I remember playing on a Commodore 64 at school in 1991 or 92, but the school used Apple ][e’s for everything else. I think the C-64 was salvaged from the old school, which had burned down after a lightning strike the summer before I started.
I started out on a Mac, but my dad had a Timex Sinclair that he let me play with… He bought it in 1983 for their New Year’s Eve party so he could put “1984 - BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU” on the TV screen. It had a few programs on tape, but I never got them to work when I was playing with it 10 years later.
Never owned a Commodore 64. Our first computer was a Dick Smith (Aussie company) System 80 equivalent to the Tandy TRS80 which my hubby brought home back in 1980.
In 1981, the Sinclair ZX-81 was king. Despite its shortcomings, and they were many, I managed to learn simple Wordstar (word processing) and SuperCalc (spreadsheet) on it. Amazing, bearing in mind all the restrictions.
I wish I could have had a Commodore 64 when I was growing up. All of my friends had one, and they had all the cool games they traded (i.e. copied). There was plenty of software available at the computer store, and plenty of magazine support, too. I asked for a Timex/Sinclair computer instead and got it for Christmas in 1983 (I was 13 then). I had a hard time finding any games or magazines devoted to it. I couldn’t really get it to do much of anything with what I knew about its BASIC interface. I thought it’s tokenized keyword system would be cool, eliminating the need to type out each command and function letter by letter, but after awhile I realized just straight typing would have been easier.
In 1988 I got a Tandy Color Computer 3 (Co Co 3). While software was still not so easy to come by, at least there was a magazine devoted to it, called The Rainbow. It featured BASIC and some machine-language programs that could be typed in. I spent countless hours and late nights typing in programs that would reward me with a cool game to play for my efforts (how nice it would have been to have a scanner and OCR software then; it would have made “typing” programs a breeze.) They offered the programs on tape or disk, but I didn’t have the money to subscribe to this service.
C64 was my first computer. Track and Field was a great game; the joysticks used to sound like machine guns when we played. I can still hum the music that goes along with Ghosts and Ghouls, and the “Come now a visitor!! Stay awhile…STAY FOREVER” from Impossible Mission, must be imprinted on my brain, along with the yell when you fall down a hole.
The first computer I used was a terminal connected to a CDC 6600 somewhere else on the plant The first programming language I used was Fortran, and I used cards (sort of like punch cards, but you fill in bubbles) to write programs.
Then I moved up to a TRS-80 Model I with 4K of RAM, but soon upgraded with the Expansion Interface. Eventually dual floppy drives were added. Woohoo!
Cut my teeth on a VIC-20. For the longest time I swore by Commodores (still would if I could use 'em to read the Dope! ) but also used TRS-80, Color TRS, Sinclair, and can’t remember what else. Still have my C128, tape drive, printer, a couple of 1571 disk drives, a 1351 mouse, and a Currah Speech64 cartridge. Hmm… guess I’m more of a Commodore nerd than I thought.
They’re actually better if you just suck on them for a while and let them melt instead of chewing.
Anyhoo, my first “real” computer was a Syscom ][ (Apple ][ clone), followed by Mac Classic, IIsi and iMac. Before that, I had a couple of weird little vTech computers my parents got me an Toys R Us, but they were actually pretty useful.
We had one of the Vic20’s with the tape player. I was about seven years old, and a programming genius. I changed all the words in the Hangman game to dirty ones, and I was the absolute mistress of the GOTO 10 interminable repeating program. My brother and I even made up a little song about poke, peek and the 8 functions.
rereads that I’m just going to have “geek” tattooed on my forehead. sigh
Oooh, I did. We used it in the gifted and talented program in my middle school back in the early-mid 80s. (Back when I was gifted and talented!) Our big project for the year was to get it to write automatic thank you notes, including the sender’s name, the present and an adjective describing the gift. Pretty heavy stuff!
Please wait approximately 1.5 minutes while game is loading…
(Shudders in a fit of nostalgia.)
Someone mentioned Impossible Mission. I was so addicted to this game. Have yet to figure out what the big black ball was supposed to be. But the funny thing is, I played that game for EVER (Another visitor… Stay awhile… Stay FOREVER) and could never beat it. I downloaded a cool C64 emu a few years ago, and downloaded a ton of games, IM included and FINALLY triumphed. It was a wonderful moment.
I have been dying to figure out if anyone else ever played (and/or liked) Below the Root. That game was one of the coolest ever, if you ask me. I believe it was done by Epyx. You chose one of a handful of kids, and went on a quest in the treetops… you could slowly gain mental powers (such as the ability to read minds), and in the spirit of true rpg’s, each character had different strengths. I always chose the little girl who had the best mental powers, but man if you bumped into a leaf that kid got hurt lol. Anyway, you floated from tree to tree, fulfilling the quest, gliding with your shuba… Ahhh…
The 64 was the best. I loved that thing, and would love to get my hands on one again.
Quick list of some favorite games…
Below the Root
Impossible Mission
Any Infocom game (to this day, I’m a text adventure junkie)
The Hobbit (I thought the graphics were sooo cool, but the parser sucked!)
Ghostbusters (could never figure that game out though… All I remember is that some combination of OTTO LIST would give you a ton of money)
Bushwhacker
Highlander
Loderunner (My mother was a serious loderunner junkie, and man could she play… my mom has always been kinda cool like that)
Road Toad (some weird version of Frogger)
Centipede
Mind Control (annoying, annoying music though)
The list goes on, but those are some of my faves…
I miss that machine.
Oh, and I also had a Timex Sinclair 1000… And I sold the tape drive for my C64 to some kid for 75 bucks. LMAO and that was in 1988 or so. Shameless.
I think my old man has those two systems in his basement somewhere, along with all the old games. Lots of the games were hacked and had to be booted in a special manner, (passwords and special commands) that I would have long forgotten.
The Commodore 64… sniff. My first computer. I loved that thing. I learned BASIC on it.
Games I remember:
Bubble Bobble
Commando
Soldier One
Bruce Lee
Mission Impossible (Best. Game. Ever.)
International Karate +
Jinn-Genie
Paperboy
Spy Hunter (Best. Music. Ever.)
Neptune’s Daughter
Last Ninja
Last Ninja II
Last Ninja III
Firepower
Defender of the Crown
Bard’s Tale
The Fairy Tale
Gauntlet
Gauntlet II
Kickboxing
Did anyone besides me learn to program their Commodores in machine language? The C128 had a nice assembly language monitor. I had this program I’d type that puts all 256 characters at the top of the screen. Then I came up with a program I called “mindscan” that ties into the IRQ vector, which scanned all 64K of memory copying it into the top block of the screen. Zero page was always fun with all that stuff going on, but when it got to the screen memory it’d make some neat interference patterns.
cityboy916, I was waiting until somebody else admitted to it first, but yes, I learned 6502 assembler on the C64. It was my first computer (around 82, I think), and while trying to find my first “real” post-college job I had a lot of time on my hands. After learning BASIC, and typing in every Compute! program I could get my hands on, I taught myself 6502 assembler and wrote a neat little version of Life, no copy of which survives.
I also wrote a D&D character generator, but D&D and ML in the same post is just too geeky.
Guess I’m the only one… It was my first, I think, but I may have gotten a TRS-80 CoCo first. The Adam I had was the “add-on” version to the Colecovision - you plugged it into a port on the side, and it added 64 K to the 16 K of the Colecovision, to make a beefy 80K computer! All I remember is gaming, nothing productive. Specifically, I remember a godawful Buck Rodgers game on a tape drive that came with the system.
I also had a C64, a bit later. I remember typing in a game from RUN magazine or somesuch, and being rewarded with a fun game that involved moving your spaceship through an ever-shrinking passageway.
I loved Jumpman Jr., the Beach Head games, Street Sports Baseball… there was some fun stuff!
) but also used TRS-80, Color TRS, Sinclair, and can’t remember what else. Still have my C128, tape drive, printer, a couple of 1571 disk drives, a 1351 mouse, and a Currah Speech64 cartridge. Hmm… guess I’m more of a Commodore nerd than I thought.
I miss that machine.