The Bizarre History of MOPy Fish: HP’s Secret 90s Marketing Genius

Let me set the scene. It’s an ordinary afternoon. I’ve just dumped my heavy backpack on the floor, kicked off my sneakers, and hit the power button on our family’s giant beige desktop tower. The machine sounds like a jet engine warming up, the heavy-ass CRT monitor blinks awake, and that glorious Windows startup chime hits.

Do I want to do homework? Absolutely not. I am here for one thing and one thing only: MOPy Fish.

If you were a kid glued to a PC in the late nineties, you remember this absolute legend. MOPy wasn't some boring screensaver with geometric shapes bouncing around. No, MOPy was a full-on virtual pet—a bright orange blood parrot cichlid with a permanently dramatic, pouty face who lived right on my desktop.

And man, did he live up to his name. If I ignored him for too long to play *SimCity* or surf random Geocities pages, MOPy would literally sink to the bottom of the tank, slouch his little shoulders, and look so depressed that I’d feel like a terrible parent. Naturally, I’d panic, drop everything, and feed him just to cheer him up. We had a real bond, me and this pixelated drama queen. He kept me company while my mom yelled at me to get off the internet because someone needed to use the landline.

The Plot Twist: Wait, My Fish Was a Printer Ad?!

Fast-forward to me recently falling down a 2 AM nostalgia rabbit hole, trying to figure out where this fish actually came from. And guys? It turns out my digital best friend was secretly a corporate marketing plant.

Hold onto your floppy disks, because the real backstory is hilarious: MOPy Fish was made by Hewlett-Packard in 1997.

Yes, HP. The printer company.

Turns out, "MOPy" wasn't just a cute pun about him being a sad boi. It stood for "Multiple Original Print." HP had just released some heavy-duty office laser printers they called "Mopier" printers that could spit out multiple copies without crashing. To hype up corporate office hardware, some absolute mad genius in a marketing department somewhere thought: *"You know what kids love? Virtual pets. Let's make an orange fish."*

I can't even process it. Millions of us were out here stressing over a virtual fish, completely oblivious to the fact that we were basically being brainwashed by Big Printer.

Looking back, it’s hilarious how easily amused we were back then. We didn't need insane graphics or complex open-world games. We just needed a grumpy orange fish swimming across a low-res Windows background while our modem shrieked its dial-up death rattle in the corner.

Honestly? Peak childhood. Did you ever have MOPy swimming on your screen, or were you too busy trying to keep your Tamagotchi from starving?

Unwrapping NBA Live 95: The Christmas Morning That Changed How I Played Video Games

 

NBA Live 95 DOS version

I can still smell the burning dust from the back of my old CRT TV. It was Christmas morning in the mid-90s, and while my parents were drinking coffee in their robes, I was sitting dead center on the living room rug, staring at a rectangular box wrapped in shiny red paper.

I tore through the paper like a maniac, and there it was: NBA Live 95.

Up until that exact morning, basketball games to me were either two things: clunky side-scrollers like Bulls vs. Blazers where players moved like they were trudging through wet concrete, or wild arcade games like NBA Jam where guys caught on fire and did 720-degree dunks from the free-throw line. I loved NBA Jam, don't get me wrong, but I wanted something that felt like a real, authentic NBA game.

The second that famous 16-bit synth music booted up and the EA Sports voice screamed "It's in the game!", I knew I was in for something totally different.

The Camera Angle That Mind-Blew My 10-Year-Old Brain

I shoved the cartridge in, picked my team, and hit the court. The very first thing that made my jaw drop was the camera.

Before Live 95, basketball games forced you to look at the court flat from the sidelines. You couldn't really see open passing lanes or spot a guy cutting to the basket from the far corner. But Live 95 used this diagonal, 3/4 isometric perspective. It instantly felt like I was watching a real TV broadcast. Suddenly, I wasn't just mashing buttons—I could actually read the floor, run a fast break, and kick the ball out to an open shooter.

Press "Turbo" and Settle the Score

Then came the gameplay itself. This was the game that introduced the Turbo button to a proper 5-on-5 simulation, and it completely ruined my thumb for the rest of Christmas break.

• Fast Breaks felt like lightning: Grabbing a defensive board, hitting the turbo sprint, and pushing the ball up court felt so fluid.

• T-shirt and shorts jerseys: The players actually looked like basketball players instead of stiff pixelated blocks.

• The Announcer and Arena Vibe: Hearing the organ music, the squeaking sneakers, and the PA announcer shouting player names made my bedroom feel like a packed stadium.

We didn't have NBA 2K back then. There was no MyCareer mode or online matchmaking. If you wanted to talk trash, you had to hand a second controller to your friend or sibling, sit on the floor together, and play until someone got sore hands.

The Missing GOAT and the Magic of "Create-A-Player"

Of course, if you played back then, you know the one glaring thing missing from the roster: Michael Jordan. Because of individual licensing deals, MJ wasn't in the game (he was replaced by a generic "Player #99" on the Bulls squad).

But EA gave us something incredible to fix it—Create-a-Player.

I spent hours on Christmas afternoon sitting there with the controller, manually setting stats, tweaking height, and creating my own knockoff Michael Jordan—and then, of course, creating myself as a 7-foot point guard with maxed-out 99 ratings across the board. Being able to customize a player and put him on a real NBA roster felt mind-blowing at the time.

Why It Forever Changed Sports Games

Looking back now, NBA Live 95 wasn't just a fun game I played over holiday break. It was the absolute blueprint for every modern sports simulation game we play today. It proved that a console basketball game could be fast, tactical, and realistic all at the same time without losing the fun factor.

Every time I boot up a modern basketball game today, a small part of me still misses the simple joy of that Christmas morning: sitting three feet from a glowing glass TV screen, holding a warm controller, and hearing that pixelated crowd roar as I sprinted down the court on a fast break.

Circus Charlie NES: That One Game That Made Me Throw My Controller

 

Okay so.

I don't even know where to start with this game.

Circus Charlie.

If you grew up in the 90s and had a Nintendo – or you know, that bootleg Famicom that looked like a weird keyboard – you KNOW this game. It was on EVERY. SINGLE. MULTI-CART. I swear. 72-in-1? Yep. 99-in-1? Of course. 1000-in-1? Probably a lie but yeah, Circus Charlie was there.

And I hated it. But I also loved it. It's complicated.

So... What Even Is Circus Charlie?

Alright so basically you're this little yellow-haired clown named Charlie. And you're in a circus. And you have to do... circus stuff. Jump through fire rings on a lion. Walk on a tightrope. Bounce on balls. Walk on stilts. Swing on a trapeze.

Sounds simple right?

WRONG.

This game was BRUTAL. Like, unfairly hard. The kind of hard that made you question your existence as a 7-year-old.

Old Laptop with i5 gen 3 still rocks

Recently, while making time to study virtual assistant courses online, I realized I needed a basic laptop for my studies. So, I dug through my closet, cabinets, and other storage spots, and came across my old Fujitsu Lifebook A572/E. I dusted it off and decided to give it a try.

This model was manufactured around the first half of 2012, and surprisingly, it’s still more than capable for basic office use. Encouraged by its performance, I went ahead and installed a few classic games too—Call of Duty 2, NBA Live 2005, Battle Realms, Red Alert 2, and a few others.

I’m quite pleased with how well this laptop is holding up even after all these years. It’s a nice reminder that sometimes, old tech still has plenty of life left in it

The new Nokia 3310 (2017)

Back in the days when you think about phone, you think about nokia.

When you think about electronic tunes, you think about nokia tune

*ten ne ne nen, ten ne ne nen, ten ne ne nen...*

And when you think about portable game, you think about snake, bantumi, and space impact.

Back then, every nokia phone are

so durable that it never crossed their mind about the word durability.

And here in the Philippines, there we're lots of shops selling nokia cases 

The nostalgia is back when it was announced that Nokia brand will be continued and that the 3310 variant was rebooted. There were news about its release date here in the Philippines as said in these websites:

 

 So I looked at an online store and found out that there are look-a-like if not original. Well, I'm not sure if it's original or not basing on the brand name and the proposed price of about 2,500 pesos vs. a thousand pesos for these brands.Ma

Maybe I'll just have to wait for the official release to find out

I'm Back!

Its been a long time since I logged in to this blog... Years have passed and still this blog is getting views from different people. Its nice to look at stats of my blog when I, myself is not confident about the content of this. After a very long break, I decided to continue to add more post and especially content on which I would like to find on the Internet myself. For now, this is all... bye bye Guys!

ePSXe 1.9.25 with BIOS free full download (PS1 Emulator)(Updated)

ePSXe is the most popular PSX emulator for the PC. It runs almost any ps1 games, either thru the cd rom of your PC or save it on your your hard disk (should be ISO extension, or convert your ps1 cd's to ISO). Although it runs almost any ps1 games, there's still some lock-ups and bugs which you can just search the web for a fix.

I uploaded the emulator thru mediafire (1.9.25 is the latest version), just extract it using winrar or 7-zip then run ePSXe file, insert your ps1 cd, click file, then select run CD ROM. This is the most complete and updated version of ePSXe without having to download its BIOS. Everything under one file to suit your gaming needs.

To change the control pad:

Here is the link and the password for the file: (password in red color)
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzfVa1JQ29W8SDZkNWJRcHAwUnM/view?usp=sharing
password is: piratedcd.blogspot.com