Ok Dopers, put your collective wisdom together and help me figure out specifically which old home-computer system my Grandma had when I was growing up. Here are the defining features that I can remember specifically:
Hooked up to a television, like a commodore 64.
Had a keyboard for regular input, and joysticks with 1 or 2 buttons for playing games.
Games were stored on cassette tape
Text was displayed on a blue screen, if I remember correctly.
To load in a game/program, you had to type “CLOAD” or sometimes “BLOAD”, depending on the type of program/game it was.
Some games I remember being on it were a sidescrolling game called “Ninja”, and an overhead tank game where two players controlled tanks and could shoot each other. There were lots of other games but they were all generic, no specific trademarked characters or titles that I can remember.
I’m pretty sure the console itself was a generic knockoff, so identifying the specific model may well be impossible. But if you guys can think of anything that matches all of those criteria, we can probably narrow it down pretty close.
You’re definitely on the right track with the TRS-80, but after scanning through some pictures and researching some games, I’m certain it wasn’t that.
But definitely in that era and style of home computer.
Actually… I think it may have been a Commodore Vic-20… but I’m not 100% sure yet.
ETA: No I don’t think it was the Vic-20 after all. I just watched a youtube video where a guy demonstrated loading a tape, and he just typed “LOAD”, but I remember specifically having to type “CLOAD” or “BLOAD” as provided in the instruction manual for each game.
I guess it may have been the vic-20… the main screen looks almost exactly how I remember it. But the fact that he just typed “LOAD” really throws me off.
Can anyone verify the CLOAD/BLOAD part of my memory? I’m very sure about that part. Did the Vic-20 have that?
ETA: Hmmm, I just looked up the Vic-20 games list… and assuming the list on wikipedia is complete (big assumption), I don’t see the game “Ninja” that I remember, and I’m sure it really was just “Ninja”…
I think the tank game might have been called “Tanks” or possibly “Tank Commander” but I’m really not sure about that one.
TI-99/4. And according to this, its console use “OLD” to load a basic program from cassette and “SAVE” to write it to cassette, so it doesn’t sound like what you’re describing.
It definitely wasn’t the Coleco Adam, after looking at it.
My memory of what the console itself looked like is pretty hazy, although the Vic-20 seems to jive with what I remember, whereas a lot of the others don’t seem to match up at all.
I do remember the tape drive itself was a “peripheral”, plugged in separately, like I’m seeing on the Vic-20, and there weren’t any cartridges (at least, my grandma didn’t have any cartridges… I don’t remember if there was a slot for them).
Wow. The combination of both “BLOAD” and “CLOAD” commands in the same interpreter, plus the idea that the console wasn’t distinctive by a brand, makes me think it’s an MSX system. And that’s a “Wow” because you’re the first human being that I know of to have used one. They were a Japanese/European platform, and I don’t think I’ve ever heard of anyone in the US having one. (Assuming you were in the US. You didnt’s say.)
The reason it could be a standardized platform without being brand-specific (like almost all other home computers of that era were) was because it was a Microsoft platform definition. Lots of manufacturers made MSX computers to Microsoft’s spec and sold them with their own branding. That would match the idea of a “generic knockoff.”
Let’s see: Googling “MSX Ninja” returns lots of interesting possibilities. Any of these look familiar?
Google “MSX” and see if any of the info seems right. In particular, the Google Image search return has pictures of lots of the consoles from various manufacturers.
You have NO idea how many years this has haunted me. I’ve tried finding it now for what seems like ever.
I’m just so glad I remembered the CLOAD/BLOAD thing, since that seems to be what clued you in as to what it could be.
What EXACTLY did those commands do anyway? Why did different games have CLOAD/BLOAD?
You have no idea! I’m over the moon right now.
The funny thing is, I’ve actually played MSX games on an emulator and knew what it was… but had no inkling that what my Grandma had could have been an MSX-based system.
I don’t have personal experience with MSX systems, but I recognized “BLOAD” as binary loading (in some systems, that’s loading binary data, like an image; on others, like the Apple mentioned in Hogarth’s post, it loads pre-assembled binary programs. OTOH, CLOAD was common in many BASICs for loading a BASIC program from cassette… but I’d never seen a single platform that had both BLOAD and CLOAD together.
So what’s an intrepid archaeologist to do? Google it. I searched for “bload” “cload” (with the quotes; otherwise, Google decides you must have mistyped it and searches for “blood cloud” )
There were lots of hits with passing references to MSX, so I added MSX to the search and undid Google’s unhelpful help (this time, Google decided I must have meant “MSX load load”… thanks. :smack:)
Anyway, if you search “cload bload MSX”, the second link is an online manual for MSX Blue, which is one of those emulators you mentioned. And it does talk about both BLOAD and CLOAD together…completely unique in my experience.
Good memory, BTW. It’s reasonable to say that remembering that combination of obscure commands was key.
That was enough to suggest that maybe it was an MSX system, and recommend the Google searches I recommended.
That’s funny because I did almost exactly what you did, searching for “cload” and “bload” at the same time, and did come across links to MSX stuff, but I just disregarded it because I just knew that what my grandma had wasn’t an MSX computer. So I got discouraged and just kind of stopped. I never did an actual google image search for MSX, which you recommended I do… and so I was probably never going to find it.
Here’s the interesting part I found in my research. Turns out that the early Spectravideo computers were actually a hybrid of sorts, and that’s where MSX was borne from. In fact, the SVI-728 was evidently the first fully-fledged MSX system, that others used. It read MSX catridges and everything.
But yeah, the one my grandma had was the model before that, the SVI-328, which wasn’t fully MSX… which might explain the weird hybrid of commands.
I did manage to find the Ninja game (the cassette does list the game only as Ninja, however the real software is Candoo Ninja), set up the emulator, and played it for the first time in probably close to 10 years. I even remembered the music. I also remembered that there was a trick to attacking (you have to either be jumping or crouching, or your sword just doesn’t do anything), but I couldn’t quite remember what the trick was.
Well anyway, thanks once again Even though in retrospect I was close, I never would have gotten there without your help.
I’m glad my “wasted time” amateur computer archaeologist interest has now officially helped one human being beside myself.
)
Even though in retrospect I was close, I never would have gotten there without your help.