things that i've learned

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

don't copy that floppy

From the Where Are They Now pile, a "Don't Copy That Floppy" PSA from the early 90's.



No Carmen San Diego
No Oregon Trail
Tetris and the other
They're all gonna fail
Not because you won it
But because you're just takin' it
Disrespectin' all the folks that are makin' it

Wow, there are so many things that I love here. The inspired PC-friendly casting... The utterly ludicrous lyrics... The mullet-jockey programmers who show up three minutes in... The rapper wearing his button down with the top button buttoned like he's Parker Lewis... Top notch all the way.

My favorite thing, though is the takeaway message. I was about the same age as the kids featured in this video when this was made and I'm fairly confident that very few of my friends had any idea how to copy an installed game from a hard drive to a floppy, let alone do it at school. Had we seen this during the weekly Go-to-the-Library-and-watch-poorly-made-PSAs-hour that we called Health class, however, it probably would have just inspired more kids to steal software ("they can't stop people from copying, it's too easy"). No wonder it was my generation that brought us Napster. While some software manufacturers were no doubt hurt by the ease of copying in the nascent era of floppy-based gaming, copying ran rampant and all it did was serve to grow a fledging industry and raise legions of kids who, now in their 30's, are still gaming and paying for it.

But man does that rapper bring some energy. Think he does bar mitzvahs? I have an event this Friday, maybe I can get him to wear the button up and the 8 ball jacket, too.

Labels: 90s, crap, technology

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