1980s / early 90s kids - what computer did you have?
- Thread starter Pawnless Endgame
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Were you one of the lucky ones at school to use one?
You had to be in set 1 for maths for Computer Studies when I was at school and I was always in set 4 so never had a chance. How things have changed.. My 5 year old can do more then what some older people can. I took it on myself to learn back then, outside of school.
ZX-81 that my parents bought for me. With the 16KB wobbly rampack. I learnt programming by typing in programs from Your Sinclair and finding out what mistakes I'd made to cause the errors that resulted 
There was another magazine too....Sinclair something. Aha, found it. Sinclair Programs.
Then I saw Chequered Flag running on the brand new Sinclair Spectrum in Woolworths and I was awed by the fantastic advances over the ZX-81 (colours! graphics other than ASCII symbols! Crappy bleepy noises!). I spent 6 weeks working almost full time picking runner beans (I was paid £1 per hour because they could get away with it) to buy one and it was worth every tedious, aching minute of it.
This is Chequered Flag, the game that I was so awed by:
10 PRINT WOOLWORTHS IS ****!!!!!!!!!!
20 GOTO 10
Finest quality programming
There was another magazine too....Sinclair something. Aha, found it. Sinclair Programs.
Then I saw Chequered Flag running on the brand new Sinclair Spectrum in Woolworths and I was awed by the fantastic advances over the ZX-81 (colours! graphics other than ASCII symbols! Crappy bleepy noises!). I spent 6 weeks working almost full time picking runner beans (I was paid £1 per hour because they could get away with it) to buy one and it was worth every tedious, aching minute of it.
This is Chequered Flag, the game that I was so awed by:
10 PRINT WOOLWORTHS IS ****!!!!!!!!!!
20 GOTO 10
Finest quality programming
Amstrad CPC 464 with colour monitor. Games of the time were:
Double Dragon
Roland on the Ropes
The Mummy
Ghostbusters
Chase HQ
I loved that system
Gryzor on the CPC knocked my socks off.
Ghostbusters was awesome (if you mean the one where you go down the sewer on the first level). Chase HQ was cool too - with SPEECH!
Batman the Movie was really good as well. Was playing that on an emu the other night. 
C64 seemed to have the most unreliable tape loading of the main 3 that were around at the time from what I remember (C64, CPC, Spectrum).
Not sure why that was but I remember having to put books on the tape drive and stuff to get things to load on the C64. My cousin had one as well and was forever cursing load failures!
Me neither, but I do. Spectrum in my case, but the same thing. I spent quite a bit of time with a small screwdriver inserted into the tape deck, adjusting the positioning of the head to try to get it perfect enough to load whatever game was giving me trouble. I could usually tell if it would load from the tone of the screeching during loading.
I played a few Spectrum games on emulator recently and thought they were rubbish. Best left for fond memories, I think.
I can quite happily still play many 8 bit games on emulators, most notably the Dizzy series and many of the better Ocean titles. Barbarian is still fun, too.
Currently playing Arkanoid - Revenge of Doh here and there, and I can't believe how I had the patience to play it for so long when I was a kid, it's friggin' hard!
Actually, games back then were MUCH harder - die and start again, none of this quicksave stuff!
Started with the Atari 2600 my grandparents bought in order to get us me to visit more often . I managed to clock Missile Command on that after a good few hours in lying front of the TV.
I started with a Dragon 32 and copying program code out of magazines only to find there was a printing error. Of course my friends had ZX Spectrums, Commodore 64s or BBC Bs. I finally got a second hand ZX Spectrum which I drilled holes in the top of the case of to try to prevent the overheating issues. Finally Elite was in my house all be it with the dreaded lenslock copy protection.
From there I ended up with a Spectrum +3 which was much better as you didn't need cassette tapes anymore.
From there, in college we got a PC. It was a 386 DX and cost over 1K with a Hercules monitor (green background with another shade of green writing and no graphics abilities at all just text). I had to be content with bringing F15 Strike Eagle in to college on a 5 1/4" disk (key disk). My Student loan went on a 14" Illyama 15" monitor and Orchid Fahrenheit graphics card and I was back in business. Games never looked so good... to me at least. Then came the 3dfx Voodoo and Doom / Quake.
Strange the things I can remember. I also recall our first VHS and the fact the buttons stick out so you could use your fists like hammers on it and the first VHS movie we watched was called Ice Pirates.
RB
. I managed to clock Missile Command on that after a good few hours in lying front of the TV.I started with a Dragon 32 and copying program code out of magazines only to find there was a printing error
. Of course my friends had ZX Spectrums, Commodore 64s or BBC Bs. I finally got a second hand ZX Spectrum which I drilled holes in the top of the case of to try to prevent the overheating issues. Finally Elite was in my house all be it with the dreaded lenslock copy protection.From there I ended up with a Spectrum +3 which was much better as you didn't need cassette tapes anymore.
From there, in college we got a PC. It was a 386 DX and cost over 1K with a Hercules monitor (green background with another shade of green writing and no graphics abilities at all just text
). I had to be content with bringing F15 Strike Eagle in to college on a 5 1/4" disk (key disk). My Student loan went on a 14" Illyama 15" monitor and Orchid Fahrenheit graphics card and I was back in business. Games never looked so good... to me at least. Then came the 3dfx Voodoo and Doom / Quake.Strange the things I can remember. I also recall our first VHS and the fact the buttons stick out so you could use your fists like hammers on it and the first VHS movie we watched was called Ice Pirates
.RB
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Slightly OT but the first ever computer game i recall playing was 3DRex on the ZX81.
I wonder if you can program a FP maze game in less than 1k on a modern pc?? Actually did 3DRex need a 16k RAM pack to work?
Oh and i think the thread title should include 60s and 70s kids
I wonder if you can program a FP maze game in less than 1k on a modern pc?? Actually did 3DRex need a 16k RAM pack to work?
Oh and i think the thread title should include 60s and 70s kids
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Slightly OT but the first ever computer game i recall playing was 3DRex on the ZX81.
I wonder if you can program a FP maze game in less than 1k on a modern pc?? Actually did 3DRex need a 16k RAM pack to work?
Oh and i think the thread title should include 60s and 70s kids
On Windows i believe the smallest file size possible is 4k. Which is one of the reasons that's the limit for the Java 4k competition
C64 (with floppy drive, the big ones) - Great little machine, learned how to program in hexadec but totally forgot it now. (was about 7 when I got it) - First game (Terminator 2 the arcade game (cartridge version).
Amiga 1200 (With CD drive .. epic I know) (was about 10) - First game (Seek & Destroy)
P60 (First PC) (was about 12) - (Bioforge)
P400 (can't remember this one much) (was about 15)
Athlon XP something (was about 18)
Q6600 (was about 23)
i-5 2500k (27)
Always used computers over consoles, but own a PS3 for the blu-ray drive.
Also, hardly any came on CD's (no DVD's then
) - mostly floppys.
Amiga 1200 (With CD drive .. epic I know) (was about 10) - First game (Seek & Destroy)
P60 (First PC) (was about 12) - (Bioforge)
P400 (can't remember this one much) (was about 15)
Athlon XP something (was about 18)
Q6600 (was about 23)
i-5 2500k (27)
Always used computers over consoles, but own a PS3 for the blu-ray drive.
UFO enemy unknown (best game on the Amiga I had) came on about 13 discs IIRC, similar to Simon the Sorcerer.
Also, hardly any came on CD's (no DVD's then
) - mostly floppys.
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I had a Spectrum 48+, then having witnessed a C64 in action I'm afraid to say I utterly jumped ship, ditched the Speccy and saved up my pocket money, etc, and got a 2nd hand C64 for about £80 off a school mate.
Missed out on Amiga and ST although played both extensively, but soon after then I'd switched to consoles, primarily the Gameboy and Snes and it stayed that way till I got a PC around 1999 that was a 800mhz AMD with a voodoo 2. Still kept consoles though, with the N64 and Dreamcast getting most of my time.
Then got a second PC around 2004 (3.6g P4 with intergrated graphics, added a 9800 pro later and played a lot of WoW and HL2 on it before the 9800 pro burnt out and I primarily went back to console gaming again.
However, that PC still works and was my main rig till 2010 when I built my current rig and got back into PC gaming again after years of consoles. So I started with a gaming PC (definitely fair to call the Spectrum that IMO) and I'm back again full circle.
Though unfortunately I am in agreement with the fact that a lot classic old games are just pure rubbish by today's standards - I love old school, but the simple fact is even a derided series like COD would have made every single game from the 80's instantly and entirely obsolete.
My favourite Spectrum game was Jet Set Willy, which by modern standards is a frustrating yet utterly mundane platformer with atrocious graphics, terrible sound and clunky gameplay. To consider that Super Mario Bros was only a couple of years after it. Now that game is still utterly brilliant to this day.
Of course there will always be games like Tetris that will defy technological advances - the classic Gameboy version of it is still one of the greatest games of all time, but many, many classic games from back in the day have aged terribly and are best left to the memories.
.
Missed out on Amiga and ST although played both extensively, but soon after then I'd switched to consoles, primarily the Gameboy and Snes and it stayed that way till I got a PC around 1999 that was a 800mhz AMD with a voodoo 2. Still kept consoles though, with the N64 and Dreamcast getting most of my time.
Then got a second PC around 2004 (3.6g P4 with intergrated graphics, added a 9800 pro later and played a lot of WoW and HL2 on it before the 9800 pro burnt out and I primarily went back to console gaming again.
However, that PC still works and was my main rig till 2010 when I built my current rig and got back into PC gaming again after years of consoles. So I started with a gaming PC (definitely fair to call the Spectrum that IMO) and I'm back again full circle.
Though unfortunately I am in agreement with the fact that a lot classic old games are just pure rubbish by today's standards - I love old school, but the simple fact is even a derided series like COD would have made every single game from the 80's instantly and entirely obsolete.
My favourite Spectrum game was Jet Set Willy, which by modern standards is a frustrating yet utterly mundane platformer with atrocious graphics, terrible sound and clunky gameplay. To consider that Super Mario Bros was only a couple of years after it. Now that game is still utterly brilliant to this day.
Of course there will always be games like Tetris that will defy technological advances - the classic Gameboy version of it is still one of the greatest games of all time, but many, many classic games from back in the day have aged terribly and are best left to the memories.
.
Gryzor on the CPC knocked my socks off.
Ghostbusters was awesome (if you mean the one where you go down the sewer on the first level). Chase HQ was cool too - with SPEECH!
I don't think I ever owned Gryzor
. I think it must have been the different Ghostbusters, the one that Angry Video Game Nerd reviews on the Atari 2600 where you have the GB logo and moved around blocks that are buildings, have a short driving stage above the Ecto 1 and then have a side view section where you have to trap the ghost.Batman was fantastic fun, forgot all about that however I do now remember playing Daly Thompson's Decathlon and had to hold the joystick on my lap when doing the running/rowing sections, as if it was stuck to the desk my mum thought i was gonna come through the ceiling
