Dial-up Access: 1HN kbps Purgatory

Let's set the way-back machine to the 1980s. Remember the movie Wargames, starring a young Matthew Broderick as a teenager who inadvertently hacks into an American defense system computer called WOPR (or "Joshua" for reasons explained in the movie) and is then caught up in a game of Cat and Mouse with the military? If you saw that movie, you had to feel bad for Ally Sheedy's character because she gets dragged into the whole affair by Broderick's character, but inexplicably falls for him. Have you ever read Wild at Heart by John Eldridge? That would give insights as to why she falls for him... Anyway, one of the intriguing observations one may make about Wargames was the modem; it was one of those lock-on models that required the user to place the phone receiver over the modem itself before the computer dialed up an access number. Ah, modern technology...

Now, as many of you are aware, I am a huge homer for retrotechnology. Obviously, I love old video games, especially from the time of the early Sega-Nintendo console wars. Also, I like VHS... Honestly, I like those old videotapes. And, I certainly like old TV shows, classic music, black and white movies, Transformers made out of metal (at least partly), and other such relics from what is slowly becoming a rosier and rosier past. Yet, there are some things that I do NOT look back on with much fondness; one of those things was dial-up access to the Internet.

Okay, let's take a deep breath and say the following together:

Dial-up modem

Feeling a little queasy? Let's try it again:

Dial-up modem

(Now, I feel queasy)

As far as I know, the 1980s wasn't the true start to distance connections between computers, but I do know that dial-up access would continue well into the 1990s and even the 2000s. For me, I only experienced dial-up as an observer for much of the 80s and 90s as friends dialed into bulletin boards, and later America On-Line, Compuserve, and other such Internet Service Providers (ISP) at 300 baud. In 1998, I owned my first very own Windows PC (an AMD K6-2 system that ran at 300 MHz of raw power); before that time, I used to use an old Intel 8088 XT PC at my parents' house. After I had purchased that AMD-driven PC, I really became interested in PC building and customization, and my friends Wilson, Ray, and Julian were, as well. Wilson and Ray used to talk about T1 lines, marveling at the possibility of being free from dial-up purgatory.

Dial-up... I used to log in to Bruin On-Line (even though I had already graduated, I had access through my friend Ray, who worked at UCLA) and wait for that crackling digital tone signaling a successful connection. Then, I used to initiate Windows Update (I think Windows 98 had this...) and wait for hours as the most recent service pack was downloaded. Sometimes, I would stay online all night until the download was complete. I remember downloading files from the Internet and having to use third-party programs like Net Vampire to resume downloads if the connection was broken somehow or if one experienced a Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) during download. I also remember the frustration of bottlenecking that occurred when downloading a popular file (like a game demo) and having to contend with bitrates of less than 1 kbps. Didn't it bother anyone else that even though your modem was advertised as 56 kbps, you never get even half that?!

(Taking a deep breath...)

Man, when I look back at the train wreck that was dial-up, I have to be fair and say that it was all we knew back then. Unless you had a grand or two to get a T1 line installed at your house or apartment, all that we could do was use our "56 kbps" modem (internal or external? I always went internal), pay some ISP a crazy rate, and then tie up our land lines for hours on end. Thankfully, I was first exposed to the wonders of Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line (now DSL) in 2001 in Japan, as well as to download speeds that were a bit more humane. Now, I have DSL service that downloads at 3 Mbps. Okay, that's slow compared to what's out there now, but I pay a flat rate for it each month and I'm happy.

Remember when we had to pay ISPs per hour? Don't get me started!

Top Ten First-Hand Nostalgia Sega Genesis Characters (1)

It has come down to number one. Like Sonic, this character needs no introduction; but, unlike Sonic, this character has been around much longer than the Sega Genesis, video games, or even color television. My Top First-Hand Nostalgia Sega Genesis character is... Donald Duck.

As almost everyone knows, Donald Duck is one of the marquee characters in the Walt Disney stable. Along with Mickey Mouse and Goofy, Donald Duck is highly visible in Disney entertainment, appearing in cartoon shorts, movies, merchandise, and, of course, video games. Some may thank Donald Duck for the advent of other successful Disney duck characters, like Uncle Scrooge, Launchpad MacQuack, and Huey, Dewey, and Louie of DuckTales fame, and Darkwing Duck. These characters went on to also appear in lucrative game ventures like the DuckTales games on NES and Darkwing Duck's own game. However, the focus here is on Donald Duck, who appears on two games for the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive: Quackshot and World of Illusion.

In Quackshot, Donald Duck is an adventurer a la Indiana Jones, sporting a leather jacket and fedora along with a plunger gun. As one progresses through Quackshot, Donald Duck upgrades his plunger gun to plungers that stick to walls for climbing, and then to birds so that he can hitch rides under them. Donald also goes into a "berserker barrage" kind of frenzy when he eats five chilis, though this happens irregularly in the game. In any case, Quackshot was one of the first games I played on the Genesis and was memorable for its colorful sprites and catchy music, not to mention the irrepressible Donald Duck and his standstill animations.

World of Illusion was Donald Duck's second game, which can be played solo or cooperatively with Mickey Mouse. With a magic cape as a weapon, Donald Duck can flick his cape to transmogrify baddies into butterflies and flowers. Yet, the funniest aspects of Donald Duck's character in World of Illusion are, once again, his standstill animations (in which he shows his impatient side) and his big behind: to pass through tight spaces, he needs Mickey Mouse to pull him through because of his substantial derriere.

Admittedly, both games were not side-scrolling, platforming masterpieces, but I cannot deny the Disney mystique present in both games; up until recently, Disney was able to combine cartoon fun with a sense of dignity, as if we must acknowledge the classic nature of their characters and hold them in reverence. Some may count this as hubris on Disney's part (and I may not be making any sense here), but I used to buy into how "special" Disney characters were and how they stood apart from most other cartoon characters. I suppose that multiple trips to Disneyland and watching numerous Disney cartoons would engender such a reverence for drawn characters.

For all of the reasons stated above, Donald Duck stands at the top of my list of nostalgic Genesis characters. When I look back at my high school and college days and my days of Genesis playing, I hold Donald Duck in the highest regard, even though I know that there have been many other wonderful Genesis characters, like Earthworm Jim, Ristar, and Knuckles, whom I just recently got to play in Sonic & Knuckles. Do you disagree? If so, please comment -- I'm always eager to read other people's opinions regarding their favorite or best video game characters.

Top Ten First-Hand Nostalgia Sega Genesis Characters (2)

So far, I have covered numbers 10 through 3 of my Top Ten First-Hand Nostalgia Sega Genesis Characters. Many of them have been in-game depictions of real-life athletes or celebrities, but a few have been genuine Sega characters, like Ecco and the dweebs from Gunstar Heroes. Going back to picking "real" characters, my number 2 doesn't need much introduction: Sonic the Hedgehog.

Sonic made his debut with the eponymously-titled game Sonic

the Hedgehog, which most Genesis owners acquired by sending away for it along with a cutout of the UPC barcode on the Genesis retail box. Upon inserting and activating the game, players were treated with the exhilarating tones of the Green Hill Zone theme, which has been indelibly etched in the minds of gamers everywhere. Sonic the Hedgehog would prove to be only the beginning of a franchise that would not only spawn multiple titles on the Sega

Genesis, but also on the Saturn, Dreamcast, and now on the Wii and PlayStation - consoles from Nintendo and Sony, which used to be Sega's competitors before Sega fell out of the hardware business.

As a character, Sonic is well-known for brash youthfulness and speed... lots of

speed. But, as one plays any of Sonic's titles on the Genesis, one may find that Sonic is about much more than running fast and liberating forest creatures; Sonic games were based on patient platforming that sometimes required accurate, well-timed jumps and careful navigation through some tricky and frustrating zones. That said, Sonic games were also about kinetic fun, as any fan of the Casino Zone of Sonic the Hedgehog 2 may attest.

Over time, Sonic was joined by numerous characters, the two most notable of

which are Tails and Knuckles. Tails is the two-tailed fox with the uncanny ability of using his tails as helicopter-like rotors to fly; and Knuckles is a red-haired echidna with spiky knuckles and the ability to glide. There are also a host of other characters that I won't mention here, but I must give a shout-out to Dr. Robotnik, who was often responsible for all the mayhem in the Sonic games.

To date, Sonic has endured Sega's cessation of hardware production and has gone on to even co-exist with his erstwhile rival Mario in such games as Super Smash Bros. Brawl on the Wii. It's kind of odd seeing Sonic in the same games as Mario, seeing how they were once mascots pitted against each other. In a way, it was a sad day for Sega when production on the Dreamcast was halted -- it was the end of an age...

You might be asking, "How could Sonic be number 2?" Wait for the final installment to find out!