Have you ever been to a LAN party?
With internet access becoming ever more ubiquitous and speedy it seems that have has less need than ever to actually meet up in person to play games (or even work)
However back in the late 90s and early 2000s it has a perfectly normal activity to lug your monstrous PC and monitor to a friends house or perhaps community hall in order to network them together with the purpose of playing games
I was one of many individuals who successfully kickstarted a campaign to create a weighty hardback book to chronicle this period of gaming history.
It's made up of a combination of photos captured by participants of those events along with a series of historical recountings of the events that people can remember from those days.
To see this era captured just shows was a relatively brief period of time this covered, when we had machines capable of playing a wide variety of strategy or shooting games but the network infrastructure was best setup locally
It also reads like a coming of age story for some people as they recall a period of their lives when the most important aspect was to hang out with their friends.
Although many of the photos and stories are male dominated, there are also some photos and stories are women who attended these events and how they found operating in such an environment.
Many of the photos are from US based events, which isn't too surprising given that it seems quite likely that North Americans would have better access to equipment and facilities. However I was pleased to see some unmistakability UK based snapshots in there too.
One of the aspects I most enjoyed was seeing the clothes and other paraphernalia of the time, such as stacks of CD-Rs, posters of various films and different food and drink items.