If you were an avid gamer in the 1990s and 2000s, you no doubt fondly recall LAN parties. LAN stood for local area network. See, video games entered the internet early, but in the early days, connections were difficult and expensive. My first internet connection required dialing up a long-distance server, which meant long-distance phone rates. The internet itself charged by the minute, too. Even when local service became available, it still meant tying up the family phone, and later DSL was still pretty janky and got throttled often. So LAN parties were the way gamers got together and played each other in groups. Sure, you had to haul your computer equipment out and hook them all together. Those were heavy setups, but the parties themselves were a good time.
An entire culture grew out of LAN parties, remnants of which we still recognize today, in the music and entertainment that was shared, and the memes that became historic. While computers got smaller and easier to carry, doing so became unnecessary as networks and accessibility improved. Read about the rise and fall of LAN parties in an excerpt from the book LAN Party by Merritt K at Aftermath. -via Kottke
(Image credit: Knacker)
