Age yourself with a Video Game

[TotallyOz]

For me, my first was a Commodore Vic 20 and Sargon Chess. I was in high school and I thought the world had become so advanced that technology would create robots to take over the world.

 

[caeron]

 

In high school, we played star trek on the teletype which called the mainframe in Raleigh NC on an acoustic coupler modem. The teacher let us, but didn't like it because the game used a LOT of paper.

Rogue on the Unix minicomputer when I got to college was probably the first real video game. When Hack came around, I thought it was a revolution.

And probably nobody here knows what I'm talking about. That's the cost of being older than dirt in the computer gaming world, I guess.

[PeterRS]

What's a video game?

[Guest]

9 hours ago, PeterRS said:

What's a video game?

Like this.....

[Midguy1]

Horace goes Skiing, played on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum + .

[TotallyOz]

4 hours ago, Midguy1 said:

Horace goes Skiing, played on the Sinclair ZX Spectrum + .

I had to look up both of those. 8 bit

[albanau]

Sinclair ZX Spectrum for me too playing Arcadia

[Guest]

The Space Invaders pic was also from a ZX Spectrum, which was my first computer.   It had 16KB of RAM.  My home PC now has 16GB of RAM.

However, the Spectrum was quite competitive back in the day.  For example, the cassette interface was very reliable and worked at about 1200baud, compared with a pitiful 250 for the Tandy TRS80 at school.   When the school upgraded to an Apple2, with floppy disk, we were very impressed.  I wrote a game to run on that, in BASIC.  

   I remember one friend saying the 48K of memory on the Apple was a gimmick and more than you would ever need.  The same person is now worth ££m from a tech company he co-founded, so judgement did improve !

Not all game software is good.  The photo below shows the chess game on an Airbus A380, on my way to Thailand.  The black pawn has just taken my queen by moving BACKWARDS!   Hopefully the more critical software on the plane is free from such bugs.

 

 

[Gaybutton]

I think my first video game was the first video game - Pong.  I can clearly remember, before there were home versions, long lines of people waiting their turn to play it.  We thought it was the most phenomenal thing ever.  At the time, I suppose it was.

My first computer was the Atari.  When games first started coming out, they had to be loaded with a tape recorder.  It could take as much as an hour waiting for the game to load.  Then, of course, when you turned off the computer, now the game was gone.

I also remember a friend who was really into computer technology.  In those days he was among the first to use a floppy disk.  I remember he was on top of the world when he had his first 20 meg machine.

Today your smartphone has far more computer power than they had when Neil Armstrong went to the moon.

Now I am hoping the next innovation in computer technology won't be smaller, more powerful chips or greater speed.  I'm hoping for computers that simply work - all the time.

[Midguy1]

On 1/19/2022 at 9:03 AM, Gaybutton said:

Now I am hoping the next innovation in computer technology won't be smaller, more powerful chips or greater speed.  I'm hoping for computers that simply work - all the time.

This is so true... Even the latest SurfacePro (or whatever it is) provided my employer at great expense "has its moments" and either locks up or crawls along at snails pace - usually at the most inconvenient moment.   Yep - absolutely don't need more speed and power, just solid reliability, please.

On 1/19/2022 at 9:03 AM, Gaybutton said:

When games first started coming out, they had to be loaded with a tape recorder. 

I still remember the excitement as a child waiting for the game to load from the tape into the Spectrum.  The sounds it made whilst loading, were enchanting, too!

[Guest]

On 1/21/2022 at 2:12 AM, Midguy1 said:

Even the latest SurfacePro (or whatever it is) provided my employer at great expense "has its moments" and either locks up or crawls along at snails pace - usually at the most inconvenient moment.   Yep - absolutely don't need more speed and power, just solid reliability, please.

My home PC is a fairly decent spec and absolutely flies most of the time.  However, just like your device, it still has these irritating moments when it essentially pauses for a few seconds, which cannot be traced to any particular activity via the task manager. 

That's the one problem I'd like them to solve.

However, I still prefer Microsoft to the alternatives.

IOS and Android try to censor what's on their app stores, such as nude photos on dating apps.  This has never been an issue on Microsoft systems.

Whilst Android have capability to increase storage with SD cards, they don't seem to have any option to grant all of my apps permission to access the SD card permanently, such that it NEVER asks for permission ever again. In practice, it's almost continuously asking for permission and they don't make it easy.

Also, iOS and Android exhibit almost criminal behaviour in the way that their "upgrades" both slow devices down and remove functionality.  eg It's now almost impossible to edit Google script from the Google browser on Android, as it ignores the "request desktop" option.

Finally, for very modest sums of money, I can equip a Microsoft PC with all the software I need for a decade or more of use and that software is free from advertising.  My last purchase of a Microsoft OS was on the day they launched Windows 7.   I transferred that to a newer PC and then got a free upgrade to Windows 10.   A one off Office license can also be purchased cheaply and almost everything else I need is free.

The Google play store offers any number of apps, but none seem to do everything and they are plagued by advertising.

I have dabbled with Ubuntu, but suspect that sooner or later I would find limitations.   For a start, Office Libre, or whatever it's now called is inferior to the Microsoft alternative.

[Guest]

Last year, I wandered into the Samsung store on Oxford Street and saw one of the staff using a Samsung tablet with Microsoft Windows.

So I asked "How much is one of those ?"

Reply "We don't sell these as Android is better"

Me "So, if Android is better, why are you using Windows ?"

They run out of answers at that point.

 

I then visited the Microsoft store just along the road.  The Microsoft Surface looked ideal.  Until I discovered that the latest version doesn't have USB-C charging, therefore it's necessary to carry the Microsoft charging brick. Which removes one of the main advantages of a compact device.

A good compact (sub 11") device running Windows is hard to find these days.

[floridarob]

On 1/19/2022 at 4:03 AM, Gaybutton said:

I think my first video game was the first video game - Pong.  I can clearly remember, before there were home versions, long lines of people waiting their turn to play it.  We thought it was the most phenomenal thing ever.  At the time, I suppose it was.

My first computer was the Atari.  When games first started coming out, they had to be loaded with a tape recorder.  It could take as much as an hour waiting for the game to load.  Then, of course, when you turned off the computer, now the game was gone.

I also remember a friend who was really into computer technology.  In those days he was among the first to use a floppy disk.  I remember he was on top of the world when he had his first 20 meg machine.

Today your smartphone has far more computer power than they had when Neil Armstrong went to the moon.

Now I am hoping the next innovation in computer technology won't be smaller, more powerful chips or greater speed.  I'm hoping for computers that simply work - all the time.

Ditto

[oatbank]

SIMS

[thaiophilus]

Yeah, right, "joywallet dot com" sounds entirely legit and I will trust them for money-making advice.

And this 🍆 is a gaming website 🤣