30 Retro Tech Pictures From the 80s, 90s, And 00s That Now Seem Hilariously Outdated
I grew up in the 80s and 90s, which means I had a front-row seat to the golden age of tech that felt cutting-edge at the time—and now looks hilariously clunky.
I remember the thrill of loading a game from a floppy disk, rewinding VHS tapes, and getting genuinely excited about a CD player that could hold three discs.
By the time the 2000s rolled around, I was old enough to buy my own gadgets ang the game were fire at the time—so yes, I spent real money on things like portable DVD players, translucent iMacs, and computer game that look laughable now.
Looking back, it’s wild how far we’ve come. Here are some retro tech pics from the 80s, 90s, and 00s that’ll hit you right in the nostalgia.
1. The IBM mini laptop (1995)
2. Thomson CSF-VDT3V (1985). Looks like it’s straight out of the Macrodata Refinement department.
3. Internet cafes were a thing we all used.
4. Quake III Arena. Reminds me of the summer of 2000.
5. The first ThinkPad and the launch of the TrackPoint (1992)
6. This was VR in the 90s.
7. Twitter from 2007
8. Always someone at the beach with this.
9. The Nokia 9000 Communicator (1996)
10. Myst (1993)
11. Winamp Skin: darkspaceAMP
12. Half-Life (1998)
13. 90s 3D renders.
14. SETI at Home
15. Apple used to sell a windsurf board for $1,100.
16. Defragmenting
17. Mercedes-Benz F200 “Imagination” (1996)
18. How many hours did we spend sitting in front of a CRT monitor and staring at these visualizers?
19. Iomega Zip Disk (1995). This thing changed everything.
20. Hover 950 (1995)
21. We miss you, Clippy.
22. Unreal Tournament (1999)
23. Bang & Olufsen System 4500 (1989)
24. Duke Nukem 3D (1996)
25. Picking your deck in solitare.
26. America Online was king.
27. Sam & Max Hit the Road (1993)
28. I loved my Windows 98 Plus: Baseball
29. Microsoft Publisher 97
30. This was so cool and new.
