Oldest School

eldergamer

eldergamer

CAGiversary!
Just reflecting on my oldest gaming memory today.
I remember buying Infocom text adventures in Waldenbooks.
I remember needing to get a new monitor that could do 16 colors so I could play King Quest II.
I remember when hint books came with special highlighters to reveal the 'hints'.
I remember my mom telling me I couldn't play "curse of the azure bonds" because it had 'demons' in it.
Feel free to share yours.
 
I remember having a 'Pac-Man patterns' paperback, even though I didn't have the quarters or the transportation (or the skills) to actually practice them.

I remember reading about my first 'Easter Egg', which was the (at the time) near-impossible task of shooting a bottom-row Space Invader in Space Invaders Deluxe last to get a 'rainbow explosion' that was just rows of vertical lines lighting up.

I remember telling my stepbrother at the time how impossible it was and how no one could do it. One quarter later, guess what he did.

I remember 'flipping' Missile Command on the 2600 one night.

I remember playing a Donkey Kong bootleg called Krazy Kong at a local restaurant and actually being halfway decent at it.

I remember blowing up the Death Star for the first time.

That's all for the pre-1984 era for now.
 
Hmm, well let's see here.
I remember playing the sitdown Return of the Jedi arcade game at the local mall and loving it.
I remember all nighters at my bud's house playing kaboom and kangeroo.
Speaking of Kangeroo, I have a very clear memory of playing it for hours at Chuck E Cheese.
I remember the first time I played a NES. It was at my cousin's house in 86. She had Metroid and Zelda. I think I was up till 3 or 4 am playing it.
Um, I remember buying a 360 last month.
 
I remember having a code wheel for Secret Weapons of the Luftwaffe (sp?). The original PC version that came out in the late 80's/early 90's.

I remember getting a Sega Genesis for Christmas the year it came out (89
? 90?) and Altered Beast and swearing it was the greatest game ever. Hours later, when I went to my Dads, and he had Ghouls -n- Ghosts waiting for me and my bros, I was proved wrong.

I remember playing Mars 3 and Jill of the Jungle back when they were the hot shit.
 
I remember programming my Commodore 64 in Basic for hours on end so I could watch a colorful balloon cross the screen, only to have it disappear when I turned the computer off because I didn't have a disk drive, yet.
 
1. Sneaking the Odyssey out of the closet with my little sister and hooking it up to the TV for Pong.

2. Going "double or nothing" with my allowance money in games of River Raid and Zaxxon against my dad.

3. Neighborhood bouts of 4P Warlords.
 
I remember taping the haunted house overlay (and others) onto my aunt's TV to play with the original Odyssey in the early 70's.
I remember batting the pong ball against a virtual wall in 1-player squash when there was no one to play against.
I remember playing Activision 2600 games for hours trying to get enough points to send in for a patch.
I remember typing on membrane keyboards with the Timex/Sinclair ZX81 and Atari 400 computers.
I remember spending hours typing in 4+ pages of hex codes out of a magazine, only to get sick of playing the simple game after about 15 minutes. At least you could save the game onto a cassette tape.
 
eh old school for me was the coleco vision my cousins had and playing those vs games they had like the one with the tanks that shot bullets that bounced fo or the 2 biplane game that played like the tank game and of course my all time fav burgertime.

i grew up gaming a few years before atari and some of the older companies were heading towards ending and before nintendo made its debut. so ive seen almost the complete evolution of console gaming and it still amazes me where games have gotten to.

from playing with that weird coleco comtroller with all the numbers on it and those odd direction numbs to an atari with 1 stick and 1 button , to present day controllers with so many buttons it amazes me how we learn how to work them all without looking at the controller.
 
I remember, as a 2600 owner, the slight buzz of resentment flowing through me whenever I'd see George Plimpton in a commercial pimping Intellivision.

I remember my 'cool' uncle getting an Intellivision and me not being able to tear myself away from it.

I remember the word-of-mouth information network of friends I needed to access to help me beat Raiders of the Lost Ark.

I remember seeing a floor demo model of the Vectrex on top of the electronics counter at a retail store (Gold Circle?) and being simultaneously fascinated and dejected, as I knew I'd never own one.

I remember my dad one day just unexpectedly bringing a Colecovision home for my brother and I.

I remember later that year going batshit insane trying to sell fundraiser chocolate bars to get enough points to earn the Colecovision copy of Mr. Do.

I'm still waiting for that game arcade-perfect on a console, damnit!
 
My first words after the basics like "mom" "dad" "give" were "Pac-Man." No, I'm not even kidding. I'm kind of embarassed of this fact.

I remember my first gaming system--Nintendo Game and Watch Boxing.

I remember watching my friend's character get shot by aliens in Space Quest and then freaking the fuck out about it (I was 5.)
 
I remember hand drawing maps on grid paper for old wizardry games.
I remember hooking up our nes to the vcr so we could record our games. (Why I thought this was cool, I don't know)
I remember friends older brothers having coleco vision and playing zaxxon.
 
lets not forget table top versions of classic arcade games. this was before tiger electronics started doing handheld versions of nintendo classics.table top qgert, pacman and a few other games and they ran on those huge ass batteries that nobody really uses in the age of mp3 players and psps and ds's. those and sony walkmans were all that kept us occupied on long field trips. and if i recall those things sounded and played alot like the arcade games.

now days all the classic games i loved in the arcade you can put on your computer and play anytime you want. its wild stuff but cool for nostalgia.
 
I remember playing black n white original Space Invaders at this lake my family went swimming to in the summer.

I remember playing a black n white Atari racing game. Overhead view like super sprint, only way more primitive and it had wheels to control it. The cars looked like little capital H's.

I had a Coleco Telstar Combat dedicated combat console as my first home console, then I got an Atari 2600 for Christmas.


But the OLDEST memory I have is of this game that I dont think was a true videogame. It was called 'DEVIL RAY' and you shot a harpoon gun at images of a manta ray that were projected on a screen I think. If your fan of the film 'JAWS' theres a scene in it where a kid plays a version of the game that features a Great White shark and not a Manta Ray, but I played the Devil Ray version. Since Jaws came out in 75' this game had to be arounf in 1974 while they were filming. I was born in 72, yet I have vivid memories of playing this game. Its got to be the oldest 'gaming' memory I have.
 
I remember playing Tank in an actual mall arcade where people could actually -- hold your breath for this one -- SMOKE CIGARETTES! And I remember playing hosts of games in these mall arcades until the darkness started to be replaced by orange brightness and games started to cost more than .25.

I remember taking the day off from school and my mother driving me to a small computer shop to buy my first computer: a Commodore Vic-20 w/ tape drive. I remember typing games in and saving them and trying to fix them when they didn't work.

I remember playing Temple of Apshai on my Franklin Ace 1000 (Apple II clone) for hours on end.

I remember the fake electronic game Blip that was a mechanical simulation of a pong-like game.

I remember getting Coleco's Electronic Quarterback for Christmas.

I remember my friend had Intellivision and never being able to beat him and his brothers because I had a 2600.

I remember that same friend then bugged his mother until she bought him a 2600 and then we played Missile Command for 15 hours striaght.

I could go on all day with this!!
 
I remember my first console the Sears console. Playing pong and tennis (like they were'nt the same game).

I remember games on the Times Sinclair

I remember when games came on only one 5.25 disk and still had plenty of room on the disk for saves and homework.

I remember when gaming on a ibm clone. The processor was an 8088 ( not 286, 386 or even 486)

I remember when the first amber monitor came out and I did'nt have to game on that stupid green one anymore.
 
[quote name='Puffa469']I remember playing a black n white Atari racing game. Overhead view like super sprint, only way more primitive and it had wheels to control it. The cars looked like little capital H's.[/quote]

Grand Prix.

Are you sure it was black and white - or just on a black and white tv.

I remember when my dad hooked up my 2600 to the color tv, and suddenly I realized these games could be played in color. I was amazed that I had been living with crummy black and white for so long.

Seriously, all this 1080pipi stuff, kids today have no idea.
 
[quote name='Stoneage']I remember programming my Commodore 64 in Basic for hours on end so I could watch a colorful balloon cross the screen, only to have it disappear when I turned the computer off because I didn't have a disk drive, yet.[/QUOTE]

Same for me, but it was the TRS-80 Color Computer. I think I had a tape drive though, so I could save things, at least after a certain point. And I remember the big day when we got a 5.25" floppy drive. I thought my storage problems were solved forever!

But I think my first video game memory was playing pong at a ski resort in the Sierra Nevada somewhere - must have been in the mid-70's some time. And of course I wasted many a quarter down at Silverball in Berkeley playing all the arcade games in the late 70's (remember playing to the sounds of such top 40 hits Another One Bites The Dust and My Sharona).

I also spent many Saturday afternoons playing Zork and Star Trek on the Vax and/or PDP-11 at my father's work (he'd go in to take care of things and I'd get myself set up at one of the green monitors and play these text-based games for hours). But that was really "computer" gaming and not video gaming.

[quote name='jollydwarf']
I remember, as a 2600 owner, the slight buzz of resentment flowing through me whenever I'd see George Plimpton in a commercial pimping Intellivision.
[/quote]

Damn, I remember that now! The Intellivision was always a pipe-dream for me. I used to get the full color catalogs and just look over the games for hours and wish I had one. In a way, it was like the Xbox was to the GC last gen (except of course I could have bought myself an Xbox at any time unlike with the Intellivision). I never actually played the Intellivision, and it is probably a good thing - the games probably would have disappointed me compared to the way I imagined they would be ;).

How about that adapter for the Atari that let games load from a tape drive (the same one I used on my TRS-80)? It came with some shmup game and the graphics were amazing compared to other Atari games.

Eventually I moved on to the "next generation" and got a Colecovision to replace my Atari (and does anyone remember the 2600 game adapter they sold for the Colecovision? I got that and sold my Atari to some kid for $50 or so - damn. guess I was a CAG even back then ;)). But I remember being blown away by the advances in graphics and gameplay from the Atari to the Colecovision (Lady Bug, anyone?). :rofl:

Then basically I didn't play another console until the Gamecube, so the memories stop there. But I do remember playing Might & Magic on my original Mac in the late 80's.

[quote name='jollydwarf']
I remember later that year going batshit insane trying to sell fundraiser chocolate bars to get enough points to earn the Colecovision copy of Mr. Do.
[/quote]

Now, this, I have no memory of. Chocolate bars? WTF?

I completely missed the console crash. I just stopped playing my Colecovision around the time I started high school. Also, the Mac came out around then so I just moved over to the computer (well, I had always messed around on computers, but this one put the game systems to shame). I was completely unaware of the "crash". I just thought my lack of interest in games was me growing up. But now look at me :lol:.
 
I remember getting stuck on a King's Quest game where I had to use the manual to translate symbols.

I then remember realizing that I had lost the manual, and walkthroughs online couldn't put images of the symbols up because they were copywritten.
 
Now, this, I have no memory of. Chocolate bars? WTF?

It was a grade-school fundraiser where we gots 'points' based on the numbers of chocolate bars sold, and we could redeem those points in a prize catalog. I was too young to have a job, and the holidays and my birthday were likely too far away for me to have any hope of getting the game any other way. Of course, I got the game, thanks in large part to my dad helping out, only to find it lackluster and realize the irony of how utterly worthless the diamonds were when you could play the game for free.
 
[quote name='camoor']Grand Prix.

Are you sure it was black and white - or just on a black and white tv.

I remember when my dad hooked up my 2600 to the color tv, and suddenly I realized these games could be played in color. I was amazed that I had been living with crummy black and white for so long.

Seriously, all this 1080pipi stuff, kids today have no idea.[/quote]


This was in the arcade, the cab has a black n white moniter in it. When I finally got a 2600, we had a color tv. But I did break the knob on it by quickly spinning it to channel 3 all the time without stopping on every single channel.



I also remember selling the chocolate bars for school. They had a McDonalds coupon inside the wrapper. And I added on .25c to the price that went right into my pocket. ;) And kids still sell candy & chocolate for school fundraisers in my area to this day. Im always getting accosted by kids with big boxes of M&M's raising money for Basketball camp or whatever.
 
I remember begging my dad to let me play the pong game that we had.
I remember going to a friend's house and seeing the Atari for the first time.
I remember going home and throwing a fit until we got one that night.
I remember the Christmas that I got the ET videogame.
I remember playing Intellivision baseball against myself, my left hand would bat and I would field with my right. I always let the blue team win since they were the Cubs.
I remember when I got a Sega Master System instead of an NES for Christmas. I also remember all of the fun I had with that machine even though I really wanted an NES.

Man, I hope that my kids get half of the enjoyment out of this hobby as I have.
 
I remember playing Yar's Revenge on my new Atari 2600 that I just got for Xmas. When we went over to my grandparents for dinner Xmas day, I begged my parents to let me bring the Atari with me and they relented. I also remember my Dad flipping Yar's Revenge, which is the only videogame he has played to this day.

I remember playing Super Mario Bros. on my NES for the first time and being amazed that I was able to play it at home! This was a game that I had dropped insane amounts of money in at the "Corner Store," and I could play it at home!

I remember seeing Dragon's Lair for the first time at the local supermarket and being blown away.

I remember playing Street Fighter 1 at the local pizza place and hating it. I remember playing Street Fighter 2 at the same pizza place and loving every minute of it.

I remember dumping over $5 into Raiden with my friend so we could finally beat that damn game.

I remember getting to the final boss in NARC and not being able to beat that tough bastard.

I remember the first time I beat Double Dragon on one quarter, using only the elbow move the entire game (easiest way to beat it, I swear).

Man, I could go on and on....

Great thread.
 
Oh I've got really great memories of my parents dropping me off for an hour or two at the arcade. (No way I'd do that to my kids now, but...)
Getting $5 worth of tokens. I finished NARC, double dragon, lots of stuff.
 
Pole position and star wars in the arcade

Karateka, mario bros., and food fight on my 7800

Chivalry on apple IIe

and programming random dragon/fantasy games on the commodore
 
Well, I remember opening up that brand new Odyssey WITH the Rifle pack on Christmas day, 1972. Man changing out those friggin' overlays ALWAYS let to multiple static shocks.

I then remember all night battles with the Mattel series of handheld games: football, basketball, baseball & auto racing. I thought my thumbs would never stop hurting. It was not too long after those came out (around '77 I think) that I remember driving to 10 or 12 different stores with my then girlfriend and her step-dad on Christmas eve eve, looking for a Merlin handheld for her (she HAD to have one because I'd gotten one as an early gift). We finally found one at Service Merchandise on the East side of Indy. Her step-dad was so exhausted with her (and, truthfully, probably me) by the time we found one he stopped at White Castle and bought 2 burgers and then at Post Road Liquors for a 6 of Schlitz tallboys to wash them down with for the ride home. We only lived 50 miles from Indy. I held on with both hands the whole ride home!

I also cannot measure the number of hours we played intellivision sports games at my house. I'd literally have 2 systems hooked up with 7 or 9 other guys around, and we'd play tournament after tournament, sometimes playing from Friday afternoon until Sunday night without sleep. It was amazing!

My favorite two memories are probably from college: One would be finally clearing, with regularity, the old Turkey Shoot console game which was in the basement commons of the building I lived in at Ball State U. It took probably 50 bucks worth of quarters to finally slay that b!tch, but then once I had, it was mine!!!

My other favorite memory, sort of game related, is probably banging the girlfriend of a guy I despised in the sit down pole position console in that same commons area one morning at about 3:30, after we were both so drunk I'm not sure why we weren't passed out. That, in turn, led to a series of risky interludes she and I had, because she apparently liked that added thrill of potentially getting caught. I have to admit, I found it pretty exhilarating as well. Ahhh, those were the days...
 
You guys are seriously old school. I remember using some old Apple IIs in grade school to play with a program that allowed us to draw patterns and colors. The cursor was called a "turtle." But console wise, I remember being in kindergarden and my friend just got the Atari 2600. We played Combat till his mom kicked me out. We also found it histerical the sound and motions of the tanks or planes, after you get shot. Ah the memories!

PS- I'll be 29 in Oct
 
[quote name='vasco']You guys are seriously old school. I remember using some old Apple IIs in grade school to play with a program that allowed us to draw patterns and colors. The cursor was called a "turtle." But console wise, I remember being in kindergarden and my friend just got the Atari 2600. We played Combat till his mom kicked me out. We also found it histerical the sound and motions of the tanks or planes, after you get shot. Ah the memories!

PS- I'll be 29 in Oct[/quote]

That program was called 'LOGO' ;)
 
[quote name='Puffa469']

But the OLDEST memory I have is of this game that I dont think was a true videogame. It was called 'DEVIL RAY' and you shot a harpoon gun at images of a manta ray that were projected on a screen I think. If your fan of the film 'JAWS' theres a scene in it where a kid plays a version of the game that features a Great White shark and not a Manta Ray, but I played the Devil Ray version. Since Jaws came out in 75' this game had to be arounf in 1974 while they were filming. I was born in 72, yet I have vivid memories of playing this game. Its got to be the oldest 'gaming' memory I have.[/QUOTE]

Whoa. That brought back a memory.

http://www.marvin3m.com/arcade/sseadev.htm
 
[quote name='cruster']Whoa. That brought back a memory.

http://www.marvin3m.com/arcade/sseadev.htm[/quote]

OMG! THANK YOU!

Its 'Sea Devil' and not Devil Ray then... explains why I couldnt find anything about this game when I looked after writing that post.

And its made by SEGA! :D

I used to play this game like a mental patient at the Jersey Shore boardwalks

hahaha awesome! I was rocking the Sega arcade games in the mid 70's when I was a toddler!

Cruster you made my day. :bouncy:
 
I think Tecumseh wins the hardcore old-school gaming prize. No contest. My meager PDP-11/pong/Space Invaders/Atari/Colecovision playing pales in comparison ;).

I didn't even know this Odyssey thing existed until recently. And TWO Intellivisions? I was the popular kid in my apartment building because I had THE Atari - gotta remember, back then these were extreme luxury items and most kids didn't have them (though of course they wanted them). Or maybe that is just my memory of it because we were so much poorer back then :lol:.

But really, if you consider inflation since then, console gaming was much more expensive in the 70's/80's. What did Atari's retail for when they first came out? What about the games? I seem to remember them costing quite a bit, but I don't remember the specifics.
 
[quote name='Puffa469']That program was called 'LOGO' ;)[/quote]

YEAH!!!! That's what it was called. Holy shit dude. How can you remember something like that?
 
[quote name='vasco']YEAH!!!! That's what it was called. Holy shit dude. How can you remember something like that?[/quote]

I used LOGO on the Apple IIe/c in grade school. It was my first experience using a computer, so I'll never forget it. :D
 
[quote name='Puffa469']I used LOGO on the Apple IIe/c in grade school. It was my first experience using a computer, so I'll never forget it. :D[/quote]

Me too, we had LOGO in our classroom in first grade. It was awesome putting in multiple commands to make that little turtle draw some crazy ass designs.

Wasn't it like:

forward 90
right 90
forward 90

shit like that?
 
Yup! :D

I used to sketch out more complex designs on graph paper, then on a sheet of looseleaf, I'd convert the sketch into LOGO commands, and then type them into the computer.

Another reason why I remember those Apple computers soo well was cos back in October of 1985, the Principal of my Grade school took me and a few other kids to Macy's in NYC to pick up some Apple IIc machines to replace the schools aging IIe's. When we got there Macy's had this funky new product on display. It was called the 'Nintendo Entertainment System'. While my Principal wheeled and dealed with the Apple salesperson, me and the other kids got to spend a couple hours playing the NES. This was the North American debut of the system, before the nationwide rollout, so I was one of the first kids in the United States to play Nintedo. I thought games would never get any better than Duck Hunt and Hogans Alley. lol




[quote name='lebowsky']Me too, we had LOGO in our classroom in first grade. It was awesome putting in multiple commands to make that little turtle draw some crazy ass designs.

Wasn't it like:

forward 90
right 90
forward 90

shit like that?[/quote]
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
bread's done
Back
Top