My old magazine collection (Digit and CHIP)
Found these while cleaning the store room of my house in my hometown. Also found a bunch of other stuff like comics, handheld games, music CDs and original copy of encyclopedia. This one is however, going to be a long post in itself.
My collection starts from around 2002 in these pics. I had more, but it was jointly owned by one of my friends (we co-paid) so he kept those. Later ones in mid 2000s and after that, I bought with my own money. I don't buy them anymore sadly due to time constraints to even read them. But they all have special place in my heart and memories. In the pics shared above, you can also find a bunch of CDs/DVDs that came with these magazines. I have more CDs than magazines themself because over the years many of them got torn/lost etc.
Let's start with a story about this collection :)
Year was 2001. I had just gotten my first PC which was a Pentium 3 733MHz, 128MB RAM, 20GB hard disk drive and a 48x CD drive. Mind you this is still dial-up era when most households didn't have internet and those who had incurred massive phone bill if you didn't use it outside of free hours (12 AM to 6AM). Mobile phone were virtually non existent. Those who had them, had a brick sized one which costed as much as this PC did and the network coverage was practically 0 outside of big cities. Not to mention that incoming calls used to cost money too.
Me and my friends got PCs almost at the same time since we chose Computer Science in school and we needed one for "study". Back then the legit game market was not there at all so your best chance was the local CD dealer (yes there existed those guys) who sold you a burnt CD for 200 odd rupees or more. It was completely on your luck if that CD worked at all and even if it did, that the game was actually on it. It was complete random with no returns accepted. Of course we didn't have that kind of money to spend on random CDs anyway. So on the first of every month when we would get pocket money, 6 of us would pool cash in groups of 2 each and buy Magazines like Chip, PC Quest, Digit etc. They always came with CDs having game demos which we lent out to other students in our class for spare change. We ran the show, baby. We had the stash and if you wanted it, you gotta pay.
People born in internet/smartphone era won't understand how this was a lifeline for us PC gamers back then. We would get software trials, articles and even movie and game trailers on the magazine CD along with game demos. We lived and breathed technology back then. Always day dreaming about buying gadgets when we grew up and what not. Some fancied the cover girls more than the magazine itself. It was our coming of age story. Game demos on these CDs that I played, I would go on to buy and complete whole game later (thanks GOG). I distinctly remember, reading about Warcraft 3 in Aug 2022 Digit magazine and playing the demo. I would complete the game in college along side its expansion "The Frozen Throne". This is just one example. There are countless others like Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, Heretic, Age of Empires/Mythology, Empire Earth, No One Lives Forever, Delta Force etc
Anyway, after I moved on to college, I still kept buying these. Along with Digit and CHIP, PC Quest still was there in circulation. Later, EFY (Electronics for You) and LFY (Linux for You) would also launch. Which is how I learned linux and system administration. Although I never worked professionally on it but it is a skill I still have an I am proud of. I opened a small library in my college room and people would borrow magazines. My college was in a very backward area so we didn't have internet in hostel. I would rip the DVDs and share the software and games on hostel LAN. Life was simple and uncomplicated back then.
Now only memories remain. Of the good times shared with friends. Of hopes and dreams of a teenage me. And of how the world has come this far in barely 20 years that now I am able to share those memories (or what is left of them) on internet with random strangers.
I have rambled on too much. Would like to humbly ask for your experiences and memories. Kindly share/post pics if you have them. I would love to read and see all of them.