Evolution of the Cell Phone Throughout the 80s and 90s

How badly do you want this set of Russian doll-style cell phones created by Karl Bean? Image via geekygadgets.com

These days you feel off kilter and uneasy if your phone is out of your reach for five minutes, but years ago cell phone technology was a flashy trend accessible only to the super rich and Zach Morris. 20 years ago, no one could foresee that even the homeless would be yapping away on cellular telephones, not to mention the growing number of elementary school students who tote personal phones in their backpacks. In an age where we feel a constant need to be plugged in, it's difficult to remember a time when we wouldn't think to tell the whole world of our mundane hourly activities in 140 characters or less. I almost can't believe that I survived an entire decade without knowing via Facebook that my ex-neighbor's daughter-in-law was vacuuming her apartment . A scary thought, indeed.

In the days before communication technology played a major role in our everyday activities, the cell phone was nothing short of a modern marvel. The idea that someone could whip a fully functional phone out of their pockets (or for earlier models, giant carrier bags) was astounding. Let's take a brief trip back through time to an age where simple technology could still delight and amaze the consuming masses:



Motorola DynaTAC 8000X (1983)


While we did see car phones before the 80s, we'd never seen anything quite like this. This was portable enough to be carried around, at least by 1983 standards. Unlike car phones, the DynaTAC series could connect without the intervention of an operator. Oh, and did I mention it cost $3995? In 1983 dollars. That's something upward of $8000 when adjusted for today's inflation. Needless to say, these were not within the reach of most consumers.



Nokia Mobira Talkman (1984)


Even under ideal care and conditions, the more portable DynaTAC could only eke out about 60 minutes of talk time. It was flashy and interesting, yes, but practical, no. On the plus side,these unwieldy battery packs on the Talkman models could allow for extended cell phone life. On the minus, you had to carry a giant battery around with you.

Motorola MicroTAC 9800X (1989)

This phone was widely revered for its small and light construction, boasting "pocket size" proportions. It even featured a revolutionary flip mouthpiece, which of course made it look infinitely cooler than the Zach Morris model. On the low end, no-frills versions of the MicroTAC sold for around $2500, still falling short of the release of a reasonably priced cellular telephone.



Pagers/Beepers

Yes, I admit, it's not really a cell phone. The pager, however, was a stepping stone into regular consumer ownership of phone-related devices. While cell phones were still pretty pricey for the general public, pagers became a sensible means of getting a hold of someone while they were out. For example, the babysitter could alert the parents of their child's incessant projectile vomiting, and the parents could rush to a nearby payphone to offer cleanup tips. It was a handy way to keep track of people, and far cheaper than a full-fledged phone.

As the affordability of cell phones rose, pagers were once again relegated to use by businesspeople and doctors. It almost makes me shed a tear to think that a generation from now, no one will think Daria's Quinn Morgendorfer's line, "Mom! I'm not my sister's beeper!" is funny. It is, by the way, hilarious.


First Cell Phone TV Commercial (1989)



That 80s music! The lack of voice-over! The cheesy montage quality! This commercial had it all. Well, all by the standards of horribly corny 80s commercials. I do kind of like when that guy tries to call his way out of the sheep traffic jam on the road. Classic.



Radio Shack Cell Phone TV Commercial (1990)



Just take a look at that battery pack! I mean, really. Doesn't this seem like somewhat of a step backward toward Talkman territory? Didn't they already have a few phones without enormous battery packs? Why do I need to carry the equivalent of a lumberjack's hearty lunchbox just to make a call on my boat? I assume cost and battery life had something to do with it, but that thing is an eyesore.

Motorola International 3200 (1992)
The first to utilize GSM (Global Systems for Mobile Communications) technology, this is the first of the cell phone dinosaurs that would actually still work on today's network. It also had an LCD screen, though you certainly couldn't do much with it.

First Person-to-Person Text Message (1993)

This nugget of information is included solely to bask in the memory of a time before text messages and the inevitable carpel tunnel developed thereafter. Back then, the idea of composing the equivalent of an entire letter via cell phone was unfathomable. Despite the available technology, it would still be several years before texting took off in a big way.


IBM Simon (1994)

IBM and BellSouth teamed up to produce the first market-viable SmartPhone, released in 1994 as the IBM Simon. The Simon had, alongside its regular cell phone capability, the power to send and receive faxes, a pager function, and the features of a PDA. It even came with games and had a touch screen. How progressive is that? At $899 it still wasn't a bargain, but it was slighty more within the range of access for ordinary consumers.



Motorola StarTAC (1996)

Our first flip phone, or as they are more adorably known, the clamshell model. It was extremely compact for the time, and the design looks pretty close to that of a basic flip phone today*. Magazine ads even featured a punch-out picture version of it to illustrate its real size, which was pretty well-received as far as marketing strategies go. On the other hand, this baby still cost you a grand, so you might have just stuck with faking it with your magazine cutout version.

Nokia 5110(1998)

One of the most popular models of the time, this phone was everywhere. Even Scully from the X-Files used it, and I certainly trust her taste in communication technology. This was the first phone I owned, rewarded to me upon receipt of my driver's license, and I certainly treasured it. I lavished it in gifts like jeweled buttons and electric pink faceplates, and let me tell you, I know my 5110 appreciated it.

The 5110 was also the first phone to have the game Snake, which entertained me through a serious bulk of my high school classes and study halls. Seriously, I rocked at Snake. This was also the first phone to feature interchangeable faceplates, meaning you could alter the design and make it look, in many cases, ridiculous.



Nokia 8810 (1998)

Our good friends at Nokia had a novel idea: why not fold up the external antenna and stick it inside the phone? The resultant 8810 with internal antenna was extremely popular, and looked pretty futuristic for its time. Just take my word for it.



Nokia 7110(1999)

Alright, finally we're getting somewhere connectivity-wise! The 7110 was the first to include WAP (Wireless Application Protocol) technology, meaning it had pretty limited access to some online material and capabilities. Plus, they modeled the sliding bottom after the phone in the Matrix. All you needed were a pair of sunglasses and a simulated reality environment and you could be just like Neo.

Nokia 3210 (1999)

Internal antenna? Compose your own ringtones? Switchable faceplates? And the first with T9? Where do I sign up?

My brain is now specially wired (or perhaps in this case, wirelessly capable) to know all of the distinct nuances of T9 without even looking at my phone. Predictive text was a new and exciting concept that meant you didn't have to press every damn button 4 times to get the letter you want, one at time. Well done, Nokia.



All of these phones are a far cry from today's ultra sleek, ultra capable phones, but at the time they were greeted with great enthusiasm. We never knew quite what they'd come up with next. Nowadays, it's hard to imagine how much further technology will go. I can't fathom what more they can do with it, but I'm sure they'll think of something. Catch up with me in 20 years when I'm chatting on my sandwich phone and we'll talk.



*Not that anyone except me still has an archaic phone like that, but still

AOL/AIM Guide for the Perplexed 90s Child

I had the abrupt realization the other day that I no longer use America Online Instant Messenger (AIM). Their instant messaging program used to be the very cornerstone of my existence, and it's simply faded into the obscurity of my impending (okay, imminent) adulthood. Though functions like Facebook Chat and GChat keep us messaging our friends instantly, the loss I mourn is of our quirky but universal rules of AIM etiquette and practice.

Hearken back, if you will, to a time before Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, and all other social media. Back when your online persona had a single avenue of emergence. When our away messages, chat icons, and AIM profiles defined us so completely to our judgmental online peers. A time when just the right balance of ~*~*~* to words with aLtErNaTiNg CaPiTaL aNd LoWeR cAsE lEtTeRs were enough to make your profile sparkle.

Yes, it was a simpler time. My boyfriend and I were discussing the issue and he mentioned his previous middle school AIM addiction that bordered on meriting a 12-step program. "I remember thinking to myself that if I were really rich, I would make a handheld device so I could take AIM wherever I went," he mentioned. Just imagine how it would shock his middle school self to learn that nearly every one of us has one of these in our purse or pocket right now. They're called cell phones.

Evidence of a simpler time. Oh AOLBuddy and InternetFriend, how we miss your newbie-like innocence

Before we were constantly plugged in to ten different networks of social media, we were a single-minded bunch. There were a complex set of unwritten rules that governed our AIM behavior. Let's explore a few of the universal norms and mores that drove our socially conscious AIM activity:


Create a Screen Name that Conveys Your Personality

Generally, these types of screen names included words like "Sweet" and "QTpie" for a girl and sports or athlete names for boys. Because our middle school minds were so achingly unoriginal, at your suggestion of a screenname AIM would inevitably spit back something like, "How about QTpie18483134852?"

Inclusion of birth year, age, or graduation year numbers was a popular motif, one that would likely have brought many of us into To Catch a Predator-like scenarios in the current online climate. In the early days of AIM, choosing a non-conventional or highly unique and personalized screenname was akin to social suicide. Yes, we had 12 versions of KittenLuver on our buddy lists, but it was far better than having been perceived as an individual.


Read Everyone's Away Message Religiously and Addictively

Nowadays we can get our fix via Facebook or Twitter, but it was back in the AIM glory days that we first grew enamored with the notion of broadcasting our every activity cyberworldward. If God forbid our internet was ever down, we would shake and convulse with the pains of voyeurism withdrawal.


Update Your Own Away Message to Show How Interesting, Witty, and Popular you Are

Helpful Hint: Single word informative away messages are always a social faux pas. To simply write "Showering" or "Eating" is the equivalent of admitting how boring and mundane your life really is. No, you needed to be "Gettin' my shower on" or "Foodin' it up" instead. See how much more interesting you seem?

More often than not, it was important to let people know that not only were you out doing something, but that you weren't alone. "Out with my girls!" or "Playin Bball with Dave and Dan" were variations on socially acceptable norms. No one would ever, ever write "Quietly reading alone in my room". The only time you were allowed to be alone was while studying, and you better have used that away message to complain about it or you'd be suspected of (gasp!) enjoying schoolwork. For shame.


Choose the Perfect Icon


When AIM released the icon option, we all eagerly pored through the catalogs with Talmudic levels of focus and analysis. Was I more of a kitten or a flower? It was a tough call. Deliberation over whether I made the right choice haunts me to this day.


Select the Most Emo Available Pre-Emo Era Song Lyric for your Profile

This was before the coinage of the term "emo", but it's generally a good fit for the style of song snippet we placed meaningfully (or so we thought) in our profiles. The lyrics were supposed to have some type of personal meaning, but usually you just saw it in someone else's profile, thought it made them look wise and thoughtful, and adopted it as your own.

Extra Credit: Include a link to your angsty xanga or LiveJournal


Pick a Fun Sound to Chime when your Boyfriend/Girlfriend/Crush/Stalkee Signs Online

What's your auditory fancy? AIM had you covered. Rather than the basic open door/slam door sounds, you could choose an "Eep!" or "Ding Dong!" to alert you of the arrival of a socially significant peer. That signature noise was enough to make any of our pre-adolescent hearts skip a beat or two.


Know the Lingo and Punctuation Norms


The moment I realized that when I think to myself "I don't know" the letters IDK appear instantaneously in my mind's eye, I knew my love affair with IM had probably gone too far. Most of the old standards are still in circulation today ("OMG", "WTF", and the like), but we did have a few incredibly complicated ones to deflect our parent's curious eyes.

Speaking of i's, no one dared capitalize theirs in casual online conversation. The aforementioned alternation of capital and lowercase letters was, however, acceptable. Also, the proper way to end every sentence was with an ellipsis, even if it gradually trailed off an incomplete thought...


Choose Your Emoticons Wisely


Writing online comes with the added trouble of people misinterpreting what you wrote. The upside to this, however, was that you could always, always claim you were "jk" if what you said went over like a ton of bricks. Accidentally tell your friend they looked fat in their swimsuit at Susie's pool party? Simply add a :p or a ;) and you were totally off the hook.

Extra credit for more technically difficult but wholly unnecessary shapes such as:
A rose: @>---,---
Elvis @;^[)
Fish <')))))- <


Group Your Buddies by Lists with Ridiculous Names that Contain Words like "Peepz" and "Homies"



It's important to categorize all of your friends into groups, so be sure to come up with some catchy and vaguely descriptive names. Any sort of trite, overused slang to describe your friends was always a good move, especially if it was something your parents didn't understand and thus re-cemented their position as ignorant no-nothings. There are only so many times that you can explain to them that the categorization "Tight People" was not a sexually loaded term.


Find the Font and Color that Represents Your Personality


This was especially important, as it stood for how people would perceive your online identity. Were you more of a powder blue Comic Sans or a neon green italicized Helvetica? You better pick something and stick with it, because nothing was more irritating than those AIMers who would change font style and color every time they signed on. That's like them speaking in a falsetto or false baritone every time you had a conversation. It wasn't tasteful, and it just wasn't done.


Play Semi-Cruel Mind Games Through Use of AIM Functions


Not all AIM actions were well-intended. In fact, some were rather diabolical. When you were fighting with a friend, it was critical to use your AIM functions to your advantage. For example, you may select the "do not show as idle" function that forces people to worry erroneously that you're there, but you're ignoring them. Very tricky, yes, but very effective.

Blocking certain users was another popular ploy, as was clicking "Warn" to up their warning level. Bonus points for using your away message to write cryptic, esoteric things like, "You know what you did." Come to think of it, plenty of us employ these very same methods on Facebook today. You can take the 90s kid off the AIM, but you can't take the AIM out of the 90s kid.


It just goes to show you that no matter how mature we may think we've become, we can still read through these and think, "Oh, that's a good idea!" So, farewell for now, everyone, or TTFN for those of you who are so AIMily inclined. Check back the rest of this week for some wonderful 90s Thanksgiving TV episodes to tide you over for the long holiday weekend. Until then, *~*~*~hAvE a GrEaT tHaNkSgIvInG eVeRyOnE~*~*~*

Tamagotchi

There's nothing quite like letting sadistic young children play God. When virtual pets burst onto the scene in the mid-nineties, toy manufacturers put the fragile lives of these pixelated playmates into the sometimes malevolent hands of careless children. Sure, most of these kids meant to feed and care for these miniature en-egged virtual beings, but things just sort of came up. You know.

Also, it probably doesn't send the most serious life-or-death message about caring for a pet to attach it to a handy keychain. I don't see any household kittens or puppies conveniently hanging from the zipper of a kids' backpack. Then again, real pets don't have a reset button, so perhaps it's not the most fair comparison.

Admittedly virtual pets didn't necessarily lend themselves to teaching responsibility. There was really no consequence for allowing your virtual pet to die, unless you somehow managed to develop a deep emotional bond to this poorly animated blob-with-eyes that lived in your plastic egg keychain. I'm willing to give these alleged highly sympathetic youngsters the benefit of the doubt, but they certainly weren't my Tamagotchi-toting peers.



Tamagotchis were sort of like a highly primitve version of the Sims: as a virtual pet owner, you were expected to feed it, allow it to go to the bathroom, entertain it, making sure it slept, and monitor its general happiness and well-being. In the early models, the "fun" factor was pretty straightforward. The very act of feeding and cleaning up after a blinking pixelated image was supposed to be sufficient entertainment. This was no-frills fun at its bare-bones finest.

A late-90s "Angel" model. For some reason, they thought it wise to make this commercial simultaneously completely terrifying and likely to offend multiple religious sects. Kudos, Tamagatchi. Kudos.

Miraculously, the concept clicked. Children adored these things. They couldn't get enough. They wanted their house key-rings and backpacks to clack with the delightful click-click-click of multiple coexisting virtual pets. Immediately following their release in 1996, the product sold over 40 million units worldwide. Let me repeat that. 40 million. Pretty incredible.

For parents, the decision to purchase a virtual pet over a real living, pooping, money-bleeding animal was a pretty obvious one. Either your child could beg and plead and throw themselves screaming onto the floor swearing that they'll take care of that new puppy, or you can satiate them with a cheap little piece of plastic that does double duty on surreptitiously teaching them the virtue of responsibility. Talk about killing two birds with one stone. If you'd let them take care of that real parakeet, they'd only get to kill one.

Once these babies hatched, their fate was literally in your hands. Though early models were primitive, they were capable to developing personalities. Feed it and care for it and it becomes lovable, content, and well-behaved. Treat it poorly and you get a vicious, angry, monstrous little guy who's just begging you to press that reset button and restart his sad little life. The choice is yours.

There was always that one kid (most likely the same one who kicked bunnies and stomped on cute little field mice) who derived some sick pleasure from making his Tamagatchi's life a virtual hell. Intentionally neglectful, he or she would get a real kick out of watching their precious virtual pet shrivel and die, refusing to respond to its most basic needs. Unfortunately for us concerned virtual pet defenders, the ASPCA had yet to classify Tamagatchi abuse as something worthy of sponsorship. Keep fighting the good fight, friends. We'll get there.

In general, the issue with designating even this virtual responsibility to children was that these things were constantly needy. Never mind the fact that as over-programemd children we had to go to school and soccer practice and piano lessons. Our Tamagotchis required incessant care. Leave the sound on and your mini egg would beep frequently, your little Tami begging for attention and food. Even disabling the sound wasn't enough to quiet the little guy's neediness: the lights would flash again and again until you finally gave in and attended to your virtual charge.


In no time at all, schools took notice of the distracting toys and many instituted classroom bans to prevent children from caring for their pets on school time. While some adults contended that the pets helped kids learn discipline and develop a sense of responsibility, most agreed that these things were pretty damn annoying when they were trying to review times tables or clarify parts of speech. The pets became contraband and grounds for heartbreaking teacher confiscation. Sure, it was unlikely that we'd ever bring a real live hamster or guinea pig to class with us to monitor its well-being, but it was the principle of the thing.

Despite these setbacks, the toy remained wildly popular. Numerous knockoffs emerged, including the successful Gigapets and Nanopets. Before long, the virtual pet marketplace was flooded with a plethora of different types of animal, human, and alien egg keychains. Luckily for the current young population, these things are making a comeback and even feature a pause button to allow them time away from the virtual enslavement of their little charge. Sure, now these kids have Webkinz and all other impressive types of newfangled technologically tied toys, but somehow the simplicity of a Tamagotchi remains an appealing credential for parental purchase.

In case this reminiscence failed to satisfy your inner virtual pet caretaker, fear not. If all this wasn't enough, maybe you could use a little web-based support in the form of a new song by pop duo Looner. They obviously loved their Tamagatchi as much as you did, perhaps more as they've recently released a single detailing said love. Enjoy.



Check it out:
Virtual Pets for iPhones

1990s Product Flops

Now and then, a product comes along that for some reason is forever remembered as a bona fide flop. Sure, 80% of new product launches fail, but sometimes things fail so publicly and so embarrassingly that we have no choice other than to mock it profusely with the added and unfair hindsight retrovision of 20/20.

In some cases, these were actual viable inventions and ideas that for some reason or another either failed to take off or suffered misguided marketing strategies. Whatever the reason, these flops were the original Fail (yes, with a capital F.)

This handy example of incredibly adorable failure brought to you by the ever-reliable failblog.org

Minidiscs


Technology is a funny thing. You never really know toward which direction the tides of public opinion will gravitate. At one moment, your new technological innovation seems poised for greatness and the next, well, they're using your product to line litter boxes and horse corrals. Something that seemed like such a great idea at the moment of conception can fail to ever pick up real speed with consumers.

The Sony Minidisc is the perfect example. Looking at one now, it appears semi-ridiculously to resemble a shrinky-dinked (shrinky dunk?) compact disc. In 1992, Sony had confidence that the minidisc was the technology to overtake the scratchy quality audiocassette market. Sony was all hyped up on residual gloating from their success in their Walkman venture, and was certain that their expensive technology (around $550 for a player, $750 for one with recording capabilities) would immediately fill the void of The Next Big Thing.

While the product itself certainly had its technological brag points, Sony failed to consider that the young musically-minded generation they were targeting did not generally posess the necessary capital means to buy it. In short: it was way out of the reach of young people's budgets, and its unfortunate release timing collided poorly with the rise of CDs. Then again, now that the CD market is nearly obsolete itself, it's not looking too sunny on that front either, so no one really wins. Okay, except maybe Apple and their 200 million iPods sold. Touche, Apple.



McDonald's Arch Deluxe

Please allow me to point out the numerous ways in which this diagram is riddled with contradictions. 1. How can a bun be defined both homestyle and bakery? How, I ask you? 2. If the sauce is so secret, how come you just told me what was in it? 3. How exactly does ketchup become "extra fancy?" Does each packet come with a miniature bowtie and monocle?

In 1996, fast food giant McDonald's felt they needed a makeover. No, they weren't seeking to cut back on use of fatty oils and unhealthy ingredients; rather, they wanted to better target an "adult" audience (I'm not exactly sure why those quotation marks are there, I assume they indicate McD's was suffering from too many cash-toting toddlers stopping in for burgers or they felt they weren't reaching their selling potential with adult film stars.) Its tagline was "Arch Deluxe: The Burger with the Grown-Up Taste."

In this case, this vague age demographic failed to recognize any value in differentiating their burgers from those that came in a colorful cardboard Happy Meals carton. There was a major commercial push to corner this so-called grown-up market, but the critical level of demand was not necessarily present. As if pouring buckets of ill-fated cash into an irrelevant and unnecessary product weren't enough, McDonald's also felt that their adult consumer base wanted (again, where they got this data, I do not know) a more sophisticated ad campaign. No more Grimace and Hamburglers for these high-class burger buyers.

These ads, however, were misguided attempts to distinguish the AD as catered to a mature palate. The TV spots featured children poking at the supposedly premier ingredients, commenting with bewilderment, "I don't get it," and referring to the burger in question as "yucky." Well played, McDonalds. Everyone knows a sophisticated adult loves for their food to be publicly declared inedible. Well played indeed.




OK Soda



Another tragic victim of unconventional advertising techniques and hazy target demographics, OK soda was a short-lived beverage experiment executed by the Coca-Cola company in 1994. The best part of the whole thing is that they went with the ad guy from the New Coke campaign. I guess they really, really, really liked this guy, because he already cost them millions of dollars in failed marketing. I imagine the Coke execs seated around the conference room table and musing, "Well, he's a good guy, let's give him another shot. Financial and publicity disaster aside, I always thought he did something pretty special for us here at the Coca-Cola company."

OK Soda was a sort of existential experiment into youth marketing. Youth Culture--particularly in the moody, grungy mid 90s--was by design inherently opposed to mainstream attempts to lure them in via hackneyed advertising strategies. The Coke marketers thought that since irony was so in at the moment, they would just overtly court the teen market in a completely unsubtle, overstated way. They even had an 800-number to which angsty teens could call in and leave deadpan, disillusioned messages which could someday be mainstreamed into a national commercial, virtually cancelling out any Generation X-style irreverent credibility of the caller.




Unfortunately for Coca-Cola, young people are usually smarter than adults give them credit for. I suppose only the coolest of the cool teenagers would have liked OK Soda on the multi-layered levels of irony that your average teen poseur failed to comprehend. That is, it's ironic to actually like the thing that adults are trying so hard to make into something ironic, which is ironic in itself. Then again, 90s teens were generally misinformed on the actual meaning of irony, as Alanis Morrisette had given them zero examples of it in her song "Ironic". Which is also ironic. Don't you think?



Microsoft WebTV



Not as well-remembered as the others, WebTV was once on the verge of being the next major entertainment technology leap. Don't let the name fool you based on your current knowledge and context of the internet: Web TV was not TV on your computer. Instead, it was computer (well, internet) on your TV.

In the late 90s, some tech giants (namely Microsoft, who acquired WebTV in a $425 million deal) believed that all that people really wanted was to check emails and browse online on their living room TV sets. The theory behind WebTV was partially derived from the same dumbed-down message you see today in those Jitterbug-brand cell phone service commercials. It's based on the notion that certain (read: old) people are frightened of new and unfamiliar technology and it has to be somehow brought down to their technologically-illiterate level.

This is, in theory, a viable marketing concept with a real, defined demographic. However, the tiny aspect Microsoft overlooked is that these people were not suddenly going to flourish on internet-shopping, banner ad-clicking, viable members of the web community. Instead, they actually became a tedious burden of call-center nightmares who failed to comprehend even the most basic of troubleshooting strategies. Then again, what did they expect? These people were used to their TVs being TVs, not computers.



So to these formerly flopping companies, we salute you for your misguidedness. Despite the relatively low long-term economic impact, these flops speak loudly to the unsavory expectations that these corporations had of us as consumers of the 90s as needlessly spending, sophisticated-burger craving, quadruply ironic, technologically deficient simpletons.

Lucky for us, most of these expectations turned out to be false, but it never hurts to get retrospectively outraged and insulted from time to time. If only Coca-Cola had maintained their 1-800-IFEELOK hotline so we'd all have a place to express it.


In case you thought I had somehow forgotten the epic failure of Crystal Pepsi, fear not: I have already devoted a full-length rant-filled post to it. Peruse at your leisure.

Floppy Disks

Once upon a time, before the dawn of our alleged full-fledged digital age, computers were simpler creatures. Sure, they required roughly 247 times the maintenance of current computers, but they had character. They also had disk drives.


Looking closely at my up-to-date if admittedly bulky desktop model, it suddenly occurs to me that disk drives have virtually (yes, that's a computer pun) disappeared from today's computers. While I was once able to hear that satisfying click--POP! noise of floppy disk insertion, it appears that my once-beloved disk drive is no more. The portal that once gave me green-and-black-screen delights like Oregon Trail has gone tragically extinct. The Disk became Disc and eventually Drive, and our children will never know that computer devices once included ridiculously non-technological preceding adjectives like "floppy."

While their value as data storage devices may now be obsolete, back in our elementary school classrooms, they were all the rage. Just think, in a pre-internet age, you could write a book report on your computer at home and print it off at your computer at school. To those of us who now spend at least 8 hours a day parked in front of a computer screen with remarkably expedient internet capabilities, this is generally un-fazing, but as children growing up amongst quick-developing technology we still had our sense of wonder.



Unfortunately with this sense of wonder came a sense of impropriety. We as children may not have had as much technology at our fingertips as today's youngsters, but we certainly shared with them to some degree a sense of childlike greed and entitlement. For any of you who think pirated software, games, music, and movies is a new phenomenon, you must a pretty poor memory. Maybe this little number will do something to refresh it:



(Don't Copy That Floppy)

I recognize some of you (myself included) were fairly young when this PSA came out, so if you're not familiar with the above video from your 1990s childhood here's a little background information. In 1992, the Software Publishers' Association was pretty fed up with freeloading kids like Corey and Jenny here denying them their royalties on their precious floppy disk computer game releases. If these kids (read: all of us) thought they could get away with a crime-of-the-century like this, they were wrong. Or, at least the SPA tried to convince us that they were wrong. In reality, it was about as simple and certainly as tempting to pirate software then as it is now, but advertisers thought they could use guilt-inducing tactics to nip this in the bud early on.

The brilliance of the campaign was not in it's effectiveness, because it was not particularly effective at deterring floppy disk pirating. It did, however, feature the following absolutely brilliant educational PSA-style rap. Allow me to guide you through some of its finer points:


"Don't Copy That Floppy"
Performed by MC Hart
Lyrics by MC Hart and Ilene Rosenthal

Right off the bat, you know this is some hardcore gangsta rap. With a co-writer with a name like Ilene Rosenthal, how could it not be? It just screams bad-ass.

Did I hear you right, did I hear you sayin'
That you're gonna make a copy of a game without payin'?
Come on, guys, I thought you knew better don't copy that floppy!
[Don't don't don't don't...]

Come on, guys! There's your next clue this is a legitimate rap; the childlike whininess. That background "don't don't don't don't" doesn't hurt, either.

(Wait a minute. Who are you, anyway?
Yeah. And what are you doing on my computer?)

Seriously, slow down here. Corey, you've got a point, here. Your acting skills, by the way, are impeccable. You must see this kind of thing all the time, because you don't look particularly surprised.

I'm your MC Double Def DP
That's the Disk Protector for you and the posse

Ah, well that clears thing up nicely. Thank you for that, MC Double Def DP. Mind if I call you DP?

That's your artists, writers, designers and pro-grammers
They pump up the images for games and grammas that lets you learn, but also play
The games you came here for today
Now I know you love the game and that's alright to do
Because the posse who make them, they love them too
But if you start stealing, there's no more they can do

The grammas, huh? Let's try to leave my grandmother out of this, okay, DP?
And you're right, I do love the game. I never really thought of their posse in such a vulnerable way. Go on, DP.

(But I just wanted to make one copy!)

I just wanted to steal one car!

You say 'I'll just make a copy, for me and a friend'
Then he'll make one and she'll make one and where will it end?
One leads to another then ten, then more,
And no one buys anything from the store
So no one gets paid and they can't make more
The posse breaks up and they close the door
Don't copy! Don't copy that floppy!

The posse is going to break up? Whoa, whoa, whoa, slow down, DP. That does seem to be a rather disturbing chain of events.

So let me break this down for you
D-D-Do-Do-Don't

Ah, well, thank you for that. That don't does seem to be fairly broken-down. Good work.

No Carmen Sandiego, no more Oregon Trail
Tetris and the others, they're all gonna fail
Not because we want it but because you're just takin' it
Dis-res-pec-tin' all the folks who are ma-kin' it
The more you take, the less there will be
The disks become fewer, the games fall away
The screen starts to tweak, and then it will fade
Programs fall through a black hole in space
The computer world becomes bleak and stark
Loses its life and the screen goes dark

Wow, I never really considered that whole black hole/space scenario, but it makes perfect sense. If I copy this game, everything will immediately be sucked into a swirling vortex of doom.

[Welcome to the end of the computer age... mwahahahaha..]

Uh-oh, evil laughter. That seems like an ominous cue of some sort, I just can't figure out for what...

But I'm much too strong and you're much too smart
To let that happen to your chances to explore
Parts of the new age just behind the door of your minds
You're the posse of the future and you hold in your brains what's never thought before
And in time, you'll see just so much more
That's why I'm here and that's what I'm fighting for
Don't copy! Don't copy that floppy!

Jenny and Corey are the posse of the future? You're right, DP, things are certainly looking grim.

Now let me introduce you, to some of the teams
That will explain a little more about what I mean!

Ah, the boring spoken-words snippets I was hoping for. Wait, this guy was working on a Dungeons and Dragons game? And I ruined his chances for success? This is worse than I thought. I can't believe people would try to create a computer game for something like that.

[D-D-Do-Do-Don't...Don't copy that floppy!]

You see, on these disks we have frozen in time
The creativity of someone's mind
Do you think, that because, with a flick of a key
You can copy that game, that the work is free
This creativity, we protect it by law
We value so highly, what the mind's eye saw
Don't copy! Don't copy that floppy!

[D-D-Do-Do-Don't...Don't copy.. Don't copy that floppy!]

You have to admit, nice chorus framing on this one.

To do the right thing, it's really simple for you
The copyright law, it will tell you what to do
Buy one, for every computer you use
Anything else is like going to the store
Taking the disk, and walking out the door
It's called thiefin', stealin', taking what's not yours
Is that really where you want your life to go?
Think about it, I don't think so.
Don't copy! Don't copy that floppy!

Thefin'? Stealing? Taking what's not mine? I prefer theifin', I think. It suits me.

Now you see a game you like and you really want to try it
Don't copy that floppy, just go to the store and buy it
Think of it this way, okay?

Okay.

When you're buy a disk, you're sayin' to the team
You respect what you do and what you're workin' for
We'll keep up our support so you can make up some more
We'll do the right thing and the future will be clear
There will be new programs here at the end
Don't copy! Don't copy that floppy!

Okay, sounds fair, DP. I was planning on saying that to the team, anyway.

Now you know how the games and the programs are made
And what you do to make sure that they're not gonna fade
The bottom line is it's all up to you
There's nothing more that I can do
The goals in your court, dribble, shoot, or pass
I'm sure you'll make your decision with class
[Don't copy that floppy]

Dribble, shoot, or pass? I'm a computer kid, man. Use words I understand!

See ya, I'm outta here.


Check it out--modern novelty floppies:
Floppy-Disk Coasters
Floppy-Disk Notebooks
Floppy-Disk Pouch
Floppy-Disk T-Shirt
How to Make Floppy-Disk Earrings