It was the era when computers were cumbersome, the internet an innovation and mobile phones resembled bricks.
Queensland of the 1990s has been brought back to life in a collection of images recently released online by the State Archives.
The series features places and faces from across the state, focusing on transport, infrastructure and road safety projects which reveal how Queensland has progressed over the past 30 years.
"They were documenting what they were doing and how they were building Queensland," senior archivist Julanne Neal said.
Six hundred pictures were digitised after being selected from more than 200,000 prints, slides and negatives taken by photographers working for the Department of Transport and Main Roads during the 1990s.
"Everybody loves flicking through a photo album so we've just made the ones we have easier for people to have a look at," Ms Neal said.
There are photos of the Gateway Bridge in 1999, when drivers had to stop to pay their toll.
Pictures of Brisbane's CBD in 1990 show a city with far fewer high-rises and bridges — and depict a time before CityCats.
It was also apparently a decade when regulations about hi-vis and sun-safe clothing were less rigorous.
A worker building the sound barrier right beside the south-east Freeway was snapped in 1993 wearing short shorts and baring his chest in a sleeveless vest.
Other images reveal a motorcade and former rugby league star Gene Miles walking with crowds at the opening of the Sunshine Motorway in 1990.
Road safety mascot Hector the Cat makes an appearance, while kids on bikes from across the state, are pictured proudly wearing stack hats.
"It's stuff that formed part of people's childhood and teenage years," Ms Neal said.
"It's going to twig with you — you'll say, 'I went there, I did that, I remember that'."
From the Cairns Esplanade to the Port of Gladstone and the Simpson Desert, the photographers captured still frames all around the state.
"You get some of the lovely outback towns and they've actually managed to maintain some of their older buildings the way they were 50, 70, 80 years ago," Ms Neal said.
There was no such thing as smartphones and flattering selfie filters back then. Cameras used film.
Even after adjusting the settings and composing the shot, there was no knowing exactly how the image would turn out until the film was processed.
Among the many faces, one that pops up several times is that of David Hamill, who was Queensland's Transport Minister from 1989 to 1995.
"My hair was several shades darker than it is today," Mr Hamill said after looking at some of pictures.
"A lot of other parts of Australia were in recession at the time, but Queensland was experiencing a boom and it was stretching our infrastructure to breaking point."
He said one of the biggest projects of the era was building a rail line again to the Gold Coast.
"My vision for that would have been a six-lane highway with the rail down the middle," he said.
Extra rail tunnels were also dug between Brisbane's Roma Street and Central Stations.
"In a way that's like Cross River Rail today," Mr Hamill said.
"One of the projects for which I got a lot of criticism for at the time, was the corridor for road and rail out to Springfield — Springfield really didn't exist then."
"Thirty years later, I can say I was right we needed that corridor but it was always a challenge," he said.
Once again, Queensland is in the middle of a transport infrastructure boom, with major projects including Cross River Rail, Inland Rail and the Brisbane Metro.
A state in perpetual motion.
