I just finished watching on Netflix, Video Games, The Movie. I was a bit put off that they focused mostly on consoles and not computers, but it did get me in a state of nostalgia. Thus, this post on my personal journey through personal computers, consoles, and games in general.
My first game was Pong, bought from the local Radio Shack in 1978. i was only 5 at the time, but I do remember being enthralled with the game. It resided on a black 13" CRT TV, and consisted of a box with 2 paddles. That was my first taste of electronic gaming.
That Pong machine caused my Dad to buy an Atari 800 in 79/80. This was our first home computer. I had limited games for it as it wasn't all that well supported at the time, but I do remember playing plenty of arcade classics. This of course meant I was never at the Arcades like many of my friends. This suited me well as I would rather play at the home whenever I felt like it...and it was a whole lot cheaper.
http://www.pcmuseum.ca/details.asp?id=35The next computer that my Father bought was a Timex Sinclair 1000. I think it was the super cheap price that got him into buying one at first. He even taught himself the simple computer language of Sinclair Basic and designed a few utilities for himself and a game or two. I remember the day my father bought the 16k upgrade module, which caused the computer to crash every-time the weighty memory module would pull away from the back of the machine. A quick fix was found in the creation of a metal computer tray that would hold the module tight to the computer. Likewise, the only way to store things with the Timex Sinclair 1000 was with tape. You had to wait a long time to upload or download any programs, not to mention, being handy with the tape counter. Despite all of this, the Timex Sinclair 1000 proved to be a more entertaining platform for my father than the older Atari 800. Games were better on the Atari for me however. The Timex was the computer that got me out of any thoughts of computer programming. My Dad would buy bi-monthly computer magazines with free games you could type into the computer. This one game I wanted so badly, was in machine code. All numbers, and they made several mistakes in the printing of it. After spending days over a period of 6 months, with still no game to call for, I threw in the towel, and at a tender young age, vowed to never go into computer programming, despite the fun I saw my father have with the Sinclair Basic language.
http://www.pcmuseum.ca/details.asp?id=66By 1985, the Atari 800 was getting long in the tooth, and it was time to upgrade it. We went for an Atari 130 XE. This computer featured 128K of RAM. Whoohoo! Feel the power baby! Faster and more useful, this was the computer which featured the first word processor that actually worked well enough to be termed useful. The crappy printer let me down on many occasions however. We had a love hate relationship with the thermal printer.
http://www.pcmuseum.ca/details.asp?id=33By this time, Atari was loosing the game race to Commodore. I knew this as whenever I walked into a department store, there would mostly be Commodore games on the shelf. I managed to convince my Atari loving Dad to buy the enemies system, a Commodore 64C. This was bought in around 1987. I found the Commodore system completely different from the Atari system I was used to. There was a steep learning curve, and I never really got into the system much...but the game selection was second to none.
http://www.pcmuseum.ca/details.asp?id=203It wasn't long before we both viewed the Commodore 64C as a downgrade from the Atari 130 XE, and thus, we got a Commodore 128. Back to having the same memory as the 130 XE, thing were moving along nicely. I really loved this computer. It actually had a better printer and word processor than the Atari system. Welcome to the wold of dot matrix printing!
http://www.pcmuseum.ca/details.asp?id=207The Commodore 128 was my main computer through the rest of the 80s and a few years into the 90s. By 1993 however, it was time to upgrade. I was lusting after the Amiga systems. By this time, the Atari computer system had all but died as a business. I was late jumping into the Amiga lineup, but oh what a computer, and the wait was well worth it. I started off with an Amiga 500. This was around the time I started upgrading computers to make them faster. It wasn't long before I had upgraded a few chips on the main board, added a sidecar with my first SCSI 50 meg HD. This system not only was a fantastic gaming platform, it was highly upgradeable...which a lot of earlier computers weren't. A watershed moment in gaming happened for me in 1993 when I bought Dune II Battle for Arakis. This made me aware of RTS games. I was addicted on the spot.
http://www.pcmuseum.ca/details.asp?id=149It wasn't long after that I bought an Amiga 2000 with a PC 286 on a bridgeboard. This allowed me to play with early DOS. It sucked compared to the Amiga OS.
http://www.pcmuseum.ca/details.asp?id=189In 1994, I found an Amiga CD32 that was heavily discounted at one of the local computer shops. I bought it as I knew it held a powerful Amiga 1200 computer inside. It was also my first foray in CD medium. It was also my console, even though I didn't view it as such. I saw it as a 1200 wearing a weird skin, and having a bizarre interface. Needless to say, finding CDs full of Amiga stuff was a bit harder to find than for the other systems...but I refused to let it go, and had the system until 96.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amiga_CD32By 1996, I could see that Commodore was going the way of Atari. The Amiga days were numbered. I was getting a little tired wasting money on systems that only lasted a few years at the most. Probably because I was immersed into the world of Amiga, I wasn't aware of the PC side of things. That all changed when one day I decided to look at those expensive and clunky PC computers and saw Doom for the first time. By that time, the game had been out for a few years...but wow, that was in 3D. I was sold instantly. Now only to save up some money for a PC system. Of course, I still didn't learn, and I needed a portable system for schooling, so I ended up finding a used Apple Powerbook 100 for dirt cheap. This computer operated OS 7.1 if memory serves me correctly. It sort of reminded me of my Amiga days, so the Powerbook and I got along swimingly, that is until it died an electrical death a year later. Never did figure out why it conked out on me, but it did open my eyes to portable computing. After this, I always had a PC laptop of some type for work along with my desktop.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PowerBook_100In 1997, it was time to get my first PC. By this time, Windows 95 got the front interface to something I could get along with...as I saw they finally got up to Amiga and Apple level of WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get) functionality. After visiting several local computer stores, I decided to get a Pentium 100 as my first computer. At the time, the seller was trying to down-sell me to a 486DX4 of the same clock speed of 100MHz. I refused, and that was the right decision. What followed was a period of learning the modularity of PC computers to the point where I was building my own systems every year or two. This lasted from the late 90s through the 2000s. During that time, I witnessed computing power growing exponentially to the point where the software was no longer dictating the hardware. Now, upgrading can be done less frequently. I won't go into the long list of graphic cards I have went through in these years, other than to say my first graphics card was a Matrox Mystique. We used to call it the Matrox Mistake.
As far as consoles go, I was never big into them, despite all my friends spending hours on the Nintendo system. As I have mentioned my first was an Amiga CD32 which didn't last very long. My next console was a Nintendo Wii that I bought while my father was in the hospital. It was something to get my mind off of things, and I did enjoy the interactivity of the device. However, once my Dad passed on, I couldn't stand to look at it, so I gave it away to a colleague who's son has Muscular Dystrophy. Then I bought an XBox 360 to see what all the fuss was about, and quickly found that the games I wanted to play, I could buy for the PC. I ended up giving this one to another friend. Then I bought PS3, which was a good system. I had that system for well over a year, but then got bored with its limitations. Last year, I bought a WiiU out of curiosity, but found the dual display wasn't put to great effect, and ended up giving that system to another friend's daughter. Quickly followed by an XBox One, but once again. found most games are on the PC. Now I have a PS4, which I am happy with. Go figure.
Sorry for the long ramblings down memory lane, I guess that is what happens when I watch a movie on the history of gaming. I guess for me, computers and gaming have always been a part of my life.
Now just give me my virtual reality.
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