XeNTaX around for 20 years

[Mr.Mouse]

I would start with a single-cell organism.

[lionheartuk]

wow...I never knew you took biology...that's pretty amazing...no offense or anything, i was always under the impression that you were doing a normal job (I.T type guy came to mind actually) and finished a year or 2 of university...Wow i feel pretty young here now.

Though im only 22, its surprising that many people i knew back at school are now married, or have children, or both... Ive been in a relationship for a year and a half now...and my previous one was like 4 years (that went wrong...obviously) but i don't think im at a child ready age yet... I haven't had my inoculations yet

So i guess compared to me you are ancient (well maybe 10 years isn't ancient...).

Some here are below 16 (no offense to those who i assumed are under 16 but actually aren't....).

Still im pretty impressed this sites been around since i was like 2...wow...computing was ugly back then...I dont think i could cope (though i guess its because im used to this..if i did it back then id be fine with it probably...well...no choice i guess).

[Mr.Mouse]

Pink Floyd have this line in Time :"It's always the same, in a relative way, but you're older".

It is like that. 10 years goes by like it's nothing. When you're young time is gentle on you, you don't notice it much. But once you reach your twenties, the pace is quickening. Before you know it, you'll be 34, like me.

But by Gods, no! Computing wasn't ugly back then! Don't forget that these computers were the hip new thing. I mean, home computers kicked in around 1980, the Commodore 64 around 1982. Before that, NO ONE had a computer. And even then, only some started to pick up this new thing at first, these home computers. Geeks, nerds they called them. Little did the common man know that these computers were going to take over the world. They would move in and settle in everybody's lives permanently, even if they protested. I was 8 when I first got my own homecomputer, a Commodore VIC20, and class mates just barely understood what I was doing. But I could play cool games, and program stuff! Then I met some other class mates that also had computers and we'd hook up and hang out together, playing games, program stuff, talk 8-bit etc. When in the scene we were swapping software and our own creations by snail mail ! We'd copy our stuff onto many floppydisks and send those to our contacts. It felt to us we were living at the front line of technology. It was exiting, new, and fresh. Then we could connect via telephone lines to a Bulletin Board System and a new world opened. We often dreamed that it would be wonderful, if we could talk to others instantly, by typing on the keyboard, wouldn't that be great?

People that looked upon us as nerds will at some point have realised that in fact we were not at all. Indeed, recent studies have shown that people that started as computerfreaks back in the day, were more popular and succesful people in later life (their thirties), compared to people of the same age that were afraid to touch these computers when they were young.

Of course, then usenet came on and then internet and the rest is history.
But computing was exiting, fun, and great back then, not at all ugly. Check out some of my friends at http://noname.c64.org/csdb There you will find people in their 30s, 40s and 50s that are still at it. The C64 scene is not dead. How's that for a computer that has long since been obsolete. It's because it was such a brilliant time, that you become attached to it. Interestingly, I've seen teens join the scene each year, which goes to show that even those that grew up with PC, Nintendo, PS etc still were attracted to the C64 !

Ah yes...

[Rheini]

Yeah the golden age of computers...
You could fool a public phone with a cassette recorder.
You could break SafeDisc etc. with a simple Ring3 debugger.
Nowadays you need years of experience to break even the simplest protection scheme.
It's a shame. I can't figure out Anno 1404 Beta's encryption algorithm cause I gotta wait for a No-CD to come out since I can't defeat TAGES, SolidShield and the like.

[Balder]

Wow, you can say 20 years very fast... but it's a life.

Mr. Mouse, your tales are very interesting, just like those grandpas tell to kids (just joking ) How can you even talk about closing this? It's a cult site! 20 years devoted to it... I'm 19 and I already feel old, or at least, full of memmories. It may be the result of hardcore gaming.

And as Rheini says the golden days have gone forever and we can only remember them, with the help of persons like Mr. Mouse. When a new paradigm comes, even "recreating" a situation does not produce the same feeling as it might be back in time.

Now is the time when everything is ultra-abstract, and hence, much more difficult.

Keep up the scene

[aluigi]

It is like that. 10 years goes by like it's nothing. When you're young time is gently on you, you don't notice it much. But once you reach your twenties, the pace is quickening.

that's horribly... true :(

[shekofte]

GREAT MIKE
what is the meaning of "xentax" word ?

[lionheartuk]

Reading this thread makes me feel old as hell...
And yet...old as i am (though tbh 22 isnt old) I never played an Amiga before...and my 1st consoles were Sega Master System and Sega Genesis (Called MegaDrive in the UK).

My 1st foray into Computers was when i was around 11... and somehow i picked it up pretty damn fast.
Once i have kids its gonna be so hard to explain to them...that when i was a kid..cars didnt fly...and my childen will ask questions like "so wait...u had to WALK...hell...we dont even get taught that word outside of history class" and il let out a big sigh...and then beat my child for saying hell... (well actually i wont...but i threw it in for humor).

[Mr.Mouse]

GREAT MIKE
what is the meaning of "xentax" word ?

There is none, other than it means us! Mr.Ammo and I wished to start something new, with no other meaning. I just made it up. We had a number of ideas for a new computergroup. We just picked this one, we loved it the most.

[Dinoguy1000]

GREAT MIKE
what is the meaning of "xentax" word ?

There is none, other than it means us! Mr.Ammo and I wished to start something new, with no other meaning. I just made it up. We had a number of ideas for a new computergroup. We just picked this one, we loved it the most.

...And really, isn't that just how it *should* be?

[Bogey]

Just wanted to send out my congrats on 20 years!

I loved seeing the C=64 references and especially the Amiga ones.

I started out on a Mattel Intellivision console (with the voice add-on box) and then went to the C=64 with a 300 baud modem, then an Amiga 500 and finally an Amiga 2000 with an '060 board, Picasso II graphics board, 64 MBs RAM (yes, MEGABYTES for you young guys), etc. My friend started on a VIC-20 with a cassette tape drive!

I was a die-hard Amiga user, posting frequently on comp.sys.amiga.advocacy for 13 years. AFAIC, it was way ahead of its time, but run by a very moronic company that didn't even realize what they had.

I was "forced" to join the dark side in '99 with my first PC build and Windows experience. It's a shame...

[Faqew]

Haha, it's one year older than I am.
Congratulations, Xentax team.

I never had an Amiga, but I still have a fully working CPC 464 around. It has a built in cassette deck in its keyboard and I have an addon floppy drive. But it "already" has a colored display, not one of those monochrome ones.