Wired Looks Back At 'Mondo 2000' 44
destinyland writes: On a day when America looks back on those who came before, Wired is remembering a pioneering technology magazine named Mondo 2000 — and sharing video of its editors' legendary appearance on a mid-90s PBS series, "The Internet Cafe". When its host questioned them about cyberpunk, they turned the interview into an ironic media stunt by providing a live, sneering cyberpunk model named Malice (wearing a fake neural implant on his head), as the words "real cyberpunk" jokingly flashed on the bottom of the screen. "At a time when few people outside academia had access to the internet, Mondo 2000 was many a wannabe hacker's introduction to the online world," Wired remembers fondly, even acknowledging that they'd "borrowed" their own magazine's design motif from Mondo 2000, in those early years before ISPs started popularizing consumer internet access.
Scanned copies (Score:2)
I wish someone would scan the copies and make them available on archive.org.
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I wish someone would scan the copies and make them available on archive.org.
I don't think there is anyone that has all of the copies. I have six or seven that I found in garage sales, comic book stores, eBay and one off of Craigslist. I don't think the originals exist, although maybe it's an IP issue or not profitable to release in an electronic format since the market is so small.
Mondo2000 was a quasi-Steampunk, Alternative Music, Subgenius, Drugs and Computing magazine that I was sad to see go away. Wired swooped in to fill the void and was pretty good until they started going fo
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I have just about every issue. Maybe not #1. Modo 2000 was the hot magazine at the time, and Wired was what 'the suits' said should succeed instead. It's sort of sad for Wired to be doing a 'retrospective.' Are they STILL that upset at being seen as the corporate-slick usurper?
Mondo had articles about culture, smart drugs, cool stuff. Wired has always toned it down and been more about gadgets and spending money.
Re:Scanned copies (Score:4, Informative)
https://archive.org/details/mo... [archive.org] has a few, if you have some they are missing scan and upload them :)
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Back then, there were really a few magazines that the up-and-coming cyberpunk would read. Mondo 2000, Boing Boing, 2600, and later, Wired. Another good one, when you could find it, was TAP.
Ah...back in the days when the gritty future of cyberpunk was shinny and new...
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Get off my lawn, noob.
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Why the fuck is a submission as nonsensical and dumb as this one even on Slashdot?
Why do your parents let you use the internets without supervision?
I'm not sure what in the hell that video was about (Score:2)
Seriously, that Internet Cafe video is horrid. Did most 90's TV news shows REALLY look that cheesy?
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Quite possibly.
If it looked anything like an intern had been let loose with an amiga, a genlok, and video toaster - then yes.
If it bad eyesearing visuals that looked somewhat OK on a monitor but then smeared and bled horrifically on what looks like 2nd (if you were lucky) or 3rd gen copy 110 line video with full NTSC effects - then yes.
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Stuart Chiefet had the "Computer Chronicles" show on public television stations, which was important to me to see all sorts of different computer technologies in the late 80s early 90s.
I remember... (Score:2)
I remember Mondo 2000 as a sort of 2600, Phrack or Blacklisted 411 for liberal arts majors.
I saw it when it aired. (Score:1)
I had internet at the time, and I remember watching this and thinking "WTF??" But I was so used to technology being depicted so wildly inaccurately in the 90s that it was almost normal. Almost.
The influences of my youth (Score:2)
Mondo 2000. Propaganda (yeah, the artsy-fartsy goth magazine). Lots of technology and satan plus a healthy dosage of Industrial and Punk music. Yeah, I didn't make billions of dollars during the dotcom rush, but at the same time I have enough of a healthy distrust in everyone to recognize the modern CEO/Tech Pundit "talks" are nothing more than cult building.
On the other hand, I kinda wish I had billions of dollars.
Dr. Dobbs. (Score:4, Interesting)
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I met the man.
(Worked on contract for Markt und Technic, the German (Munich) company that bought Dr Dobbs. Interesting people, trying to set up a the Well like system on Unix servers in the late 80's)
This web comic sums up it up nicely (Score:1)
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That was fairly good.
It was unique, to be sure... (Score:2)
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I don't like Wired (Score:2)
Am I the only person here who doesn't like Wired?
I remember back in the mid-to-late 90s when a friend had a subscription. It seemed like bunk to me--full-color glossy pages and a kind of self-congratulatory almost outside-in look at computers and geek culture. My friend (an artist and self-avowed geek) loved the magazine, while I (a programmer) just never got the appeal. I liked the programming magazines that gave code samples!
I can't say I've seen an issue of Wired in probably 10 years, but judging from th
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Wired was cool in the 90s but eventually I lost interest and my subscription lapsed. Little did I know in the fine print they would send you to collections for not renewing a subscription. Yes bill collectors were calling me over $12 for not renewing. Imagine a grocery store sending me a bill for NOT buying a box of cereal one week. Fuck Wired.
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