Fijiman]

I remember when just about all that used to air on Cartoon Network was the Looney Tunes.
I remember when the coolest thing about my parent's phone was that I could play snake on it.
I remember how I used to have to climb up on the bathroom counter to see more than just my face in the mirror.

I remember when Toonami first aired.

I remember when that and Adult Swim first aired.

I don't feel old. Just older than I should.

I feel the same way now.

 

[Donald Tubbs]

I remember when there were cigarette ads on TV.

I had a Sears knock-off Pong b/c we couldn't afford a real one.

Paid $250 for my first "portable" CD player that took 6 AAs to run 6 hours but was ahead of the curve and bought NiCads and an AC adapter at Radio Shack so that I could recharge the batteries *externally* overnight while still listening. Put external speakers on it so I wouldn't have to AUX into a boombox for room-filling sound.

Taught a semester-length course in "CD-ROM Mastering" before every OS had it built-in. Anyone else remember Adaptec Toast v0.5 for SCSI-bearing Macs only. You had to burn about 6 coasters to get one good CD @ $5/blank. Hurray for deprecated skillsets!

Also taught a class called "Internet and Electronic Journalism" which was always full b/c someone figured out that Tuition + Lab Fees = University dial-up that was cheaper, faster and more reliable than the local ISP; so we milked it by adding extra Lab Only sessions to the 30 seat course.

Debated at Univ. about what the fate of the internet would be when 01/01/1994 rolled around and online advertising became legal. Taught people how to use Archie, Veronica and Gopher while musing on whether the "World Wide Web thing" would ever be mainstream. Consensus: maybe if computers are ever powerful enough to load a page full of .gifs!

 

[Donald Tubbs]

My 9-year-old nephew asking me, "Who is Osama bin Laden and why did we kill him?"
Explain about 9/11 (he hadn't heard of it) and the World Trade Center, while mentally calculating his age vs. my location when I heard.
"Oh, you mean those big buildings that are in old movies, but now they're not in movies anymore?"

 

[Groxnax]

8-track tapes and record players.
video games that take up to more than 2 discs now can be downloaded into the Vita.
Star Trek: TOS.
TV with less than a billion channels.
Smurfs.
Big computers.
Arcades that were in every mall.
Phones WITH cords
Movie theaters with less than two screens.

Man, now I feel old now.

 

[Greg White]

Back when I was a teenager my grandparents had me and my siblings plant a bunch of pine trees in the field between their house and the road(about a good half-mile stretch).

I drove by the other day and you wouldn't think there was a house back there because of how much the trees have grown up.

Then there's also the fact that people who were in 4th grade when I graduated are graduating themselves.