Feeling really old

Hades · 11 Mar 2016 at 08:12

Jono said:
What was that TV show that had the datablast at the end of it?
We never had a VCR that had a steady enough pause to read any of it.

Wasn't it The Computer Programme on BBC?

MOOGLEYS · 11 Mar 2016 at 08:15

It was Bad Influence with Violet Berlin & Andy Crane.

Cosimo · 11 Mar 2016 at 08:21

MOOGLEYS said:
It was Bad Influence with Violet Berlin & Andy Crane.

malachi · 11 Mar 2016 at 08:23

Quite a few programmes did like How 2. The tracking was bad on my VCR so I never bothered recording them.

VincentHanna · 11 Mar 2016 at 08:29

Begbie said:
I remember having to go through those huge manuals for anti piracy. Find letter 42 on page 3 and letter 56 on page 12.

So awesome. Now we don't even get manuals :/

Bearing in mind the misprints and errors, I'm amazed those protection systems worked so well.

BigDannyO · 11 Mar 2016 at 09:19

cyber69 said:

Oh my god, I loved Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, my brother got it for his birthday, and with my other brother the three of us used to spend hours taking turns on it.

That, and all the Microprose sims like F19 Stealth Fighter, M1 Tank Platoon, Gunship 2000.

MOOGLEYS said:
Modern protection systems have nothing on the Dial-A-Pirate system used by Monkey Island.

The Lucasarts point-and-clicks were some of the best games made, to date, in my opinion. Some of the puzzles were ludicrous, and I don't mind admitting using walkthroughs for a few.

wolfie138 · 11 Mar 2016 at 09:22

i used to watch the one w/ Ian McNaught Davis for the BBC Micro thing. i was a member of Elbug and then Beebug, used to get teh mags w/ teh programs you could type in.

RetiredGreyFox · 11 Mar 2016 at 09:34

FoxEye said:
I think it's fairly true to say, that in the early 90s only the geeky/tech smart kids had PC or were into PC games. In the early 90s there still weren't many PCs in schools, remember.

True story,
The original owner of OCUK (before Spie) offered me part ownership for several thousand and I turned him down because I said "Everybody who wants a PC has got a PC"

Also a lot of those people I built PCs for didn't really know what to do with them and turned them on now & again.

Freefaller · 11 Mar 2016 at 10:42

BigDannyO said:
Oh my god, I loved Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe, my brother got it for his birthday, and with my other brother the three of us used to spend hours taking turns on it.

That, and all the Microprose sims like F19 Stealth Fighter, M1 Tank Platoon, Gunship 2000.

The Lucasarts point-and-clicks were some of the best games made, to date, in my opinion. Some of the puzzles were ludicrous, and I don't mind admitting using walkthroughs for a few.

Agreed - I still play them from time to time. I have yet to find an adventure game as compelling as those ones.

Jono · 11 Mar 2016 at 11:31

I think the Curse of Monkey island needs a re-release. I can't get it to work properly... think it uses DX5. Or I'm just stupid.

nst68 · 11 Mar 2016 at 11:36

Feek said:
Bunch of n00bs

My first computer was an Acorn Atom. It came with 1k of memory on board and a 1MHz processor. I upgraded it to the maximum of 12k on board and BUILT a 24k memory expansion board. From scratch.

Here's the computer itself.

And here's the bottom of the memory card. Lots of soldering there!

The inside of the computer. See that toggle switch hanging on a bit of wire at the top? That overclocked the processor to 2MHz.

And the top of the 24k memory card which I built.

I fired it all up in 2011 and it still worked - It got sold on eBay for a decent sum.

gothic_hobbit · 11 Mar 2016 at 11:38

bazzabear said:
Does anyone remember the massive bug issues with Frontier: Elite 2? And that every patch released (and there were a lot of them) you had to wait for a floppy to be posted out to you?

The Amiga version never had any issues if I recall.

BigDannyO · 11 Mar 2016 at 11:40

Jono said:
I think the Curse of Monkey island needs a re-release. I can't get it to work properly... think it uses DX5. Or I'm just stupid.

Have you tried ScummVM?

Murray was a fantastic character:

Murray: I am a powerful demonic force! I am the harbinger of your doom! And the forces of darkness will applaud me as I STRIDE through the gates of hell carrying your head on a pike!
Guybrush Threepwood: 'Stride?'
Murray: All right then, 'ROLL! ROLL through the gates of hell.' Must you take the fun out of everything?

VincentHanna · 11 Mar 2016 at 11:55

"El Pollo Diablo! The Devil Chick-en!"

Freefaller · 11 Mar 2016 at 12:16

BigDannyO said:
Have you tried ScummVM?

Murray was a fantastic character:

Murray: I am a powerful demonic force! I am the harbinger of your doom! And the forces of darkness will applaud me as I STRIDE through the gates of hell carrying your head on a pike!
Guybrush Threepwood: 'Stride?'
Murray: All right then, 'ROLL! ROLL through the gates of hell.' Must you take the fun out of everything?

Completely agree - awesome character.

robfosters · 11 Mar 2016 at 12:32

Full Throttle. Absolute boss game.

clockwork.satan · 11 Mar 2016 at 12:37

gothic_hobbit said:
The Amiga version never had any issues if I recall.

I played that game for months and months on my Amiga. Great memories!

naefeart · 11 Mar 2016 at 14:09

Wow, I still have that copy of PC Format at my folk's place, in my old room. I remember playing the demo of Speedball 2 for ages.

Secret Weapons, Monkey Island and Full Throttle - all great games. I think there is a remastered version of Full Throttle coming out this year.

I also remember editing several versions of my config.sys and autoexec.bat files, some implementing XMS memory and some EMS memory depending on what game/program I was running. Falcon 3.0 for example needed as much base memory as you could find to load.

Good times.

cosmogenesis · 13 Mar 2016 at 22:33

I went in 89 and I was the only person with a PC, everyone else had Amigas, but our final year in 93 everyone had a PC (playing Doom and f29 and all that)

Happy Days

G-MAN2004 · 13 Mar 2016 at 22:47

I feel old and I'm nearly 25. Still feels like yesterday that I was causing mayhem at school, and now I've almost finished uni and don't know what to do with myself.