1080 Snowboarding on the N64: Or How I Learned How To Make A Web Page in 1998

TEN. EIGHTY.

These two words, boomed out by a deep somewhat robotic voice greeted countless gamers during the late 1990's on the Nintendo 64 console. When we weren't playing Mario Kart or Goldeney, 1080 Snowboarding was our go-to game for racing and trick competitions.

It was also the genesis for my obsession with creating content on the internet.

If you enjoyed my latest post on [playing Goldeneye on N64 to earn money during college]](https://steemit.com/gaming/@nepd/goldeneye-on-the-n64-or-how-i-made-it-through-my-first-year-of-university-debt-free), this one is less illicit, but infinitely more geeky.

My roommate and I in college thought we were pretty awesome at all video games, but especially 1080. We knew that none of our friends or acquaintances could touch us, and my roommate a step above me. But this was 1998... we didn't really know how we stacked up, there were no online tournaments or competitions.

We decided to do something about that.

While our incredibly basic coding skills were unable to do anything incredibly technical, so we made a website on an ancient platform called Angelfire.

Pretty soon, we were receiving scores from all over the world, updating the high score lists as they came in. Every day, scores were being replaced as we tried to keep up.

Eventually, I transferred universities and my roommate got disinterested. Thankfully, someone picked up the torch and continued our work.

Some of the scores are still live on a website called SpeedRunWiki, if you know my real name, you'll see me in a few locations... mostly near the bottom of the top ten.

Just that one taste of internet creativity was all it took for me. I dabbled on message boards throughout college, but I always felt something missing. Soon after graduating, I started my own sports-related website, which led to a decade-long career at some mainstream sports outlets like USA Today and Bleacher Report.

Now I'm at steemit. Now I'm at home.

(Images via Emu Paradise)