98PaceCar
05-08-2007, 05:15 PM
Here's my C64 lore. I'd love to have some feedback on it. Thanks guys!
***************
As I watched the freshly copied disk boot up and play the game I had just played on another disk minutes before, my mind was going a million miles an hour. I had played games on my Atari 2600 for a long time, but I knew of no way to copy them. I had borrowed them from friends before, but always had to give them back to the owner. But these disk things, that seemed to be another story altogether. I could make a copy and have it for myself without the owner having to give it up completely!
This was my first introduction to computers by my best friend Jason’s mother. A rather dubious start to be honest, but what better way to interest a pair of ten year old boys in computers. At that time, we were more interested in building forts in the woods and defending our territory from all manner of evil than being inside and playing video games. We both knew his mom worked with computers and that she had one in the house, but neither of us had paid it all that much attention. I guess she had decided it was time for us to learn, so the games came out and the learning began.
As I watched her type commands on the screen, I was hopelessly lost. She entered a series of seemingly meaningless words like LOAD “*”,8,1 to make the game load. I had never seen a game that you didn’t just plug in and play. Either way, it was fun to play a new game for a bit and eventually both of us had a turn at the controls.
After we had played for a few minutes, Jason’s mom loaded something called Fast Hack ‘Em. That’s a weird name for a game I thought, but I was still fascinated by just seeing the computer being used. She put the disk we had just played in the drive and told us she was making a copy of it. It wasn’t until the process was over and we were playing the same game as before from a different disk that it all sank in. She then told us that she worked with people that have this same computer and that we could borrow games from them to copy for ourselves. At that point, I knew I had to have one. So at the first opportunity, I told my parents I wanted a Commodore 64 for Christmas. That way, I could have all the games I wanted for myself!
The very next Christmas, my parents gave me a Commodore of my own. The newly released C128 to be exact and at that point, the copying began. It started off slowly, just getting games from Jason’s collection. Then his mom introduced us to the world of user groups. We met a whole group of people that all had the same computer. We were in heaven! Entire collections of games that we never even knew existed and we played every one of them, even the bad ones! Eventually all of our forts were deserted and we spent all of our free time on the computer at whichever house we happened to be at. But even with all of the games we were playing, something unexpected was happening to both of us.
See, we never had instructions for the games we got. So to play the more complicated ones, we would start up the game and hit each key looking for commands. After writing out a list of the commands, we would start to try things to figure out how to play. For most games, this was a simple process. But as we started getting into flight simulators and the more complicated games, it became harder to figure them out. We would spend more and more time trying to learn how they worked, sometimes more than we spent actually playing the game.
Little did I know that this process of hitting keys was teaching me logical thinking. Sure, it was probably the simplest form of logic, but I wanted to play the games and with no place to look for help, I had to do it on my own. As the years went on, my thirst for knowledge quickly surpassed what I was getting from gaming alone and I started playing with any program I could get. I tackled GEOS, early spreadsheets, and even the newborn online world. All this time, my skills in computers were being built without me even knowing.
Looking back now, I clearly see Jason’s mom’s wisdom, even if the first steps were a bit less than scrupulous. I’ve gone on to a career as a programmer and Jason spends his time managing servers and networks. I had been exposed to computers in school, but it had never been all that much fun. But by showing us how to play games on a humble C64, Jason’s mom started both of us on a path that shaped our careers. I don’t know if I would have still ended up in computers had it not been for that first copied disk, but I do know that my skills would not be what they are today. Even today, if I don’t know how to do something in a program, I’ll just keep hitting keys till it does what I want!
***************
As I watched the freshly copied disk boot up and play the game I had just played on another disk minutes before, my mind was going a million miles an hour. I had played games on my Atari 2600 for a long time, but I knew of no way to copy them. I had borrowed them from friends before, but always had to give them back to the owner. But these disk things, that seemed to be another story altogether. I could make a copy and have it for myself without the owner having to give it up completely!
This was my first introduction to computers by my best friend Jason’s mother. A rather dubious start to be honest, but what better way to interest a pair of ten year old boys in computers. At that time, we were more interested in building forts in the woods and defending our territory from all manner of evil than being inside and playing video games. We both knew his mom worked with computers and that she had one in the house, but neither of us had paid it all that much attention. I guess she had decided it was time for us to learn, so the games came out and the learning began.
As I watched her type commands on the screen, I was hopelessly lost. She entered a series of seemingly meaningless words like LOAD “*”,8,1 to make the game load. I had never seen a game that you didn’t just plug in and play. Either way, it was fun to play a new game for a bit and eventually both of us had a turn at the controls.
After we had played for a few minutes, Jason’s mom loaded something called Fast Hack ‘Em. That’s a weird name for a game I thought, but I was still fascinated by just seeing the computer being used. She put the disk we had just played in the drive and told us she was making a copy of it. It wasn’t until the process was over and we were playing the same game as before from a different disk that it all sank in. She then told us that she worked with people that have this same computer and that we could borrow games from them to copy for ourselves. At that point, I knew I had to have one. So at the first opportunity, I told my parents I wanted a Commodore 64 for Christmas. That way, I could have all the games I wanted for myself!
The very next Christmas, my parents gave me a Commodore of my own. The newly released C128 to be exact and at that point, the copying began. It started off slowly, just getting games from Jason’s collection. Then his mom introduced us to the world of user groups. We met a whole group of people that all had the same computer. We were in heaven! Entire collections of games that we never even knew existed and we played every one of them, even the bad ones! Eventually all of our forts were deserted and we spent all of our free time on the computer at whichever house we happened to be at. But even with all of the games we were playing, something unexpected was happening to both of us.
See, we never had instructions for the games we got. So to play the more complicated ones, we would start up the game and hit each key looking for commands. After writing out a list of the commands, we would start to try things to figure out how to play. For most games, this was a simple process. But as we started getting into flight simulators and the more complicated games, it became harder to figure them out. We would spend more and more time trying to learn how they worked, sometimes more than we spent actually playing the game.
Little did I know that this process of hitting keys was teaching me logical thinking. Sure, it was probably the simplest form of logic, but I wanted to play the games and with no place to look for help, I had to do it on my own. As the years went on, my thirst for knowledge quickly surpassed what I was getting from gaming alone and I started playing with any program I could get. I tackled GEOS, early spreadsheets, and even the newborn online world. All this time, my skills in computers were being built without me even knowing.
Looking back now, I clearly see Jason’s mom’s wisdom, even if the first steps were a bit less than scrupulous. I’ve gone on to a career as a programmer and Jason spends his time managing servers and networks. I had been exposed to computers in school, but it had never been all that much fun. But by showing us how to play games on a humble C64, Jason’s mom started both of us on a path that shaped our careers. I don’t know if I would have still ended up in computers had it not been for that first copied disk, but I do know that my skills would not be what they are today. Even today, if I don’t know how to do something in a program, I’ll just keep hitting keys till it does what I want!