iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 03/10/2025

[grisly pixel art] DreamWeb got a generally lukewarm reception from many gaming mags at release, but almost all of them mentioned how extreme some of the depicted violence was. one of the early scenes in the game has some incredibly detailed animation worthy of […] [Original post on dialup.cafe]

000 0

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 01/10/2025

i have no idea if graffiti gear was a thing outside of canada, but i hope it was 🙏 it enjoyed a brief fad in my elementary school, until someone realized writing swear words in permanent marker was much more appealing than their autograph. #canada #1980s

A "Design Your Own Jacket" pack titled Graffiti Gear. It shows two kids wearing tyvek jackets, decorated with cartooned objects.

The copy from the rear of the box:

It's Graffiti Gear! A special lightweight Tyvek jacket with permanent color markers so you can design a one-of-a-kind jacket that tells the world who you are! Show 'em your favorite stars, bands, teams, hobbies, events. Get your friends to autograph your jacket or just go crazy and make your own unique designs.

This Graffiti Gear kit contains one jacket, six color markers, plus a full color idea poster with designs to inspire you and instructions to make your own terrific Graffiti Gear jacket.

000 0

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2025

500+ canada geese on the trans canada trail #canada #animals #yeg

021 2

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 30/09/2025

two years ago our resident hare dug herself a soft spot on the front lawn, and sat in it for weeks. twice a year - in the spring and autumn - she returns to that exact spot and has a good sit for a few days. she arrived this morning #rabbits #urbanAnimals #animals #yeg

A white tailed jackrabbit (prairie hare) sits comfortably on a lawn covered with elm leaves.

134 4

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 20/09/2025

on the prairies of western canada it is harvest time for hops and apples with the hot and dry autumn, we got a surprisingly bountiful harvest of both #gardening #bloomscrolling #autumn #fruit

cheerful deep red delicious apples on a tree, in the morning light.

A hops pod has grown fat from a hops plant, and shines green in the morning light.

A huge bag of apples of various shades of red and green.

020 2

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 16/09/2025

The Invisible City Beneath Paris by Robert Macfarlane, The New Yorker Under the southern portion of the city exists its negative image: a network of more than two hundred miles of galleries, rooms and chambers. archive.ph/0Z2g9 photo credit: Gaspard […] [Original post on dialup.cafe]

A chamber in the paris mine, titled "Hydraulic system". It shows a small channel of water connected to a much deeper well. The water is a clear blue.

A tunnel disappears into the distance, its walls of quarried stone.

010 1

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 16/09/2025

today's software preservation task one of the great crimes of the 21st century was that Mark Jones' (Core Design) Darkmere - an isometric adventure-RPG for the amiga - was poorly visually documented by the usual places like lemonamiga/mobygames/etc. perhaps for […] [Original post on dialup.cafe]

The wizard gildor, sitting in a stone throne, gazing into a crystal ball as electricity comes out of it.

A forest scene with a massive skull cavern, in greens and greys.

A comfy interior of a home, with a large wall fireplace and hearth; a fire burns cheerfully within it. In front of the fire sleeps a tan dog, alongside a human skull.

Around the room, torches burn.

A waterfall flows quickly along a river, spilling its water onto the rocks below. The forest around it is full of gnarly, friendly trees.

25952 59

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 15/09/2025

Back when I bought my iMac G5 as a grad student, I could never have afforded Macromedia Director - even with its heavily discounted “academic” license. finally acquired it today, complete, so I can begin turning my upcoming book Mages & Modems, into an […] [Original post on dialup.cafe]

A very large and heavy box containing Macromedia Director 7 for PowerPC macs. A 20-inch iMac G5 is in the background.

000 0

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 15/09/2025

a 20km hike through prairie deciduous in the autumn. this is the strathcona regional trail, which recently connected edmonton to fort saskatchewan. difficulty: easy distance: medium surface: 10-20mm gravel pic 2: there is a well hidden footpath connecting the […] [Original post on dialup.cafe]

A view of the north saskatchewan river, facing southwest into the sunset.

A footpath has been carved between the main path and the trans canada trail through a prairie meadow.

A dozen mallard ducks happily eat in a pond full of algae.

023 3

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 14/09/2025

IN case, like me, you have the dvd set and yearn for that katana letter opener, please mail in your store receipt and the form below: web.archive.org/web/20050311161005/…

A screenshot of GrabTheAdventure.com from 2005, showing a very 1990s style website advertising a free pen knife for owners of Xena and Highlander.

000 0

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 14/09/2025

finally know what it means to be rich i didn’t choose to rescue canadian culture from the landfill - it chose me #canada #tv #highlander

Four seasons of Highlander the tv
series, showing Adrian Paul in various cool-guy poses.

112 2

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 11/09/2025

discovered this ad for a Panasonic PV-SD4090 in a march 2000 issue of Wired mag 99% of the time i see sony mavica posts for retro digicams, but this one is a real treasure. those LS-120 drives did not really catch on at the time, and it’s a shame because iomega […] [Original post on dialup.cafe]

An ad for a megapixel digital camera with 3x optical zoom.

The copy reads:
Panasonic introduces the first digital still camera that can capture up to 1500 images on one disk.

004 4

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 08/09/2025

found a 20 year old receipt for my iMac G5 20-inch, ordered brand new from the apple store when i was a grad student. this was their flagship imac at the time. it has been a long, long time since i even imagined spending that kind of money on a new computer 🤯 […] [Original post on dialup.cafe]

A web order from apple.com for an iMac G5 20-inch 1.8 ghz superdrive, with:

256 MB DDR400
AirPort Extreme
Bluetooth Module
Keyboard/Mouse/Mac OS X
160GB ATA Drive

for $2233 CAD + tax and shipping.

000 0

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 08/09/2025

sometimes life presents you with a choice: you can spend a sunday in the comforts of home, or you can drive 4 hours to rescue 40 issues of Wired mag from hitting the recycle bin the seller planned to toss these the next morning if someone didn’t pick them up […] [Original post on dialup.cafe]

Four years worth of wired magazine spines, stacked on top of each other. Each issue has the multicoloured striped spine that wired was famous for.

the covers of four issues of wired magazine, from 2000 to 2004.

Top left, clockwise:
Microsoft introduces the xbox in 2001

An issue on Moby and music in 2002

an issue on linus torvalds and free open source software in 2004

an issue on microsoft’s antitrust case in 2000.

The rear cover of a 2002 wired magazine showing an iMac G4. “The new iMac”.

128 8

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 06/09/2025

in case anyone is curious about the internals of the pump. this is a magnetic rotor, which turns back and forth to move the water. i noticed that the rotor magnet is cracked on both sides. i’ve never seen that before. it may be incidental to the pump failing […] [Original post on dialup.cafe]

A long cylindrical tube of magnetic metal. A long hairline crack runs along its long axis. The top of the cylinder is badly rusted.

000 0

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 06/09/2025

today’s filthy shitty unhappy job: pulling a dead drain pump from my mom’s aging samsung front load washer. the worst part was draining very old undrained effluvia. the pump is accessed from the underside of the washer, via a small access port. just enough room […] [Original post on dialup.cafe]

The business end of an electromagnetic pump. It shows the impeller vanes. Above the impeller is the AC power plug.

That black shit is soapy sewage on my hands.

200 2

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 03/09/2025

how to instantly get yourself blocked by an ebay seller 😂

Hi there brother how are you? What is the final price for this item? Or the lowest price you are expecting for this item? Thanks

000 0

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 01/09/2025

for almost thirty years i've thought about the early pre-alpha screenshots of Ultima IX there is something incredibly charming about the combination of 3/4 perspective, 640x480 res, 256 colour palette, zero alpha blending or mipmapping or filtering, and global […] [Original post on dialup.cafe]

A screenshot of a medieval house, with a thatched roof. A wood pile sits outside of the doorway, with a shield and sword on the other side. A small wagon with a cask inside sits on the lawn.

A screenshot of a medieval tower, in a grassy field with coniferous trees around it. The landscape is hilly.

002 2

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 01/09/2025

After Dark's bathroom wall screensaver still hurts, don't it dark forces #doom #vintageApple #macintosh #dosGaming

A bathroom wall screensaver. It shows the message:

For the money I spent on this screen saver, I coulda bought another doom rip-off.

010 1

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 31/08/2025

charming icon from kiddonet.com - an IE4-based browser for children. reminds me of the macOS finder #retroComputing

A small postage stamp with a yellow face inside of it. Cartoonish illustration style.

000 0

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 31/08/2025

anyone else remember the page html you could add from icq to show your on/offline status on your homepage 😅 #icq #1990s #softwarePreservation

An ICQ Respond-Online panel, showing several buttons:

Chat Me
ICQ Me
Add Me
Page Me
Zoom Me
Email Notify Me

000 0

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 31/08/2025

some of you know that i wrote a book - "Mages & Modems" - soon to be published, about my experiences growing up in the 80s and 90s with microcomputers in northern canada. back in 95-97, as a teenager, i worked at the arctic's first ISP. but before it became an […] [Original post on dialup.cafe]

A massive panorama of a late-1990s computer retail store, showing dozens of boxed games and software on the shelves. As you pan left and right, it reveals several workers desks. Dead center is a display of Gateway 2000 sweatshirts, with their distinctive holstein cow livery.

010 1

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 31/08/2025

[spider] backside. we believe it is an Orange Marbled Orb Weaver.

The backside of a very fat orange spider, showing a brown orange sac with eye-like patterns.

000 0

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 29/08/2025

i feel so absolutely silly answering my own question with the most obvious software staring me in the face the whole time. what cross platform win 3.1/95/mac system 7 software existed for writing and reading multimedia ebooks in the 90s? Macromedia Director 4.0 […] [Original post on dialup.cafe]

The box for Macromedia Director 4.0 Education edition for windows. It shows an illustration of a person in a grad cap sitting in a director’s chair.

000 0

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 28/08/2025

today's retro rescue is a palm tungsten T5 - the late flagship model in the tungsten line of PDAs ten years ago i had nothing but a tungsten for all of my computing needs - i wrote emails and letters on it, and played a lot of Infocom text adventures at night […] [Original post on dialup.cafe]

A palm tungsten open to its main screen, showing a manga character in the background.

In the foreground are applications like Adobe Reader, Bluetooth, Calendar, Destaler, and Calc.

The PDA is in a leather carrying case, with a "Graffiti" character guide glued to the left panel.

011 1

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 27/08/2025

instead of memorizing our birth years, most millennials could just have logitech logo tattoos inked at birth source: logos.fandom.com/wiki/Logitech

A chronology of logitech logos, from 1981 to 2015.

The logos in general move from a modern sans serifed style to more painterly and expressive style, back to a modern sans serifed style.

003 3

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 26/08/2025

some time ago i discovered the 1940s General Electric Epicure 2QH2 kitchen wall clock and fell in love with the modernist face design it took a few months, but i finally tracked one down today for $20 locally. i was surprised to learn that the movement is […] [Original post on dialup.cafe]

002 2

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 24/08/2025

how did it never once occur to me to swear at the You Don't Know Jack parser i absolutely love that they rewarded the player for this #retroGaming #win95

035 5

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 23/08/2025

bbs enthusiasts might remember the name Telegard - a bbs server written based on wwiv's source code and hugely popular with the ibm pc/ms-dos crowd telegard had a long and tumultuous history by its authors, and its own source was eventually leaked and was modded […] [Original post on dialup.cafe]

tim strike's telegard.net website, circa its last update in 1999

Telegard Product Information

Home
Guestbook
Telegard
Information
Resources
Download
File Archive

Other Software
fks Software
Telegard Information
Telegard BBS Software is a full featured bulletin board system software for beginners and experts! Features include a full message section with JAM and Squish formats, a full file section w/file tagging & CDROM support, multinode & multilingual support, powerful menus, scripts, and door support!
Telegard 3.09.g2 Service Pack 4 Release - Y2K Fixes
Service pack 4 for Telegard 3.09.g2-sp3 fixes all the known Y2K problems (pertaining mostly to subscription expiry). The service pack contains a binary fix and some other supplemental files to update both the DOS and OS/2 3.09.g2-sp3 releases. NOTE: You must already have applied the sp3 service pack in order to apply sp4.
Download Telegard 3.09.g2 Service Pack 4 (tg309sp4.zip, 583K)

Telegard 3.09.g2 Service Pack 3 Release
Service pack 3 for Telegard 3.09.g2 fixes most (if not all) the known problems and bugs with Telegard 3.09.g2. The service pack contains a binary fix and some other supplemental files to update both the DOS and OS/2 3.09g2 releases.

Download Telegard 3.09.g2 Service Pack 3 (tg309sp3.zip, 282K)
Telegard 3.09.g2

024 4

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 22/08/2025

TIL a toy company released a line of Independence Day toys in the late 90s; each toy included a different "mission disk" floppy with a little game on it for windows 3.1 toy collector @eisnerguy1 managed to collect all 11 of the toys and uploaded disk images to […] [Original post on dialup.cafe]

A Captain Steven Hiller action figure by Trend Setters toy company. It shows a 3.5 inch ID4 mission disk in the back of the package.

001 1

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 22/08/2025

starting the creative day off correctly my local roaster had begun carrying brazilian peaberry beans more regularly, and the flavour is exquisite - like warm dark chocolate with a hint of vanilla #coffee

A top-down photo of a cup of coffee and a notebook and fountain pen nearby. the coffee is a light muddy brown, like milk chocolate, with generous amounts of crema at the top.

111 1

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 21/08/2025

my garf stickers came in the mail just look at those amazing color offset registration errors that kind of thing doesn't really happen anymore with modern industrial printing. it almost has an amateurish shin-hanga feel, where the colour layers were poorly […] [Original post on dialup.cafe]

A garfield super summer '84 sticker, showing garf sleeping in his box. It says "marathon sleeping" below

if you look closely, you see that the blue background has not "registered" or overlaid properly over garfield's ears, leaving a white separation line between them.

A garfield super summer '84 sticker, showing garf punting something. It says "dog punt" below.

if you look closely, you see that garfield's orange fur has not "registered" or lined up properly with his lines, so that there is bleedover.

012 2

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 21/08/2025

my gods. i had no idea this existed. after dark 10th anniversary edition came with a special module called Hall of Fame that had manga re-imaginings of the most popular AD characters. Boris begs to have its own sega branded anime game video here […] [Original post on dialup.cafe]

The after dark cat Boris, re-imagined as a chibi-styled manga character.

010 1

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 21/08/2025

haha, so the P3-450 booted! no, this wasn't a case of super young hip grandma into Quake 2 @smallsco's guess that this machine was "grandma got taken by a salesman" turned out to be right on the money the users were primarily kids in their late teens into weed […] [Original post on dialup.cafe]

A screenshot of the win98 computer booted, showing their My Documents folder, complete with such classics as "GEORGE CARLIN - FARTING IN PUBLIC" and "DIRTY DEEDS DONE WITH SHEEP".

A screenshot of the shareware rpg Castle of the Winds, showing a knight standing in the middle of a village.

000 0

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 20/08/2025

today's pickup is really fun. i only had a single photo to go by in the classified ad, and i instantly knew i wanted to pick it up based on the video card alone. the teenager that sold it to me said that it was his grandma's computer, and i can confirm that is […] [Original post on dialup.cafe]

The interior of an early-2000s PC. From top to bottom:

CPU: Pentium /// 450 SL37C in a Slot 1 configuration
Motherboard: SuperPower SP-P2BXA

Video card: STB 3DFX Voodoo 3 3000 AGP

PCI Modem:
Conexant Rockwell 56k v.90 modem PCI

Sound card:
Yamaha XG YMF724 PCI

The front of the PC case, showing a sticker on the case.

Top: a 48X CD-ROM reader.
Below: an 8X CD-ROM reader and CD 4X rewriter.

A sticker has been removed from the front of the case, revealing the original grey-white plastic colour underneath. The surrounding plastics have aged to a brown-yellow.

201 2

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 20/08/2025

SIMP_SND.DLL contains every sound used in the berkeley systems simpsons after dark screensaver it turns out to be a long chain of unsigned 8-bit RIFF waveform 11025hz files extracted here for your pleasure #simpsons #macintosh #softwarePreservation

112 2

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 20/08/2025

the berkeley systems kitchen on october 12, 1997 @ 6:50 PM #oldweb #worldWideWeb

002 2

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 18/08/2025

til about japan's Nifty-Serve online service, which was designed to be japan's answer to CompuServe. while renown for its online forums, i was impressed to see that it was also a shareware distribution service. you could pay for and download registered versions […] [Original post on dialup.cafe]

A screenshot of the nifty-serve login on an iPhone, showing japanese characters and a menu.

000 0

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 18/08/2025

a quick mini ifixit guide for nike fuelband batteries if you've got an old Nike FuelBand sitting around in a desk, there's a good chance that it's leaking battery electrolytes into your watch and damaging it from the inside. there are two batteries in the band […] [Original post on dialup.cafe]

One of the watch band battery ports has been opened, revealing a leaking battery inside. There are signs of electrolyte all over the battery contacts.

The same battery port with the battery removed, showing the extend of the electrolyte leak and damage to the surrounding circuitry.

Two leaking batteries removed from the watch, showing a 3.7 volt, 38 milliampere battery. They are flat gumstick style batteries.

010 1

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 16/08/2025

sierra.com january 1997 to my knowledge, there is no formal name for this web site design style of the late 1990s. this style is incredibly difficult to replicate in css, as bitmapped images and tables play a huge role in getting the formatting just right […] [Original post on dialup.cafe]

011 1

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 15/08/2025

i'm glad to see scott murphy left his mark on EcoQuest #sierra #adventureGames

The user has selected the 'Pick Nose' verb-noun pair in the game EcoQuest. He has told the game to pick a statue's nose.

The game responds,

"That works in some Sierra games like Space Quest 3. But if would be tacky to use the same trick, wouldn't it?"

113 3

vga256 @vga256.dialup.cafe.ap.brid.gy · 14/08/2025

[spider] a wolf spider about the size of a loonie (27mm or 1”) made its nest inside of our living room window. i was amazed by how hairy it was. #spiders

A large brown spider with black and white stripes along its backside. Its legs are long and covered in hairs.

000 0