When a Fish Lived Inside Your PC: MOPy Fish | Nostalgia Nerd

Head to sponsor ​www.squarespace.com/nostalgia... to save 10% off your first purchase of a website or domain using code NOSTALGIANERD ~ In 1996, HP Released a new range of Mopier Printers, and shortly after followed MopyFish, otherwise known as Mopy, or the Fish from Big Brother. These are all names you might be familiar with; probably because in the 90s or 00s, you had a virtual pet fish called MopyFish. That's interesting enough in itself, but Mopy's conception is also an interesting affair, involving Mopier Printers and HP. LET'S DELVE.
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[@Ye4rZero]

Not gonna lie, that's a clever way to sell insanely priced toner.

[@gammaboost]

Not as bad as inkjet cartridges...

[@Monkey_SK]

I've heard that HP stands for Halibut Pike but I think it's a red herring.

[@Edward-it9cr]

boooooooo... take my like

[@garfield1415]

🤣

[@DarrensToychannel]

I think you’ve been fished in, but I’m hooked

[@lands1459]

i think it stands for "horrible products"

[@KanchidoShinokyoufu]

Hewlett Packard

[@TheSmart-CasualGamer]

6:00 When you said they went for a darker theme, I initially assumed that you meant they gave it an edgy backstory, a leather jacket and a sword.

[@ultralowspekken]

Shadow the Goldfish

[@kirkula]

Every mobile game publisher: "Hmm, you get points faster by printing, eh?.....hold my beer"

[@nicwilson89]

Does that mean the need to buy new toner count as a lootbox or pay to win 'buy more points' thingy?

[@stephenluttrell8958]

Just you wait guy who invented Moby Fish. In a decade or so, you’ll flip when we invent micro transactions.

[@NathanielHarari]

I had Mopy running back then! And LOL...Rimmer playing the "trumpet" when Mopy died! Brilliant! Who else noticed that?? 👍️🤣️

[@TheKazragore]

I recognised it almost immediately. I've seen Red Dwarf so many times xD

[@ClayMann]

I remember playing around with it but had no idea you could kill the fish. I just remember it being really quite realistic for the time but like most screensavers, it got played with and watched for a bit then uninstalled and never seen again.

[@sinicalypse]

Ace Rimmer skygliding on a crocodile was just..... what a guy!

[@patrickbyrne5070]

Smoke me a Mopy I’ll be back for breakfast 👍

[@unsureprobablymaybe3527]

I didnt noticed it

[@LJay_1985]

Bonus points for the excellent Red Dwarf reference. Today's fish is trout a la crème. Enjoy your meal.

[@falken_gt4]

FISH! x 6

[@squeakonline]

I will!!

[@jonathantillian6528]

@@falken_gt4 Today's fish is trout a la crème. Enjoy your meal

[@stewartsmyth3422]

@@jonathantillian6528 Today's fish is trout a la crème. Enjoy your meal

[@Left-Earth]

*It's possible to replace the DAT file with a custom one compiled from 661 images taken from Nostalgia Nerd episodes.* _Nostalgia Nerd Fish was born. Eat your heart out, Seaman._ 😅

[@stephenc6648]

I had this but think I bored with it quickly, realising that it wasn't much use as a screensaver. Imagine how annoying it must have been in a corporate environment, with people being incentivised to waste toner and paper. I know the claim was that it was meant to encourage use of the printer rather than the photocopier but I wonder how many unnecessary prints were made just to create pretend aquarium accessories.

[@kaitlyn__L]

“Stop printing it and then bringing it to the photocopier! Argh!”

[@rickyyoung]

you will NEVER EVER slip a Red Dwarf reference past me sir!

[@falken_gt4]

RIP the Napoleon

[@FlyboyHelosim]

You look like you've been slipped more than a Red Dwarf reference. 😂

[@rickyyoung]

@@FlyboyHelosim tell me about it

[@gavindavies793]

L’army de nord (or however the frogs spell it)

[@barfoom]

i just got to the bugle-ing and thought wait a minute... is that...

[@Rich77UK]

I remember Mopyfish as a 19 year old junior draftsman. My boss had it and wouldnt allow anyone else too. He spent hours staring at it and got mega pissed if someone came to look.

[@GELTONZ]

As a Virtual Pet aficionado at the time, I remember far far too many of the things you mentioned. I even cheered when you said "Creatures" and when I saw the El Fish box. Yeah I used MopyFish but as someone with too many virtual pets it was kinda outdone by most of them... *looks to his left at the two Digimon 20th Anniversary he's raising* ...it never ends.

[@Tmp2k]

OMG I totally forgot MopyFish existed until about 5 mins ago. Ah the memories!

[@patrickbyrne5070]

Yeh.. this is some odd random memory - what else have we forgotten?

[@LordmonkeyTRM]

Same

[@aborted4196]

I don't remember this....lol

[@Vlad2319]

@@patrickbyrne5070 shimeji

[@tylerboothman4496]

@@patrickbyrne5070 Johnny Castaway!

[@delaorden]

I had a dead fish as a screensaver for almost 2 years. It was fun and depressing.

[@maccamcdermott5528]

Never knew about the fish, but we finally tossed our 5Si this year. Damn thing was built like a tank!

[@chris-tal]

...then suddenly an article cutout from a hungarian PC magazine appears... Oh, the golden days! This screensaver had the largest impact on me before discovering many other ones in early 2000s linux distributions. :)

[@DOC7ORT]

I believe HP is still using the fishy tactics

[@mind-of-neo]

i dont remember MOPy, but i do have extremely fond memories of the early 2000s PC aquarium simulators. in the one my dad had there were like 30 different types of fish and tons of plants and other decor and it was really cool. love this video.

[@Snacksaloon]

I was waiting for you to mention the Tarantulas, 10 year old me was obsessed with both Mopy and the Tarantulas 😂

[@ShinoSarna]

Here's an idea for a video: a Dizzy retrospective. Nobody seems to talk about the little egg hero anymore.

[@MrSabachtani]

The AVGN had part of an episode about him. The Aladdin Deck Enhancer one

[@jimmelton5846]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/qH_Ep3mXfaaBhLc

[@Daniel15au]

I like that you're using a Brother printer in a video that's essentially about HP printers. Brother FTW! They really do make the best printers for home use.

[@TommyCrosby]

There's something nice with virtual aquariums, it just put some life in your day, I do have a fish tank live wallpaper on my phone, I can tap the screen to spawn food and watch them go eat. It's nice, but I wouldn't call it a cyberpet.

[@WooShell]

Please tell me that you got why the MDK cheat code does what it does.. ;-) Also there was a significant uproar back at those days when it transpired that Mopyfish, or rather the mopier driver, was sending thumbnail pictures of the printed documents home to HP, for "quality control" reasons. HP quietly removed that "feature" in an update.

[@AmartharDrakestone]

Probably because of Demolition Man.

[@funkmon]

Okay explain MDK

[@AmartharDrakestone]

@@funkmon That's the police code used for a murder used in that movie. Literally stands for Murder Death Kill.

[@WooShell]

@@AmartharDrakestone It's also a rather good game from roughly that era..

[@AmartharDrakestone]

@@WooShell Yeah, but there the MDK didn't stand for anything. A Demolition Man reference makes more sense.

[@MKVideoful]

Oh my god! I was searching for this piece of software for years. I remember playing with that fish as a kid at father's work. That computer was only one which had internet connection through dial-up.

[@captaindishman9126]

"laser printing is quite noisy" dot matrix: *points and laughs*

[@TheBeardGaming]

Wow 3D Pets was a game I completely forgot about playing on my old PC. Nostalgia hooked right to the veins.

[@novelezra]

Oh my god, is this the first freemium game? Seriously, I have never hated HP more than I do now.

[@volvo09]

Imagine running a medium sized business and walking around, seeing this screensaver and thinking nothing of it.... Then one day you see the invoice for printer toner and paper are off the chart suddenly.... and in your research someone tells you "oh, ahh, yeah, might be the fish" and the secretary has to explain to you that everyones printing random sh*t out just to get the best fish screensaver upgrades!!!

[@novelezra]

@@volvo09 Dude, I bet that exact scenario happened. I wish we could find out if this ever caused any complaints. You'd think pissing off the huge companies buying your printers would be the last thing you'd do but it's HP. Just reading how many times they have been in court because of their printer shenanigans is enough to cause a headache.

[@SmaMan]

Isn't this the same HP that started requiring "Starter" Ink Cartridges when you first installed the software to prevent people from buying used printers? Even though there's literally nothing different about the ink in them?

[@novelezra]

@@SmaMan They are literal scum.

[@CommodoreFan64]

@@SmaMan BS like that is why I switched to a Brother wireless B/W Laser Printer, it works with just about every OS I've tried it on from various Linux distros, Windows, Mac, Android, and Chrome/Chromium OS. Only good things I can say about HP is at least they have Linux drivers, and that they give money to the Linux foundation in support of open source software, otherwise SCREW HP PRINTERS!!!

[@t0ny747]

I remember downloading it and wasting ink as a kid. Good times.

[@cubeflinger]

The skit with the guy in the bow tie reminds me of RoboCop. Only RoboCop is a printer and he's ready to smash his prime directive of ordering only first party toner.

[@twincamspit]

Mopy was the screensaver on dozens of screens at countless customer sites I visited in the 1990s. And we had it too at our software development sites. Pretty sure none of us ever used the 'multiple original print' feature on the Laserjets though, didn't even know of the feature, or the connection to Mopyfish, until now!

[@91Vault]

hey that sherman’s lagoon one was alright, i used to watch it as a kid and wait for the swordfish to burst the blowfish or the big fish to eat the little one

[@Akiasergal94]

Now this is truly retro gaming! :) Had no idea it was a printer advert though back when

[@thekerfuffle9415]

I was obsessed with basically all of these, and honestly, still am. It's interesting to see that this trend didn't continue so that there aren't really many up to standards versions. The best Aquarium simulation was Aquazone! I still have all the files and I hope I'll be able to emulate it when my steam deck comes!

[@onlineamiga]

9:40 Red Dwarf Series 3 Episode 2 - Marooned. .Rimmer when he is burning his soldiers :)

[@gavindavies793]

You beat me to it! I recognised the hum but couldn't tie down the episode for a while.

[@rafalg2113]

Now this is pure nostalgia. Mopy came pre-installed with my first PC (later on I also had the tarantula). It may seem silly now, but it made a huge impression on me after switching from Amiga (far too late). I wasn't aware it was made for HP. Oh, well. Even nostalgia cannot convince me to their printers... or rather pricing of their toners, ink cartridges and locking after market ones in the worst moment possible.

[@Christopher-N]

"So long, and thanks for all the fish."

[@chuckygobyebye]

All the frustration of a real aquarium delivered virtually.

[@CzlowiekDrzewo]

Waaaaow. SquareSpace helped me with releasing my built up fecal matter. Thanks Squarespace! You're AWESOME! :) Squarespace saved my life. I looooove it. Uuuuu yeah.

[@IanSlothieRolfe]

I had Mopy on my computer back in the day. My (now ex) wife kind of liked it, so I left it running on the computer. We went on holiday one time and when we got back Mopy was dead (can't recall what we called it). I left it bobbing at the top of the screen for a while because it irritated my wife :) Then I think I found a different screen saver.

[@jt1731]

Prolific internet user here. I've not heard of this. Ever.

[@volvo09]

Maybe an office or business thing? I never heard of it either... But mopier printers were a professional / corporate oriented thing, so maybe that's why.

[@funkmon]

@@volvo09 I was 10 at the time this was a big deal, and I do remember mopyfish, but it was very much a thing that dads had on their computers.

[@jfs983]

Oh my GOD, I had no idea that Mopyfish was a well-known internet phenomenon!! Loved that thing as a kid!

[@IndiBrony]

I was ready for Freddie the Fifth! Also, I laughed heartily at the Arnold Schwarzenegger comment because I remember Reddit was talking about that exact subject a few weeks ago. I, for one, LOVE how bad Arnie was at acting during his early career. ❤️

[@hunterdavis3003]

It’s nawt a tooma !!!

[@chriskalkman3815]

This has a spot in the 2000 edition of the Guinness World Records.

[@berzerkerbunny666]

Omg, the Rimmer trumpet send off when the fish died had me in stitches. 😂😂😂

[@Mike_Downey]

I remember having this back in the day. I think I found a work-around to get extra points, I can't remember whether it was to print to a file or use a printer driver which saved to disk instead of actually printing but memory is very vague now!

[@McLambo]

Yes! I had this back then. Wow, thanks for bringing this back from the dark spots in my memory :P

[@theadamtron]

Nice use of the Rimmer buggle call 👍 rest in peace Mopey

[@GamePlague]

Kid me was completely unaware mopyfish had anything to do with printers.

[@Splayn]

Hecc! I loved mopy for how immersive it was! Installed it on my moms Win 98 and it was just amazing. Thanks for bringing this one back to light!

[@henryokeeffe5835]

As an engineer, I can tell you that advert at 0:55 is perfectly accurate

[@CantankerousDave]

I appreciate how the grass clippings are blowing out of the collating racks.

[@Ndlanding]

Nice, touching video, thanks! I've been using computers since the 80s, and read a ton of mags (while they existed), yet somehow I'd never heard of Mopyfish until I saw this video. Didn't even see it in the office's HP printer back in the 90s. What an empty life I've led. ((>((

[@kpr4225]

Me as a child who did not speak a lick of English, was so confused why the fish kept dying on me... thanks for unlocking my long lost memories!

[@ThisIsARubbishName]

that first deskjet! We had one at school! And the first Mopy, as well - my primary school had one! It took up a big space next to the head teachers computer. And then we moved to an Epson, with it's round corners and colour printing. Memory unlocked. Can't remember the fish, though. Ed: because the fish is as old as I am.

[@callumgreen6383]

This channel scratches a very specific itch, can't get enough

[@Kreln1221]

*I still fondly remember Mozilla's Babel Fish...* 😊

[@LaLaLand.Germany]

Call him "Hecklefish" and we have a deal. A sweet little fella- sadly I didn´t know about Mopy, I´d have installed him at once. But thanks to Guys like You who keep the memory alive we can enjoy Mopy on our own old rigs. The only part I do NOT miss is CRT´s. I had a 19"- bulky as bulky can be. Now I have Eizo´s for over a decade and love them but that´s another topic... Thanks, Buddy!

[@hi_tech_reptiles]

I love tech, repair, PCBs, capacitors, everything to the point I bore my friends. But anytime someone talks about printers, I glaze over like a coma patient lol. Luckily this video has fish ;)

[@LendriMujina]

It's rare to see Creatures acknowledged. That series still hasn't been surpassed in terms of advanced virtual pets if you ask me.

[@NoahClevinger]

I just finished watching your last thrifting video! Perfect timing for a new video :)

[@oldmandoinghighkicksonlyin1368]

One time I printed off shaman spells for EverQuest on the office network printer and the company owner found them and started loudly asking (complaining) to the open-air office I worked in as to who they belonged to. I sunk in my chair and kept my mouth shut.

[@sephirosu]

Oh my god I had this on my PC, you just unlocked some core memory I'd lost.

[@killerrr3211]

That HP commercial was golden 👌😂

[@sheliawiseman7796]

I had a MOPy Fish. I loved it.

[@rbrooks2007]

I can't think of a printer without remembering "PC LOAD LETTER" Damn HP Laserjet II !

[@cfb33774]

That MOPY Fish brings back memories of the 1990's at work. We had an HP5Si printer and I had MOPY running on my office computer. I compared the original brain.dat file that MOPY started with to a brain.dat file after printing for a while and found the print count and raised it to 14695 points. That way I had all of the accessories without wasting paper or toner! I just did a search on my computer and I still have the original MOPY Fish install files and hacked brain.dat file on backup drives. Thanks for the memories Nostalgia Nerd.

[@yumann]

Love this short video. Bravo

[@VincentGroenewold]

Was on my Amiga too much still, totally missed this. :)

[@offrails]

Laser printers noisy? Today's kids will never get to experience the excitement of watching a dot-matrix print head screeching as it cranks out one line at a time, and the satisfaction of getting a clean tear and ripping off the tractor strips when it was done.

[@tomaskopic2469]

Red dwaft pun ... oh god, I laughed so much! Thanks so much

[@senditcars]

Excellent video European lgr. I remember back when you had 10k subscribers (one of them me.) What a way you've come. You've gotten better with age

[@travis1240]

I miss my mopyfish. It was so sad when he went belly up.

[@minrizor]

9:29 Didn't expect that weird rendition of taps from Red Dwarf, but well-played, sir!

[@Yngvarfo]

I had this. Curiously, it wasn't limited to HP printers. I had a Lexmark inkjet, and I still got points for printouts. Being unemployed at the time, I printed out a lot of job applications. I don't *think* I ever made needless printouts just to get extra points. I can't say that I truly noticed long term effects of treating the fish one way or another. After all, I quickly learned to recognise the limited motions it could do based on the limited images it had, and eventually, I guess I got bored. I found Johnny Castaway to be more fun.

[@zacksstuff]

My HP Pavilion from 2005 had an aquarium screensaver, so HP kept at the fish things. I remember it was actually pretty demanding to run, so the CPU fan would ramp up and stay at max while it was on display. Probably not the best for the power bill.

[@KowboyUSA]

Love these historical episodes~!

[@oneirophon8912]

Please explain your pfp!

[@cfabz2023]

I remember this working with my home printer, a deskjet 600. As a kid, I figured out that you can "print" blank pages to rack up your points. Computer ink was insanely expensive, and there wasn't many good alternatives. HP knew it's ink was a cash cow and MOPy fish was their way to milk it.

[@Skandranon50]

Oh man, I remember loving Mopy fish as a kid! Had no idea it had anything to do with printers xD

[@adamh2900]

Just when you think there surely can't be any more random obscure shit from years ago that you have long since forgotten about... ...and yet there is!

[@rizmid]

Windows 98 and MOPy Fish was a great PC orgasm! Especially for those who were introduce to the world of computers for the first time! A fan and an admirer from Pakistan!

[@DeadReckon]

MDK , brings me back to Demolition Man. "We're police officers, we're not trained to deal with this kind of violence!"

[@MarcelloTheBandit]

I'm glad I'm not the only one who got the reference.

[@DeadReckon]

@@MarcelloTheBandit What seems to be your boggle citizen?

[@stephenclark9917]

No fish were harmed during the making of this video.

[@Zerbey]

I remember this silly thing, I kept it around long enough to get all the rewards then went back to Johnny Castaway.

[@tithund]

I got this when it came out, and the digitized animation was kind of cool, but it was nowhere near as awesome and interactive as El-Fish.

[@paulnash9851]

Clint from LGR had Fartfish-Wang. He was a good fish, and fondly remembered...

[@susanhoon7248]

I loved to watch Johnny Castaway on my dad's PC as a kid Talk about an iconic screen saver

[@alangjr93]

lmao, you showed a pic of an HP LaserJet 4000 or 4200. We still have a couple functioning ones in service in my office today haha

[@bad.sector]

Nice one! I really think we need more cool screensavers again... where have they all gone?!

[@313Games]

Still got my PB Club 400 running to this day, sadly it's now in an old Q Tech tower case, but it's heart still beats.

[@tarajoe07]

All you had to do to get the items was keep setting your clock ahead and feeding mopy

[@TheOneRobUK]

Remember installing this back in late 97 or early 98 it must of been. I remember my dad declaring it was a virus as we were having trouble with the PC. But it was a Time machine with Windows 95 so stability wasn't a thing. It was neat for the day or so we had it installed.

[@pablogonzales6194]

in my humile opinion the best fish tank screensaver is that one that was included in microsoft plus for windows xp

[@rogehmarbi]

For me the best fish tank screensaver is the one that comes with the game Insaniquarium, I used it all the way to the 2010s, years after I stopped playing the game, and I had to stop using it only because the screensaver didn't support high resolution widescreen monitors properly.

[@WithScienceAsMySheperd]

@3:35 I just bought a R2-D2 tamagotchi... never had bought one in the 1990s, played a couple minuts on my bros's tamagotchi... a friend had fun doing all the wrong things to make the tamagotchis' life hellish. This won't happen to R2-Gotchi. He is in storage, offline.

[@kylesmitsdorff]

I remember this! Memory unlocked! 😊

[@andrewgarcia3136]

that outro music is sublime

[@angelorusso3219]

Working in IT when the 5Si came out. What a workhorse. It's older smaller sibling the LJ4, 4+, and 4MP also seemed to never stop working! I remember playing around with Mopy and staff wanted it installed as well. I hated the time where everyone was downloading screensavers... most of which were spyware or viruses! I personally use SereneScreen Aquarium which came out in 2002.

[@ChrisShUK]

Nice little drop in of Rimmer from Red Dwarf there. Sneaky ;)

[@szprink]

i literally remebered this existed yesterday and now i see this video

[@TwoTailedFox666]

I still have this! And the addon for it.

[@kalaherty]

I think I had freeMOPy when I was a kid. Literally did not know it had anything to do with HP.

[@channelzero2252]

You forgot to add "No actual fish were harmed in the making of this video" to the end credits.

[@flametitan100]

If we want to be pedantic, there's that stock video of a goldfish in the sponsored segment. We don't know if it was harmed or not in the making of that footage.

[@cartman20000]

I wonder if the mdk code killing the fish is a reference to murder death kill in the demolition man movie?