69 replies to this topic

[Gazeyre1966]

Ahhh....Can't beat a bit of reminiscing.

Hot on the heels of Stevedude's thread comes this one. What do you remember about your first computer / Games Console?

Going back way before the Vic20...I had an Intellivision Pong game which was out of this world at the time. I remember thrashing my 10 year old sister 21-2. After that came the Atari games console.....about 1980. I remember at Christmas getting this and thinking I was the greatest person on the planet. Cartridges cost £50 and I remember getting Space Invaders which while not bad for it's time was nothing like the Taito Arcade version. The biggest disappointment was getting Pac-Man.....the dots looked like chips....the sound was crap and the ghosts were....Ummm...not ghosts...but pathetic graphics that went invisible when you ate a power pill. The scoring system that Atari had was pants....1 point for every dot and 10 points for a ghost. My hi-score after 10 boards was about 400...lol. Most people reading this will think I'm nuts...but we know the truth....

Any memories / stories of your first computer / games experiences should be posted here.

[Big_G123]

Bugger just gone and put in other thread oh well

[Big_G123]

thats the one great game (well i though so) cannot remember many other games i had for that computer though!! though i do remember a platform game called Flimbo's Quest with the C-64 (i think!) i remember it came on a cartridge with 3 other games great little platform game though

[Nudgeman]

Aha Gazeyre, the old Vic 20. So many games. Blitz was a classic. No clone of blitz even comes close to the Vic 20 blitz. You had ot be spot on with that space bar as the ;levels progressed and there were set patterns as well. It'd probbaly seem really lame by today's standards but as a kid I was fascinated by it.
I had an Atari 800XL - programmable as well as a cartridge slot for classics such as QIX. It used to take much longer to load than a Spectrum, but then some of the games were belters. Spellbound - never did solve that one. Took about half an hour to load on tape. Feud - a classic, there was a way to kill Leonoric in about three minutes flat with the zombie spell - does anyone know what I'm going on about? Probably someone DOES on this forum. You never know.
Heike's Herb Garden. Toadflax.

[DaemonX]

As in other thread, DONT FORGET AMSTRAD...

and as for you 'coders' who got programs published PAH!

I spent ages coding a 1800 line game into my speccy for it to say error line 185:2:4

[Gazeyre1966]

lol...Nudgeman....I had Blitz......Do you remember the noise it made when you dropped bombs on the buildings....Kind of like du du du du du du. To think I sold my Vic20 for a £10.

[FRUITJUNKIE1971]

My first computer was a Sinclair Spectrum 48K, which I got for Xmas 1985.
I used to love playing Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy on it....

That Manic Miner is a tough game... best I ever did was get to level 17 (The Warehouse) which ain't bad for me as
(i) The game only has 20 levels, and
(ii) I am crap at every game I play!

still play it today on the excellent Spectaculator emulator on the PC, can't get as far as I used to, maybe I'm getting old!

[Gazeyre1966]

As in other thread, DONT FORGET AMSTRAD

No worries mate....After my Vic20 I did have an Amstrad 464....but this thread is for your FIRST reminisces....and stuff that we can all have a laugh at. It's not a serious thread. I had Daley Thompson's Decathlon on the 464 and must have broke about 3 joysticks.

[FRUITJUNKIE1971]

I had an Atari 800XL - It used to take much longer to load than a Spectrum

LOL! Tell me about it! Took 20mins to load a game and then the bast decided to crash! What a waste of leccy!

[DaemonX]

I know gaz, but while I was playing with my first speccy (the ZX 80) it broke so we tried GLUEING the mother board back together lol

My mates first computer was the amstrad 464... ahhh... I remember my first football manager game... so much easier to win in those days.

[kensplace2]

Most loved games,

Deathchase, Splat, Thunderbirds, Manic Miner, way to many to remember, I could go on and on.....

I used to drool over atari activision carts in my maplins catalogs, still got them somewhere *the catalogues, not the carts, never had a atari until many years later...., then I got the 81, remember artics text adventures, monster maze (weirdly I saw a ad on ebay recently from the AUTHOR of the game after a copy of it, as he has not got one!) and many others.

Too much beer to post properly, so will come back later, specially as my other half who is into doll stuff (not the blow up type, thats more my scene if it wasnt for those darn punctures!!!!) just told me a seller got 2300 quid for a second hand modern doll on ebay (not even especially collectable worth at max 200 or 300 to a specialist collector) item no 5601987613

[kensplace2]

got any pics of the wonderswan, never heard of that one, got me curious!

[kensplace2]

Good source for bikes too, got mine from there, done over 8000 miles on it at least, good value for 170 quid! shame the buggers refused to refund me for a faulty video for a couple of quid - spoilt the whole image of the shop for me.

[ploggy]

thats the one great game (well i though so) cannot remember many other games i had for that computer though!! though i do remember a platform game called Flimbo's Quest with the C-64 (i think!) i remember it came on a cartridge with 3 other games great little platform game though

Yeah. I remember that game well.

You had to collect scrolls and stuff. The graphics on that game was mind blowing at the time.

The other games on the cartridge if I remember were International Soccer, Klax, and Freddy's Big Top 'O' Fun...I think.

[ploggy]

Here's a great site with loads of individual emulators for all the classic handheld games like Donkey Kong, Tron and Puckman.

The link is: http://madrigal.retr...com/dnload.html

[cypresshillclan]

Ahhhhh i remember a game that might not be retro yet and will probably be forgotten but i just have to say it Hogs Of War on the ps1 with Rick Mayall doing the voices hilarious anybody remeber it? Also this is defintitely retros dizzy, vindicators, hungry horace,gun slinger, ik, rastan, operation wolf, commando, beach head, sinbad, double dragon oh the list could go on and on and on lol

[Jimmy_mac]

oooh the memories, had most computers in my time but have to say my two favs are......

kickstart 2 on the commodore 64 (you could build your own tracks you know )

and....

my first pc, an 80286, 640k mem, 60mb hdd

played dune 2 for about three years and never got bored

[DaemonX]

I think it amazes me how many people had the same start...

I know there was always a choice (48K speccy or C16? amiga or atari? pc or mac? nes or master system?)

Strange how people made the same choices.

for example... Madman quoted...

zx80........ in 1979ish. 16k memory.and that was with an expansion...
games were dots. binmen from outer space was the first ever game i played. (AND had to program in)
(I had zx81)
moved then to
zx48k.......watching a live footy game (matchstick men.and outrun(all 8 colours were amazing)
(rubber keyboard 48k and 48k+ live footy was great, used to hack football manager)

ended up with spectrum=3.
(went as far as speccy +2)
moved to the amiga a500.. still amazing graphics and games even by todays standards. VROOM/outrun again..shadow of the beast...and the other 100 odd pirate games from bulletin boards......and then the pc.........
(had a500 with 1/2 Mb upgrade, shadow of the beast was fantastic!)

How many more people went this way?

As for consoles I went, nes/snes/gameboy/snes Magicom(with 200 games on floppys)/master system(for alex kid)/megadrive/NEVER TOUCHED THE JAGUAR!!!/playstation /playstation 2