tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-549558516941774469.post923436751353141975..comments2023-11-07T07:53:54.270-08:00Comments on Growing Up Gamers: The 4th GenerationAngiehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14526884317434688632noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-549558516941774469.post-41780288164882163352012-03-31T21:57:20.548-07:002012-03-31T21:57:20.548-07:00Let's get in the way WAY back machine, pick up...Let's get in the way WAY back machine, pick up a joystick and toggle on the old Atari VCS (2600).<br /><br />(atari from weiqi, baduk, igo, or go... greatest game of all time EVER! Deep Blue won't touch it. Hail Bushnell!)<br /><br />Remember Adventure?<br />Well, we weren't quite to x86 stuff yet so for a kid who liked D&D this was simply the bee's knees of video experience.<br />How do you know you've been playing Adventure too much?<br />If you accidently find the magic dot and then find out what it does you've been playing too much Adventure.<br />So we roll forward a few years and Atari comes out with this new "console" that even had this membrane "typewriter" right on top.<br />There were even a couple of magazines out that had pages of code you could type out (on a membrane keyboard mind you) and then save to cassette tape.<br />The counter on Dad's G.E. was MUCH better than the one on Atari's version so the G.E. took the place of Atari's "storage device".<br /><br />(My first 'hack')<br /><br />It was still a year or so before they came out with an actual disk drive.<br />It was a 5.25" floppy.<br />Took almost another year to afford a 2nd drive to save all the swapping but by then I could buy some software so the savings weren't adding up as quickly.<br />The next brush with adventure was the first floppy I ever got.<br />Scott Adams Adventureland.<br />Picture a kid way WAY past bedtime the day after x-mass.<br />He's gotten all the other treasures, all he needs to do is get past the bear that's sleeping on this ledge.<br />He's tried , he's tried he's tried , he's tried EVERYTHING and nothing works.<br />Finally, out of shear frustration he types .<br />"The bear leaps up in surprise and tumbles off the ledge", or something like that.<br /><br />I later learned that the parser only read the first 4 letters and the more appropo works too.<br />Either would be surprising to a sleeping bear is my guess.<br /><br />It'd be a couple of more years until the magical summer of '81.<br />Things got graphical again both solo (Ultima I) and multiplayer with Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves which was a greatly expanded version of the Atari Adventure with shopkeepers and a dozen or so different "characters" to choose from.<br />That one got the parental units involved and now my heads spinning from all the circles...<br /><br /><br /><br />Anyway, we had it rough.<br />Walk to school.<br />Up hill.<br />Both ways.<br />And when we got home our father would cut us into little pieces with a butchers knife and sing alleluya on our grave.<br />We had it rough I tells ya.Maou Tsaouhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13213275913173395839noreply@blogger.com