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

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    

First ever computer game was played at uni sometime in the 1973-75 period and it was online and multiplayer! Well sorta

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!

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!

That would have been beyond me ! 

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

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