Who still misses the good old Cracktro days?

Remember the days when you had just managed to get the latest releases from your contacts, friends, or that guy you all knew at school or work?

Going home in anticipation, not just to play the game for the first time, but also to see who had cracked the game, and if it was one of the familiar cracktros from a group like Fairlight, or a new cracktro with some cool 3D animations or bouncing text and music.

Still miss those days.
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Now now H.....

Stop showing your Age!

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You're older than me mate!

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Indeed but I ain't the one Grieving about the Past!

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You are on a retro site after all! It's what we do.

But not grieving. Remembering things that were fun and exciting. Like going into a record store and diffident some new music. I love the streaming age for instant access to complete libraries of games and music for monthly subscriptions that cost peanuts compared to the amount we used to waste on media, but it's the little things that are lost along the way as the process of media consumption has become a bit sanitised.
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we've just come out of an unprecedented Pandemic that's leaving a wake of other issues yet to show their ugly faces.

But I know fella... ease up eh!

Bygone day's .... Jesus Ones ....

& that's not a Religious statement either, .... unless we're talking about the crew that slammed that beauty together back in the day!

I also know what you mean about selecting Music & Digital Downloading.... but things have changed bud.
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I was never really into the cracking and piracy scene on the Amiga as I didn't have many friends with Amigas or contacts in the scene at that time.

Even so, the anticipation of any new game or device - would things work, would it be any good, have I wasted time/money, it was much more tangible then.

I'm actually with Harrison there, while things are undoubtedly technically superior now, it's almost like the high level of media exposure means we know so much more about the products and things before we even get to try them.

Of course, it's hard to separate out all that stuff from the fact that we were young back then and so in hindsight it seems super fun.

I've stated here many times how I loved the feel of physical media in cartridges / caddies. Like slotting a minidisc into a player, that slight plastic/metal rattle, or hearing the thunk and mechanisms engaging when inserting a VHS tape.
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That's a good point about physical media. With each new device often came a completely new media to experience. With consoles you had different cartridges and packaging. Then you had the CD based game, Dreamcast GDRoms, Gamecube mini CDs, and the Playstation black CDs and then PS2 blue DVDs. And computers went from tape to various floppy disk and then CD and DVD.

With the ability to play games on any current system using digital media you have nothing on your shelves to show what you own or box art and manuals to look at. Playing games didn't really feel any different on any platform other than the different controller or system frontend.

The one thing I definitely don't miss is VHS tapes. Waiting for them to rewind, time it takes to load them. Fast forwarding etc. Not great quality. And they took up so much space. On demand and streaming content is a renolution in video delivery. And I much prefer it. I don't actually remember when I last played a DVD or BD. In fact I don't currently have a dedicated player setup, just aPS4.
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Aye, VHS Tape was crap. My old Panasonic VHS was a stunning Player though & it's still in it's box in the Loft! - I certainly don't miss the Tapes Chewing up where the Tape jams around the Head with Tape Dust becoming like a static glue.
Betamax should have been the Standard. Far superior Video Quality. - (Kin walks off to Hurl..... Fecking Sony Products...)

Boxes are now a thing of the past with Digital Downloads. I remember Dopus 4 Box, Lightwave, Imagine @ such sat on my Shelves whilst playing Alien Assault & Pinball Fantasies... *sigh!

However, I've been lucky over the years with regard to CD & DVD ROM's. I retired my Denon DVD Player years ago & invested in the Dune HD Max
Now out dated, I spent £7.50 for a replacement Blu Ray Laser Head & fitted it myself. She played DVD's okay but still refused to play a Blu Ray disk. Despite being a dated bit of Kit in terms of 4K & it won't play Blu Ray ROM's, this media Player still rocks. Any DL that is a full Blu Ray Rip will give you the Full DVD Blu Ray front end Menu's, as if you had a Real Blu Ray Disc.

So, I retired her, pulled the 6TB WD NAS Drive & bought one of these bad boys from here
This Media Centre absolutely Rocks & 4K Movies on our Panasonic OLED are quite simply breath taking....

Unfortunately, I'm now looking at a Larger Hard Drive & considering a 12TB Synology HAT5300 Enterprise drive. It's the best bang per TB @ £26.23 with a 5 Year warranty. The 16TB version comes with 512Mb Cache rather than 256Mb & works out @ £32.84 per TB, with the 8TB coming in last @ £34.25 per TB.

Not looking at putting 2 x 12TB in her yet. We'll see how much longer the Magic Smoke will last in the 6TB WD NAS drive. - They're not as reliable as they should be.

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