You are going to be trapped in a room for 12 hours with a mid 2000s office desktop with no internet connection and an external hard drive; what are you putting on the hard drive?

I’ve got some DOOM WADs I have been meaning to play so I would probably grab Trench Foot, Total Chaos, and the sequel to Ashes 2063, Ashes: Afterglow with a portable install of GZDoom to play them.

After that I’d probably bring Star Trek TOS and a MOBI copy of Neuromancer by William Gibson combined with a portable install of VLC and Calibre in case the computer didn’t have applications that support the file format.

What about you?

I wanted to phrase this in a way where it isn’t a prolonged or desert island style question where the responsible idea would be to bring Wikipedia ZIMs and educational PDFs. It’s just an awkward amount of time to kill. The mid 2000s office desktop stipulation is just an additional challenge so you can’t just bring in a copy of Baldur’s Gate 3 or Cyberpunk 2077.

Edit: By mid 2000s I meant around 2005; the XP or Vista.

starman2112,
@starman2112@sh.itjust.works avatar

FTL: Faster Than Light would run on a computer that old, yeah? Probably bring that and a couple animes to watch while I play it.

Oh shit, if it’s XP then I’d be good just playing pinball for the full 12 hours

vulgarcynic,
@vulgarcynic@sh.itjust.works avatar

This is a fun question!

So, in the mid 00’s I worked for a pretty large software company doing mid level tech support for enterprise customers. One unassuming weekday, we get a notice that the building is going in to lockdown. Nobody in, nobody out.

Not long after we’re told to contact our families and anyone that may be depending on us after work. There’s a communication stating “we have a strong reason to believe anthrax was released in the building and no one is leaving until the CDC takes a sample and tests it”. Awesome.

After the initial chaos wears down the dawning realization that there are a few hundred (well closer to a thousand of us) now stuck in a multi- building complex with fuck all to do sets in. This is before YouTube really had anything and Netflix was barely serving up a few streaming movies. Plus, there’s no way I’m installing Silverlight on my production box. Dark times indeed.

In a stroke of pure luck, I stil had a couple of burned “backups” in my backpack from the previous weekends LAN party (jesus, this story just keeps getting more and more ancient).

A few short moments later and the ISO’s were dumped and it was game time. Now, we were all saddled with Dell Optiplexes of some random flavor (620’s maybe… this was pushing 20 years ago, details are a little sketchy) so there wasn’t much we could really run but anything in a pinch, yeah?

Long story long, I’d spend that time playing C&C Renegade, Quake 3 Unreal Tournament and maybe speed run Duke3D one more time. All while listening to some flavor of Scandinavian metal to truly flesh things out. If that got boring, I’d likely watch Ricky-O again or maybe throw on whatever else I happened to have dumped at the time (likely something from Tartan Asia Extreme or an episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm).

Despite what an utter shit show this moment was, I have so many vivid memories of playing those games on the test network with a bunch of other 20 something people barely navigating through life while being scared to death that we may never see our families again.

That and trying to teach Ted how to copy a crack to the install folder… again… wtf man, directions are right there in the readme.nfo

einkorn,

So eh, obviously you survived. But what about the rest?

Gingernate,

Ted is now paying every last dime he makes for entertainment and gaming streaming services

vulgarcynic,
@vulgarcynic@sh.itjust.works avatar

Goddammit Ted.

Actually checking on Steam that appears to be a pretty accurate statement. My man’s got a hell of a library built up.

Gingernate,

Hahahahaha poor guy

vulgarcynic,
@vulgarcynic@sh.itjust.works avatar

Ended up being a hoax. The crew is still around and we occasionally get together to golf or drink at tailgaters when it’s football season. Time and children have taken their toll on the LAN’s and other drunken tomfoolery of those days. That’s always the thing about the “good times” they just seem like life when we’re in it.

Hedlosa,

That’s one hell of a story, thanks for sharing!

vulgarcynic,
@vulgarcynic@sh.itjust.works avatar

Absolutely! It was a pretty fun moment in my early years in this industry. Now, after 10 or so years working from home, I almost get nostalgic for an office.

CorrodedCranium,
@CorrodedCranium@leminal.space avatar

What a ride. Someone asked what they get for doing this. I guess the answer was not killing your family or being arrested.

vulgarcynic,
@vulgarcynic@sh.itjust.works avatar

It ended up being some jackass on the SoCal sales team sending a “joke package” to one of our local sales guys. As far as I remember he was let go and no criminal charges were pressed. I think everyone involved was just relieved it was a hoax.

eleitl,

Linux and a bunch of ebooks. Maybe Larn and Nethack.

chalk46,

probably some snes roms, an emulator, and some ebooks

Gooey0210,

Fallout 1&2 obviously, and stay trapped for the next month or so

Or morrowind if it can handle it

ArmoredThirteen,

I’m here for the Morrowind vote. I do that for 12 hours already, willingly, with plenty of other things I could be doing. Maybe for the fun of it though I could grab some other games that are hard to run on modern machines, like the Neverhood

CorrodedCranium,
@CorrodedCranium@leminal.space avatar

Would you bring the GOG version or the data files and something like Fallout-CE?

sexy_peach,

Nothing I can explore the PC for 12 hours. Sounds like fun. Maybe play some pinball.

Please not Vista

nilloc,

Windows ME it is!

sexy_peach, (edited )

Okay I have never used it I think that will be interesting!

nilloc,

It was windows 98 but worse. It ground my GF’s Compaq cheapo college computer to a halt at the time.

ianovic69,
@ianovic69@feddit.uk avatar

Hmmm, <looks at mid 2000s hard drive full of music not listened to in years> I wonder if that thing still works?

kindenough,
kindenough avatar

Max Payne 1 and 2, F.E.A.R, Far Cry, MAME with a couple of arcade roms like Galaga, Tetris, Pang, Puzzle Bobble, Metal Slug.

And if I get bored with those there is always Microsoft solitair, mine sweeper and mayong to fall asleep on the keyboard.

southsamurai,
@southsamurai@sh.itjust.works avatar

Mid 2ks? Baldur’s gate, in whatever version was usable

CorrodedCranium,
@CorrodedCranium@leminal.space avatar

Would you being in the GOG version or the open source engine recreation GemRB?

southsamurai,
@southsamurai@sh.itjust.works avatar

I think the gog version would work better on an older pc, right?

blindsight,

Diablo 2 with a mod: Project Diablo 2.

I’d download an offline copy of the wiki, too. And a build guide; 12 hours isn’t enough time to come up with a build and play the game!

Flynn_Mandrake,

Copious amount of ebooks or web novel downloads, as well as my lofi folder for background music. All preloaded on a boot drive with a Linux distro capable of both running on the hardware and viewing everything I brought, if I can figure out how to do that. Plus however many snacks I can sneak in.

Greznak,

Elder scrolls morrowind. 12 hours should’nt be a Problem.

Th4tGuyII,
Th4tGuyII avatar

I'd love to chance to play a bunch of nostalgic titles - just off the top of my head I'd play DOOM, Uplink, Darwinia, Morrowind, and my trashy favourite from that era Themepark world. There are definitely more if I had time to think about it.

metaStatic,

all my Napster mp3s to listen to while I beat my high score on 3D Pinball Space Cadet

alphafalcon,

There should be an external hard drive full of portable game installs in some drawer that fits the time period.

Should easily kill a week.

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