Do you look back on the early days with happiness or sadness?

Hades

Hades

Hades

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Although I always look back on my early computer years with immense happiness I've started to feel a little sad about it too. It was such a great time in my life which, from 1981 through to 2003 consumed every waking hour, gave me a career, brought me closer to friends and has given me enduring memories. But since that era ended I've never been able to repeat it (personal circumstances - moved house, got married, had kids, moved away from friends). Even before my 1981 VIC 20 I used to spend every 10p I could at various arcades when my parents would let me. It was such a happy time. But I find myself looking back with a little sadness that it's over now. Even when I do get time in the future I doubt it will be as exciting to me because it's not new anymore.

So do you look back with happiness, sadness or both?
 
For me it would be the interstitial years (stuff like RISC OS) between vintage computing and modern computing when there was a glimpse of what was possible but we weren't quite there yet - I look back with a mixture of both as I had a lot of fun back then where today's computing doesn't ignite the same passion.
 
I remember having great fun in the early days. Looking back, I really don't remember the graphics being THAT bad, although I still recall certain games where the blocky things shot you and the pointy things rammed you... and everything of any shape and any size still had a vaguely visible square area around it that counted as touching it. Revisiting those games, I still have no idea what the shapes are supposed to be. A wasp, perhaps...?

I was late to the console side and the N64 was out before I even got a NES. I still had fun with it and, revisiting it via a DS Lite, I still play teh same way, make the same mistakes, etc.... and the bloody Mario 2 music just won't ge' oot o' ma heid!!!!!
Seriously, all the musics, stuck in my head. Worse than Tetris!!

The sadness comes from seing how far gaming has come, how awful Spectrum games look today, how much more fun those ones seemed compared to, say, PUBG.

Even sadder - Not only were arcades all over the place, but they only cost 10p!!!
 
I remember writing a sideways ROM for the BBC micro in 6502 assembler. I have fond memories of that era as I felt I could understand reasonably well how the computer worked, electrically and in software. Today's machines are hugely complex compared to back then, in the same way we used to chase coarse sprites around the screen compared to the highly detailed, fancy lit 3D models in today's games.

Times were simpler back then ;)

Oh, and arcade machines were 10p a pop back then but I used to play as much pinball as I did arcade games.
 
SC0TTRS said:
Pfft! Dude! how old are you!! They were 20p for me back in the day! :p
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Well I'm clearly as old as Hades... possibly older.Maybe you just went to the more upmarket arcades?

picnic said:
Today's machines are hugely complex compared to back then
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But so much simpler to build - Pretty much plug & play, with the only complex part of getting Windows 10 to a decently usable state.
 
A mixture of happiness (fond memories) and sadness (that I can't recreate it now) for me. Early years of gaming, stepping from the Atari consoles forwards was lots of leaps forward, the closest I've got recently was when I got my Rift and started playing in VR. I think it's the "wonder" of the new thing, stepping forward in tech and experience. Games and gaming have become so advanced now, any big "WOW!" moments have become incredibly rare. In the past they were more common as tech and software developed rapidly. The reaction to most new games now is "...pfffft this is just a better graphics version of (insert 10 yr old game) ... "

I miss the big wow moments, that sense of wonder that kids have when experiencing something for the first time. It's difficult to reproduce as you get older and have more life experience.
 
My memory is pretty vague about it all now. Just little clippets of memory here and there. I am sure the spectrum days were good days. The 90's were interesting as the internet was 'our thing' nobody else understood it really. It was broadband that let it go mainstream rather than waiting hours for a small app to download or minutes to load a webpage.

I can still vaguely remember going to the sports center(sporty) at lunch time at school and playing street fighter II on the arcade machine. Fruit machines were bigger back then also.
 
Both!

I'm extremely happy that I was around to witness the golden era (for me it was 1995 - 2005)

I'm extremely sad for the kids that have to play the junk that gets churned out today, sad they will never know the feeling of being cramped up with mates around an arcade cab.

I have all my retro machines and I'm going to make sure damned sure my daughter plays them growing up!
 
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Thesnipergecko said:
Both!

I'm extremely happy that I was around to witness the golden ear (for me it was 1995 - 2005)

I'm extremely sad for the kids that have to play the junk that gets churned out today, sad they will never know the feeling of being cramped up with mates around an arcade cab.

I have all my retro machines and I'm going to make sure damned sure my daughter plays them growing up!
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100% agree. My personal golden era 1992-2002. I gave up gaming for the usual life challenges, picked up again circa 2009 when I bought a new Desktop.

I have (and to this day) been the only person in my immediate social circle who owns a PC! With the exception of Uni, the majority of my mates always owned consoles. Even now, whilst friends own PC's; they are purely for work - its mainly iPad's now. :(

When it came to purchasing a new game back in the day (mid nineties) we used to pile into a car and drive to Electronic's Boutique or what-not. Sometimes we would pick a heavy weight sim with amazing graphics (and it would be a slide show) so we would end up reverting to Sensible Soccer. Play a few local co-op matches and then off to the pub! When I moved out, mates would visit after work, we would stay up until ridiculous hours playing Op Flashpoint, Team Fortress, DOD or Counterstrike and then go to work, only to repeat the next night - Gawd knows how we did it?!

My flat stunk to high heaven with cigarettes, fast food and beer - Just great times. It does make me sad that this period will never be repeated. Health wise not such a bad thing! :D

The nearest to repeating the above, is playing with regular online buddies; only commitment is needed to form friendships, I struggle with being a regular player - so tend to stick to play casual matches which are not quite the same.
 
Yeah, I loved:

SNES:
- Street Fighter II (1991)
- TMNT Turtles in Time (1992)

Sega Mega Drive II
- Streets of Rage (1991)
- Golden Axe II (1992)
- NHL 95 (1995)

PC:
- JourneyMan Project 3 Legacy of Time (1998)
- Metal Fatigue (2000)
- Diaspora (2000)
- Continuum (2001)

I still play Continuum now, it's called Subspace Continuum and it's free on Steam. Only game I play.
 
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