Since we got talking about 80's computers in the "Scottish park walls" thread, and ended up hijacking it, I thought it best that the topic had its own thread. I've spent the last 24hrs playing old Spectrum games on my 3DS, lots of nostalgia. So I'll start the ball rolling with a few questions (despite the thread name don't limit answers to the 80's if appropriate).
1. What was the first game you remember seeing/playing?
2. What was the first computer/console you used?
3. Do you still play games or did you leave them behind in childhood?
https://youtu.be/7IFtV7tdSvE
(http://www.skye-stones.co.uk/images/curved-wall.jpg)
Spectrum with the rubber keyboard, then the one with the proper keyboard and built in tape deck.
Had a great Arnhem game that I enjoyed many a time.
I have left those machines far behind me.
That wall probably has more ram in it than the speccy had.
Never had the rubber keyboard one, had the 48k+ with the little cup shaped things for your fingers on the keys.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/ca/ZX_Spectrum%2B.jpg
A friend had the older rubber keyed one, the QAOP keys were worn blank.
first ever was a hand held game called "Space Invaders" this would be middle to late 1970's made by a company called Scientific and Technical, also Astro Wars hand held then the good old Atari 2600 also had the first version of the Spectrum and then the rubber keyed one later on a 386 PC then a 486PC
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_2600
Still playing games on xbox, playstation and PC :-bd :)
First ever computer game was played at uni sometime in the 1973-75 period and it was online and multiplayer! Well sorta :D
Host computer was in Palo Alto, California and the game was Star Trek themed. You needed two to four players - no AI players in those days! You were Starfleet captains engaged in exercises (since you were all Starfleet and civil war was unthinkable) and your ships graphics were an O and an H - so sophisticated! Combat consisted of firing photon torpedoes represented by an i . Diagonal moves/ firing was not possible.
"Login" was by punched tape and connection was made by acoustic coupler. There were no monitors just a printer/ plotter so every turn the results of moves were printed out. If two or more objects were in the same square the plotter just overprinted things which got very confusing!
It would be several years until I came across another game with colour graphic though :)
A few years later I was hooked on the Battlezone arcade game, much more sophisticated.
Currently playing Naval Action, EVE Online, Company of Heroes, Ascension, Ticket to Ride and Skyrim on a regular basis and others irregularly.
My mum, dad and godfather used to play that at Oxford (Ifly Road)!! 1972-4
Our first computer (on which we did something other than play games) was the TRS-80 which was booted up from audiotape (you had to fiddle with the volume control). It had 16k RAM and later we got the 16k expansion interface. We were thrilled when the external 5 1/2" floppy drive arrived on the scene. We both learned BASIC on this machine - we hand learned ALGOL on a time-share while in college (punch tape).
Whereas Techno proofread for Babbage! ;D
1. What was the first game you remember seeing/playing?
Pong - on a dedicated Atari system hooked to TV
2. What was the first computer/console you used?
The "Trash" 80 (as it was lovingly called) mentioned in above post
3. Do you still play games or did you leave them behind in childhood?
Not very often - do have Pike & Shot on my iPad. Also downloaded a C64 emulator to my PC a couple years ago
so I could play "Bungling Bay" a few more time :)
Thanks for splitting out the thread by the way.
We had something that sounds like Pong that hooked up to the TV. We could play tennis & squash, with an option for a gun based attachment that never seemed to work. The sounds drove us mad from memory and with the squash game, you could manouevre the 'racquet' to a position that the 'ball' would just keep bounding around the same way ad infinitum.
Frankly we got bored of it pretty quickly and I for one never got into computer games. Give me figures or board games everytime.
Sounds very much like one of the home Pong machines.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FvT8jG1OVdI
Had a ZX81. Then my brother got a Speccy, and used to moad about the time I spent hijacking it to play Arnhem.
Then An Acorn Electron (a cut down BBC-B). My VI form girlfriend's mum had one, and we both played Elite.
DO I still play... Hmmm, can't answer the right now, got to get back to Evil Genius
I first remember seeing (and playing) a pong game at a friends house while in primary school, probably 78/79.
A year or two later we got an Atari console for Christmas with loads of cartridges that my Aunt bought in the US. Space Invaders and Adventurer game with keys and a Dragon where early favourites, then a bit later Pac Man.
Around the same time my Dad used to bring home a computer from work at the weekend - literately all the large beige bits in the boot of his car. Not sure what OS, but a basic green screen monitor. I remember typing in games from magazines (in Basic) and making some kind of database for D&D wandering monsters.
Later at secondary school we had a BBC (won in a competition) and played loads of games on this, I mainly remember adventurer ones, both text based and graphical, which all took forever to load off tape. As I was using the computer a lot to write-up school work, I persuaded my Dad that a floppy disk drive would be helpful for saving school work - and of course the first disk was one with all the best games on.
A few years later I had worked a summer in the US and came back to Uni with one of the first Apple Powerbooks - which really was a proper computer by today's standards, with integral HD, floppy drive, good screen (if grayscale) good battery life, and portable. The lecturers couldn't believe how good the laptops where that several of the students had bought that year in the US (this was probably '91). Civilisation was the game of choice on this machine.
Now most computer games are played on my iPhone at lunch time at work. I've avoided games on the computer for a while, I'd rather paint in the evenings.
Quote from: mad lemmey on 07 February 2016, 04:04:40 PM
Whereas Techno proofread for Babbage! ;D
That would have been beyond me ! :P
Back to the questions
I had a home version of Pong linked to the TV.
Mrs T wouldn't let a 'home computer' into the house for YEARS, as she worked on a mainframe, and didn't want to be reminded of computers, once she got home.
First console was an Amstrad of some sort.....Just a word processor, I think ?
Games....I still play on the PSP (Golf and FPS types).......And Windows have got an irritating minesweeper game on Windows 8......At certain points, when I think I'm doing well, it kicks me off, and starts me off at level 1 again....Cheating *******. >:( >:( >:(
Cheers - Phil
Cheers - Phil
Quote from: Ithoriel on 07 February 2016, 03:20:15 PM
First ever computer game was played at uni sometime in the 1973-75 period and it was online and multiplayer! Well sorta :D
Host computer was in Palo Alto, California and the game was Star Trek themed. You needed two to four players - no AI players in those days! You were Starfleet captains engaged in exercises (since you were all Starfleet and civil war was unthinkable) and your ships graphics were an O and an H - so sophisticated! Combat consisted of firing photon torpedoes represented by an i . Diagonal moves/ firing was not possible.
My first computer game was a slightly more sophisticated version of this. diagonal movement and firing was allowed and each move appeared on a screen rather than the printer ;)
I remember writing an adventure game, "you enter a forest, there are three paths (l,f,r):..." as an assignment in a stage 2 Computer Science paper. It was the set topic, honest, he was a popular lecturer ;) ;D
Quote from: clibinarium on 07 February 2016, 05:54:19 PM
Sounds very much like one of the home Pong machines.
The home version we had was in a yellow console with two nobs - these moved your "paddle" up and down the two vehicle edges of the screen in order to intercept the "ball". If you were skilled you could place a vertical vector ("English" ) on the "ball" - boring - yes - but it was the only game in town :)
I bought an add on Keyboard for mine so I had proper keys.
ZX Spectrum games machine to be released april 2016
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-30810148
In 1984 I wrote a wargame program that was published by CCS. It worked on the Spectrum 48k
I had a whole host of the 8 bit machines including some of the more unusual ones such as the oric, spectrum QL and the Einstein.
My favourite was the Amiga. The memory upgrade to move from half a Meg to a full Meg was £64 !!!!!!!!!
This must be it Norm;
http://www.worldofspectrum.org/infoseekid.cgi?id=0003365
:)
Quote from: Norm on 08 February 2016, 09:37:02 AM
In 1984 I wrote a wargame program that was published by CCS. It worked on the Spectrum 48k
Very cool, Norm! :-bd
And thanks for the link to it, Clibinarium
Yes, that's the one. Thank you.
First computer I had was a hand-me-down Spectrum ZX. I was about 8 years old, so 1989.
I can remember playing Space Invaders and another called Attic Attack.
Yes, I still play games (on an Xbox console) - but mostly when ill in bed.
Quote from: Norm on 08 February 2016, 03:48:29 PM
Yes, that's the one. Thank you.
I'll give it a go tonight if that's OK with you? (I won't if its not).
Post that link got me thinking. I tend to think games this old should be freely available as a sort of historical record, though there has been some redaction of stuff recently as mobile gaming has brought simple games back into fashion. Being strict, this is piracy as much as with new games, though I think its a sort of spectrum of declining naughtiness as you go further back in technology. It doesn't trouble me if its a game I owned before (having already paid in a sense), its maybe not so clear if its a classic I missed but can play now.
I wonder as a creator of the original software (and bumping into one is a first for me), how do you view the availability of something you created; happy people can still play it, or not happy that its being mooched?
Quote from: clibinarium on 07 February 2016, 12:37:57 PM
1. What was the first game you remember seeing/playing?
2. What was the first computer/console you used?
3. Do you still play games or did you leave them behind in childhood?
https://youtu.be/7IFtV7tdSvE
I just spotted the Lunar Jetman video doesn't make much sense without my answers as I must have removed them when trying to embed the video. To clear that up
1. Lunar Jetman
2. ZX Spectrum 48K+
3. Still playing
1. What was the first game you remember seeing/playing? Asteroids/Defender/Missile Command
2. What was the first computer/console you used? Very first Spectrum -but never owned it. Used to drop into a computer shop on way home from school with mates. I have NEVER owned a console, don't intend to start now and have always found wargames on consoles and PC'S sadly lacking
3. Do you still play games or did you leave them behind in childhood? Firmly left behind in adolescence.
When I was really young (4 or 5 maybe?) we had some kind of 'Grandstand' console with Des Lynam on the box. I can't remember what it did.
After that it was quite a few years until we got an Archimedes computer which played a number of early games like Space Invaders, etc.
Once I hit my teens I've bought myself various consoles, Playstation, Playstation 2, now an Xbox. I only play a handful of games though, as I don't have time for much more.
Quote from: RoyWilliamson on 08 February 2016, 04:05:45 PM
First computer I had was a hand-me-down Spectrum ZX. I was about 8 years old, so 1989.
I can remember playing Space Invaders and another called Attic Attack.
Yes, I still play games (on an Xbox console) - but mostly when ill in bed.
I started work the year you were born - Makes me feel old
Quote from: Just a few Orcs on 08 February 2016, 08:54:14 PM
I started work the year you were born - Makes me feel old
Gulp! And I had already been married a dozen years.
1989. I was 36 ... I had a wife, a job, a large flat in a nice neighbourhood and a son! Where'd the time go?
Quote from: Ithoriel on 08 February 2016, 10:21:53 PM
1989. I was 36 ...
Same here......And I was working for that firm that shall not be named.......You're right, Mike.......Where DOES the time go ?
Cheers - Phil
Quote from: Ithoriel on 08 February 2016, 10:21:53 PM
1989. I was 36 ... I had a wife, a job, a large flat in a nice neighbourhood and a son! Where'd the time go?
Quote from: Techno on 09 February 2016, 07:41:31 AM
Same here......And I was working for that firm that shall not be named.......You're right, Mike.......Where DOES the time go ?
Cheers - Phil
Phil I think you misread Ithoriel's message. He said he was 36
I was 13! :P
Clibinarium - thanks for asking, yes it is fine for people to play and hopefully enjoy :-).
In 1989 I was fifteen and playing a lot of games from the Company Who Shall Not Be Mentioned, along with a lot of games from every other producer our limited money and access could get hold of :D
Ahhhh, to be so time rich again! Preferably with more money...
Computer memories - I well remember going through about five joysticks and three "keyboards" on the ZX81 playing Dailey Thompsons Decathalon. That was a lot of frenzied action :D
Daley Thompsons decathalon was Speccy, surely.
3d Monster Maze - now that was a ZX81 game of beauty. Sometimes letting the T-rex catch you just so you could watch it come towards you
Ah yes, now I check it's the ZX Spectrum not the 81 :D