the good ol' days?

[geelw]

well...*ahem* i'll make a fool outta myself by being the first one here. with gaming moving increasingly faster toward some sort of overall stylistic homogenization (if it's not a uber slick EA-style reworking of either a movie or sports or racing game, it's a pc game reworked as to be more acceptable to the mass market) . i personally think some devoloper or publisher should go back and revisit some of the older classic pc games and try to transmit that same sense of wonder to the shorter attention spans of today.

i have a feeling that the majority of posts here will be from the older gamers/collectors on the board with plenty of peeks from the "little ones" to see just what the fuss was all about "back then". let's give them tales of days gone by to make their heads spin a few times... well, any good stories that'll make them look at those final fantasy games in a different light, lol... :D

[IntvGene]

I'm probably closer to the veteran group here.. I started playing extremely old classics like Jet, King's Quest, Sopwith and others on a PC XT, and at the same time delving into the Atari 8-bit scene. Later, we'd move on to the C64, ST, and Amiga systems, but someone always had an "IBM compatible PC" too. So, we'd follow the video cards from CGA, EGA, and onwards and the monumental increases in computing power that the new chips and motherboards would rush in. While I don't play too many PC games anymore, they are defiinitely a big part of my gaming history, and look back at some of the great games with warm fuzzy feelings. :)

[scooterb23]

I started with the TI994a...I loived that thing. Munch Man, Parsec, Jawbreaker II...such simple, yet fun games.

My favorite computer system was the C64. I had over 300 games for that thing, and I regret everyday ever getting rid of it.

I have a C64 now, but I can't find any of my disk (yeah, you read that right...disk with a k!!!) based games in working order anymore :(

And the emulators I have tried just don't cut it...I would kill for a working copy of Stunt Track Racer (emulator doesn't have the correct controls...doesn't work right), Mini Golf (arcade conversion), Skate Rock, and all those great Sharedata game show conversions...man I wonder what happened to my collection :(

[Kroogah]

I'm one of the Older Younger Members, at 18 years. I didn't really "grow up" with it, but I did have an Amiga for a few years. Played Uninvited a LOT (then the disk got corrupted...sadness) had about 5 different Lemmings games, including Operation: Lemmings, had a really fun Space Invaders clone whose name escapes me...The Three Stooges (classic) and many others I didn't play nearly as much.

My local library had Apple II computers set up that you could sign up for time on. Oregon Trail, Dizzy the Adventurer (I think), and Prince of Persia ate up a lot of my life.

My dad had a computer with Windows 3.1, and that's where my fondest computer memories come from. WOLFENSTEIN 3-D (and later Blake Stone, and later Doom 1 and 2) King's Quest 5 and 6 (still have these, complete), Coaster, Battle Chess, SimCity, Sierra Hoyle, Commander Keen..*sigh*

I've tried several times to get a classic computer for my collection but to no avail. I think I still have a working Commodore 64 but I don't have a disk drive (help please! ^_^) and I found a TI99-4A but the switchbox was shot.

[TheSmirk]

I started back with the 400/800 and TI994a and once someone in my neighborhood got a C64 and you realized with two drives you could copy games at will........ :D

I've been playing on computers since then, but I actually missed the whole Amiga era. On those old systems, back then I really didn't think of them as "Computers" so much as "big consoles"

[Mayhem]

20 years next month I will have been a C64 owner :)

http://sta.c64.org

Got images? Transfer them to your real floppies for play on the C64 :)

I can supply almost any game for the machine if people want it... and a lot of them have been NTSC/PAL fixed too.

[oesiii]

I have a C64 now, but I can't find any of my disk (yeah, you read that right...disk with a k!!!) based games in working order anymore :(



Like our C64 guru mentioned you should get a PC1541 cable to transfer any disk image to your floppy drive or directly to your C64. This works exactly like a SIO2PC cable for the Atari computers if you've heard of that. The two greatest inventions for those computers in my opinion :)

I can't say enough about the sio2pc cable and APE software (www.atarimax.com) It lets you use your PC as a hard drive that your Atari can see = unlimited storage for gaming. You can also use your PC's modem and printer from your Atari with this cable, too awesome.

I grew up with Atari computers and I have about six of them now, I just got a C64 a couple of years ago and I look forward to many years of exploration into Commie gaming.

One of my favorite sites on the net is http://s64.emuunlim.com/
That site alone makes me want to get going on my C64 trek.

[scooterb23]

Thanks for the ideas...a long time ago, I thought about these, but had long since forgotten about them.

One thing I've had trouble with, is that some of the images I've found online don't quite work right under emulation. So I question if they'd work correctly on the C64 itself.

EIther that, or I need to find a better emulator... :)

[YoshiM]

I really can't remember a time a computer wasn't in the house. When they were released my Dad brought home a TRS-80 Color Computer with the "extras": 16K of RAM and the "extended" Color BASIC. I was mesmerized by what that thing could do. You TELL it to do something and it DID it.

For years we never really owned any store bought programs for it. I think we had Color Scripsit. But that was all right, we typed in programs. Databases, flash card programs, CAD home design programs, games and more. My Dad put together a tape of his favorite games from magazines and gave it to me for Christmas. When you ran the first program it played "Tis the Season" and told me how to load games from the menu. I still have that tape today and still get my Cheesebomb groove on.

It wasn't until the mid 80's after a friend of my Dad's tried to upgrade the CoCo's RAM and blew the system forcing a purchase of a brand new CoCo 2 with 64K of RAM that we started getting some store bought stuff. Telewriter 64 (my first word processor), Dungeons of Daggorath and EDISAM+ were added to the library.

Then I got my own computer: a TI 99 4A. I learned a lot from that machine and it was a refreshing change of pace as I never got a whole lot of time on the CoCo as my Dad was always on it. Down the road I got my own CoCo 2 for Christmas and then I got my own CoCo 3. Somehow I also got a floppy drive with a high density drive within a wooden case. I have no recollection as to how I got it. This was about the time when the CoCo was really declining and Radio Shack started selling off its CoCo stuff cheap. I was able to snag some good stuff like Rogue, Rescue on Fractelus, Zone Runner, some sub simulator by Epyx and a 300 baud modem which allowed me to get onto Delphi. We also met up with some other CoCo enthusiasts (like the well known CoCo guru Bill Bernico) and discovered a user's group in Appleton run by a man name Vic Kells. Great guy and I feel bad we didn't get up there more often to visit. Not only did we get to check out the software his group collected, I got to see my first modified CoCo-it had for sure over a megabyte of RAM!! My TI got traded for a green monitor from one of the enthusiasts that was stored at Vic's place and if I'm not mistaken my Dad picked up a Tandy Model III with software from here as well.

When I was in high school my Dad got wind of a PC sale. Convenient Video, a video store chain, upgraded their PCs and they were selling their 8088's with monitor, CPU, keyboard for $500. When he brought it home I was mesmorized. It had both 5 1/4" and 3 1/2" floppy drives and a HARD DRIVE. No swapping of disks, you just put the software into the computer. After playing games like Police Quest, Flight Simulator 2 and Test Drive 2 I had to have one. I sold my CoCo 3 and saved up and bought my own. I think this is when I really started my interest in the technical side of the PC as I had modified it over time until I couldn't anymore. The first upgrade was a VGA card (thanks to seeing ads for Wing Commander) followed by a sound card and then I added another hard drive to it (so I had about 40 MB of storage...those were the days). Then my Dad got a Wang 386 machine and that was my first real experience with Windows. I hated it. DOS all the way for me.

After rambling on I'll close with this: one of the best things about gaming on a computer or even just USING one is choice. There are sooo many things out there you can play or use it's amazing. From the variety of hardware to the software found in magazines (back in the day) or software purchased from the little developers or the shareware found on peg hooks at the local supermarket (I miss that). You could find almost anything to take care of whatever gaming itch you had and at any price.

[YoshiM]

Oops, double post.

[Mayhem]

One thing I've had trouble with, is that some of the images I've found online don't quite work right under emulation. So I question if they'd work correctly on the C64 itself.

They're probably crap cracks, which don't work properly. Almost everything I have is good to go... that's the whole point of the GB64 project, to collect everything and have it work.

[Lady Jaye]

As I've written in the type-in programs thread, our first computer was a beige TI99/4a w/ tape recorder (the only peripheral we had for it). AFAIK, my dad never bought a single software for the TI, but he did get Compute!'s book of TI BASIC. I remember that he made me a hangman game and a Space Invaders clone called Type Invaders (learn how to type while playing Space Invaders!!!).

Although he later got a Timex Sinclair, I don't remember him doing much with it, although I could be wrong (at least when he showed it to me last year, I knew what it was).

Then, in early 1990, my mom started her own desktop publishing business (still running it, in fact, nearly 15 years later). She bought a Mac SE/30 (in glorious monochrome!) running System 6 (soon after upgraded to System 7). Later on, she replaced the SE/30 with a Mac IIcx (which I still have, but I need to change its internal battery), 2 Quadras 650 (including one with a PowerPC chip!), 2 G3 desktop (Apple's last beige box), one G4 tower and one white iBook (which is her leisure computer).

In my case, I have the aforementioned IIcx (it's boosted to the max, running System 7.5.3 with Aaron (which gives it a pseudo-OS 8 look), an iMac 350MHz w/ OS 9.2 (got that computer 3 1/2 years agp for my 25th birthday) and an iBook 800MHz (w/ OS X 10.2.4 Jaguar).

Notice a pattern here? I come from a Mac family (my mom hates Microsoft and Bill Gates with a passion; even though she doesn't care so much about the latest technological developments any more, she's still a Mac-lover).

Now you know where I c

[maxlords]

I started with a C64 too :) Got one with 400 games, all pirated, and NO useful software! Yay! My parents thought it was ok to have a "computer" but not an NES...so that was where I started gaming at home. I even had strip poker for it :D

When we upgraded, I went from a C64 straight to a P90 with 16 whole megs of RAM. Blazing fast....and shareware ruled! :D Ironically we had that computer until I went to college, and then I was forced to downgrade to a 486DX 66 because that's what I was given for college. Ow. Let me tell you, Diablo is weird when you can actually dodge individual arrows and fireballs! After that I went modern :D

[kainemaxwell]

My first computer was the c=64 actually. My stepfather and I would play many game son it, as would my friends and I. He was into the army and sim game slike Stealth Fighter and Gunship. I was more into action typed games.

[Bighab]

Growing up I never had a computer. My one friend had an Apple IIe. 3 of us would get together every friday night and create 2 characters each and play Wizardry. Other favourites were Bilestoad,Rescue Raiders,Grudonia. Thanx to emulation I am able to play them today. One question,did anyone ever beat Rescue Raiders? Man that was a hard game.

[boatofcar]

My first video game machine was also my first computer. It was an Atari 1200XL, with a box of disks, 10 or so carts with BASIC, and a Dolly-Wheel printer (dot matrix was far, far into my future). It was a work machine for my dad and a game machine for me, from about 1986-1990, when I finally got a NES. The Atari was great though, I loved playing Blue Max, Track and Field, and all the arcade -near- perfect translations of Pac Man and Mario Bros, not to mention all the great type-in adventures for the system that came on the Antic MAgazine disk each month. My next gaming computer was an IBM 8088 clone, circa 1989-1995. It only had a CGA screen, which didn't enable me to play many games on it, not to mention most of my gaming time and money was spent on my NES and SNES. I did play a lot of a golf and Lesiure Suit Larry (very rsique for an 11 year old boy :) ). At school around 1991, we got some 386', which I played Kings Quest and Carmen Sandiego on. As of now, I'm currently in the process of outfitting my old PC with a PCSIO cable to use with my Atari 130 XE to relive my glory days :D

[scooterb23]

They're probably crap cracks, which don't work properly. Almost everything I have is good to go... that's the whole point of the GB64 project, to collect everything and have it work.

Thanks for the link...turns out my recollection of the controls may have been wrong. Because I had the same troubles with the version there, and a PC version I had found...but then I messed around with the controls, and found that I was using the wrong buttons to run the game.

I'm an idiot.

Thanks though, I can now play the greatest game ever made whenever I want: Stunt Car Racer...pure gaming goodness :D

[cbroddy]

I remember when me and my sister would spend hours playing Snooper Troops for the Apple II+. I helped out with typing in some of the programming for Pillar Munch. That was an enjoyable game that I liked for a while.

When we first got our Macintosh. I remember having such an enjoyable time playing Where in the world is Carmen Sandiego?, Dark Castle, Crystal Quest and Continuum. We ordered macintosh games from a catolog.

[oesiii]

Thanks though, I can now play the greatest game ever made whenever I want: Stunt Car Racer...pure gaming goodness :D


Thanks for the game recommendation, I first started playing the C64 version this morning but after a little reading I noticed it also came out for the Amiga and Atari ST. Fun game, here's me about to fly off the track in the Atari ST version :)

http://luna.cas.usf.edu/~osalcedo/stunt.jpg

[Dire 51]

Had a TRS-80 for a short while in the mid-80s, but allI really did with it was play Downland and a Go-esque game that I can't think of the name of offhand, as well as try a few simple programs. Then the system accidentaly got trashed.

After I moved to Florida, I met a guy that had a C128, and I spent a lot of time at his place playing games like The Last Ninja, Alcon, Space Harrier, The Pawn, Shinobi, Strider and best of all Garry Kitchen's Game Maker. Man, did we have some fun with that.

[TNTPLUST]

My first game play was on a friends Apple II+. Wizadry, Strip Poker, and Snake, Wings of Fury..lol

Like many others I cut my teeth on a TI-994a. I loved playing the Adventure series (hence my tag line below). I have played most of Scott Adams games. Does anyone remember playing Hitchikers guide to the Galaxy? to this day I still laugh at the puzzle to get the Babel fish! Tunnels of Doom was awsome.

I moved up to the C64 and was wowed by Pirates! Bards Tale, Defender of the crown, Mule, Firestarter, Test Drive, Kings Quest, Leisure Suit Larry, Last Ninja, ..Sigh..simple graphics great gameplay!

From their I went to the Amiga. That system blew my F*ing mind! Just so much good stuff I don't have room here.

I finally moved to the PC when I saw my friend play Wing Commander!

Now the ooooh and ahhh factor is gone. Don't know if it is because I CAN'T be surprised anymore or if the gaming industry has lost its creative edge. Maybe it's like your first Love, something that only comes around once.

I still collect all these machines and play with them too. My TI and a SX-64 sit right next to my work computer. Every year I dust off my Amiga and my Laser (APPLE IIe clone) and play my favorites. While I love MAME for uprights I have never gotten into Console emulation. I guess I need the tactile feel of of the classics.

[TNTPLUST]

Thanks though, I can now play the greatest game ever made whenever I want: Stunt Car Racer...pure gaming goodness :D


Thanks for the game recommendation, I first started playing the C64 version this morning but after a little reading I noticed it also came out for the Amiga and Atari ST. Fun game, here's me about to fly off the track in the Atari ST version :)

http://luna.cas.usf.edu/~osalcedo/stunt.jpg

Yes this game was great. A fun physics model and game play that puts fun over graphics. Ever tried it on an Amiga with a null modem cable? Two player fun at its best. I think the PC and Atari versions may have supported this too.