Re: New York commuters in 1998

In misc.news.internet.discuss, JAB  <here@is.invalid> wrote:

By photographing New York commuters in 1998, Matthew Salacuse captured
a time when the division between home and work was sharper: many of
his subjects are dressed in suits, travelling between these two
worlds; none of them are peering at smartphones.

A device a modern person would recognize as a "smart phone" didn't
exist in 1998. In 1998 I lived in one part of NYC and commuted weekdays
to another part: Queens to the Financial District in Manhattan. It's
quite possible Matthew Salacuse saw me during his photography but I
didn't notice myself in the photos.

https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/the-everyday-dramas-of-manhattan-rush-hour
 
Cost of data plans were thru the roof then.

Mobile web wasn't a thing. WAP was introduced in 1999, that was a
simplified web page format tailored for the limited power and screen
size of cellphones back then.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wireless_Application_Protocol

Before that you had only super simple things that your cellphone service
provider offered. Maybe a portal to pay bills and download apps that
worked offline, like Snake (that one was typically built in, but it's
an example of the limits of the devices).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_6110

    The Nokia 6110 is a GSM mobile phone from Nokia announced on 18
    December 1997 and released in 1998. [...] It was also the first
    phone from Nokia to have the popular Snake game pre-installed.

Wikipedia has a photo to show the input options on that phone, but
doesn't have screen specs. The page for the Nokia 5110 claims it
is the "same platform" as the 6110 and that has screen specs:
"84 x 48 B/W". Eighty four by forty eight black and white pixels on a
screen slightly narrower than 48mm wide (which is the width of the whole
phone).

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Actual 84 wide by 48 tall ASCII art above.

Elijah
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not going to read a news story on that resolution