
1990s Hardware
Consumer tech in the ‘90s was all about going digital for the first time. CD players replaced cassette decks, VCRs were everywhere, and video game consoles like the SNES (1991), PlayStation (1995), and N64 (1996) were killing it. Home computers started showing up in more houses, running Windows 3.1 or 95, and dial-up modems made it possible to actually get online—slowly. PDAs like the PalmPilot (1996) gave a taste of mobile productivity before smartphones were a thing. Camcorders got smaller, digital cameras showed up by the late ‘90s, and everyone had a drawer full of AA batteries. It was the era of CRTs, wired everything, and that satisfying click when you pushed a power button. Nothing was seamless, but it all felt like the future.