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My first controller was a paddle [Old School Gaming]

Drake ChambersDrake Chambers Lay out my formal shorts.Registered User regular
If your earliest gaming memories involve use of literally floppy disks, this thread is for you.

We got an Apple II+ when I was in 2nd grade. If there was a single constant influence throughout my childhood, it was computer games.

I wanted to show my seven-year-old what that kind of gaming looked like so I showed him one of the Apple II emulator sites. He was not impressed.

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Posts

  • BucketmanBucketman Call me SkraggRegistered User regular
    Ask me about LOOM

  • OmnipotentBagelOmnipotentBagel floof Registered User regular
    the only console I owned as a kid was an Odyssey²

    it was good stuff, I played a lot of Pickaxe Pete

    cdci44qazyo3.gif

  • Drake ChambersDrake Chambers Lay out my formal shorts. Registered User regular
    I had a friend who had an Odyssey but I only made it to his house once and then we didn't get to play it.

    It pained me.

  • I ZimbraI Zimbra Worst song, played on ugliest guitar Registered User regular
    My first non-educational PC gaming memory is playing Dungeon Master on my friend's Apple IIgs and thinking it was amazing.

    Our first PC was a 486DX2 with 4 megs of RAM. The first game I got was Star Trek:25th Anniversary which our computer was juuust powerful enough to play, but not with sound.

  • MorivethMoriveth BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWNRegistered User regular
    I had a weird background with oldschool gaming, as when I first got into it it was in the transition from floppy disks to CD-ROMs

    but then in 8th grade I heard that the computer class was going to give away some old computers, so I went and got me an old-ass computer, a 486

    so I kinda got to experience the oldschool gaming stuff but super sped up because my dad quickly gave me some upgrades to my computer

    Anyway, remember Commander Keen? That game was good as hell.

  • TofystedethTofystedeth Registered User regular
    I was just thinking the other day about how games used to ask you what video adapters and sound cards you had.
    I had games that refused to run because the DOS pc I had growing up only had the pc beep speaker.

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  • MorivethMoriveth BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWNRegistered User regular
    I was just thinking the other day about how games used to ask you what video adapters and sound cards you had.
    I had games that refused to run because the DOS pc I had growing up only had the pc beep speaker.

    I used to play Commander Keen 5 with PC Speaker specifically. My logic was since it took place in space, the beeps and boops were more appropriate.

  • OmnipotentBagelOmnipotentBagel floof Registered User regular
    My grandma (well, my uncles, really) had an Intellivision I'd play a bunch too. The inlays for the pad on the controller were neat but it was was real awkward to hold, and the disc you used for directional input was dogshit. But it was either that, one of three different fox affiliates they got on their big trailer-mounted satellite dishes, or a 2-minute loop of an advertisement for a porn channel

    cdci44qazyo3.gif

  • PinfeldorfPinfeldorf Yeah ZestRegistered User regular
    Cd..
    Cd..
    Hello thread.

  • Drake ChambersDrake Chambers Lay out my formal shorts. Registered User regular
    Moriveth wrote: »
    I had a weird background with oldschool gaming, as when I first got into it it was in the transition from floppy disks to CD-ROMs

    but then in 8th grade I heard that the computer class was going to give away some old computers, so I went and got me an old-ass computer, a 486

    so I kinda got to experience the oldschool gaming stuff but super sped up because my dad quickly gave me some upgrades to my computer

    Anyway, remember Commander Keen? That game was good as hell.

    Our first non-Apple PC was a Leading Edge 8088, 4.77 Mhz processor with Hercules monochrome graphics. The challenge I had for the longest time was that games I wanted required a color graphics adapter (CGA, EGA, or VGA) and all I had was shades of glowing brown.

    I eventually found an emulator that tricked color games into thinking you had color, but it was hit-or-miss.

    The next big obstacle was when I couldn't play Battle Chess because I didn't have a mouse. I can't count all the time I spent desperately futzing with key combinations to try and make the game playable.
    I was just thinking the other day about how games used to ask you what video adapters and sound cards you had.
    I had games that refused to run because the DOS pc I had growing up only had the pc beep speaker.

    My first memory of the auditory revolution that was the Sound Blaster was in playing Prince of Persia. There was this vertical slamming blade jaws trap that my friends and I called "meep machines" because, prior to the Sound Blaster, the sound they made was best explained as a "meep". The metal slamming sound they made after the upgrade really felt like it changed everything.

  • MorivethMoriveth BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWNRegistered User regular
    This is a longshot but does anyone remember Xtree

    It was a file management software for DOS that I used, and it was actually super dope. I remember being legitimately irritated when we switched to Windows and Windows File Explorer wasn't nearly as good.

  • see317see317 Registered User regular
    I still look remember that stack of floppy disks it took to install TIE fighter back in the day.
    No CDs, no downloadable installers, just a stack of disks one after the other.

    Also, the copy protection back in the day. "Oh, you lost the manual? Well, forget playing this game chump, your parents aren't going to sign up for AOL for another 4 years."

  • BobbleBobble Registered User regular
    My first computer game was some version of Tony La Russa Baseball that I HAD TO HAVE after I saw it at my cousin's house. I remember it had at least 6 disks to hold all of the data for install.

  • ShortyShorty touching the meat Intergalactic Cool CourtRegistered User regular
    I spent a lot of time on my dad's 386

    tank wars 2.0 was my favorite but I also played a lot of Wolfenstein, Doom 2, and Descent

    also this really cool space game called Nomad

    it's abandonware now but it was very much in the Elite style, where you're just in space and trying to get by as a trader or mercenary or what have you (though there was a main quest about a race of robots that wanted to exterminate all organic life, which I never got very far in because I wasn't smart enough to play this game well)

    the Wikipedia page for it is kinda funny

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nomad_(video_game)

    it's written in that really effusive style you don't often see anymore, where the person obviously loves the subject and they're trying so hard to hide it, and failing


    oh and I once saw my cousins playing Quest for Glory 3, creating a lifelong obsession

    years later I tried to get those games running on a win95 machine and it was a goddamn nightmare

  • LasbrookLasbrook It takes a lot to make a stew When it comes to me and youRegistered User regular
    I still have my TIE Fighter floppies and manual, at some point I guess I lost the Stele Chronicles though and it bums me out.

  • ShortyShorty touching the meat Intergalactic Cool CourtRegistered User regular
    y'all, remember when sound blasters were good and didn't just make your system unstable, and got supported for more than a few months

  • OmnipotentBagelOmnipotentBagel floof Registered User regular
    Moriveth wrote: »
    This is a longshot but does anyone remember Xtree

    It was a file management software for DOS that I used, and it was actually super dope. I remember being legitimately irritated when we switched to Windows and Windows File Explorer wasn't nearly as good.

    I hadn't thought of it in years but I absolutely remember that

    cdci44qazyo3.gif

  • Drake ChambersDrake Chambers Lay out my formal shorts. Registered User regular
    Starflight was the first game I remember that had multiple disks and had to be installed on a hard drive. It was huge! 270 solar systems! 800 planets!

  • MorivethMoriveth BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWNRegistered User regular
    Moriveth wrote: »
    This is a longshot but does anyone remember Xtree

    It was a file management software for DOS that I used, and it was actually super dope. I remember being legitimately irritated when we switched to Windows and Windows File Explorer wasn't nearly as good.

    I hadn't thought of it in years but I absolutely remember that

    It was rad as hell, and I still feel weird waves of nostalgia thinking of it.

  • ShortyShorty touching the meat Intergalactic Cool CourtRegistered User regular
    Moriveth wrote: »
    This is a longshot but does anyone remember Xtree

    It was a file management software for DOS that I used, and it was actually super dope. I remember being legitimately irritated when we switched to Windows and Windows File Explorer wasn't nearly as good.

    yeah we had that on our 386, or something very similar

    our next computer had windows 3.1 and I think whoever built that machine decided it wasn't necessary

    pops was not happy

    he also hated Microsoft Word, because Word Perfect was so much better

  • MorivethMoriveth BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWNRegistered User regular
    Who else played Spiderweb Software games back in the day? Exile, Geneforge, etc. Novel little indie CRPGs before indie games were really a thing. I always enjoyed the weird underground-prison setting of the games. They've been remade twice now, but I'll always have fond memories of Exile 3: Escape From The Pit - especially as that was one my dad actually registered and bought me a copy of, and he spoke to the guy who wrote/programmed the games. It makes perfect sense now, since they've always been a tiny company, but it blew my mind back in the day.

  • GundiGundi Serious Bismuth Registered User regular
    My only real old school video game memories growing up was playing Ms. Pacman, Donkey Kong, and Galaga cabinets while waiting at a laundromat with my mom when I was like... four or five. (my mom was always way better than me)

    Also had an old NES and SNES growing up.

  • ShortyShorty touching the meat Intergalactic Cool CourtRegistered User regular
    I tried, a lot, to enjoy them

    I think the one I got the farthest into was Geneforge but I generally found them to be pretty boring

  • MorivethMoriveth BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWNRegistered User regular
    Shorty wrote: »
    I tried, a lot, to enjoy them

    I think the one I got the farthest into was Geneforge but I generally found them to be pretty boring

    Exile 1 and 2 I found really difficult, but ended up making it most of the way through Exile 3 before stalling out in the very last area.

    I also always admired those games for including a character editor so you could just cheat your way through if you wanted to.

  • Drake ChambersDrake Chambers Lay out my formal shorts. Registered User regular
    Gundi wrote: »
    My only real old school video game memories growing up was playing Ms. Pacman, Donkey Kong, and Galaga cabinets while waiting at a laundromat with my mom when I was like... four or five. (my mom was always way better than me)

    Also had an old NES and SNES growing up.

    I was probably six years old when I became obsessed with the ad for the tabletop version of Galaxian in the Sears Christmas catalog. The listing called it "Midway Galaxian" and I had crafted this elaborate fantasy in which this was somehow an augmented version of the Galaxian arcade cabinet, with a special 3D level called the "midway".

    I asked for it for Christmas but didn't receive it. Probably for the best.

  • BahamutZEROBahamutZERO Registered User regular
    I think my first video games were tetris, pipe dream, and some sort of weird abstract adventure game or coloring book game on a macintosh plus or classic II or something with that form factor.

    BahamutZERO.gif
  • Raijin QuickfootRaijin Quickfoot I'm your Huckleberry YOU'RE NO DAISYRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    I had a really weird console when I was a kid that had like 4 games on it and I still don't know what it was called.

    Just spent 20 minutes resesrching

    We had an Aquarius!

    I remember playing Snafu, Utopia, and Night Stalker!

  • BahamutZEROBahamutZERO Registered User regular
    Shorty wrote: »
    y'all, remember when sound blasters were good and didn't just make your system unstable, and got supported for more than a few months

    I remember sound cards being huge pains in the ass 90s and then mostly rendered obsolete by motherboards with built in sound processors starting in the 00s, does that count

    BahamutZERO.gif
  • jgeisjgeis Registered User regular
    My oldest retro gaming experience is honestly the SNES that my parents got when I was like 5? That would have been like 3 years into the SNES life-cycle? That seems about right. Well technically it was some hand-me-down handheld electronic football games from the '80s that my dad still had around. Neither of my parents were into computers or gaming so there wasn't any legacy hardware hanging around the attic or basement beyond those simple football games.

    Our first PC was a Gateway 2000 with a Pentium II so I was well into the CD era by then, but definitely got familiar with floppies for hardware drivers and stuff. Earliest PC gaming memories are of The Logical Journey of the Zoombinis and the games from Humongous Entertainment (Pajama Sam, Spy Fox). The first game I remember really digging into was Mechwarrior 2, which set off a lifelong love of the Battletech franchise and mecha in general. Homeworld was definitely the defining game for me on PC though, basically cemented the kind of experiences I want out of video games on a computer. DKC2 was the same but for console games.

    Pretty sure my grade school had 486 systems, I remember the turbo button clearly. Didn't get to do much gaming on those beyond Oregon Trail and Math Blaster.

  • BahamutZEROBahamutZERO Registered User regular
    I think my first video games were tetris, pipe dream, and some sort of weird abstract adventure game or coloring book game on a macintosh plus or classic II or something with that form factor.

    wait no I forgot, before we had the mac we had some sort of TV console I played a couple times when I was like 4, there was some sort of side scrolling shooter game on it, the controller was a little black joystick with some buttons. I have no idea what system that was or what the game was.

    BahamutZERO.gif
  • Drake ChambersDrake Chambers Lay out my formal shorts. Registered User regular
    I had a really weird console when I was a kid that had like 4 games on it and I still don't know what it was called.

    Just spent 20 minutes resesrching

    We had an Aquarius!

    I remember playing Snafu, Utopia, and Night Stalker!

    Whoa, I don't remember that one at all. Night Stalker sounds familiar though - there may have been a version of that for the Texas Instruments computer? I want to say I was intrigued by the name of the game but didn't have whatever system you needed to play it.

  • JasconiusJasconius sword criminal mad onlineRegistered User regular
    edited January 2019
    though my first game was a mere SNES, I spent a good amount of childhood time with an array of pre-Intel PCs ranging up and down the x86 line

    the first PC game I can remember was a golf game called World Class Leaderboard

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=21a_bbajmjQ

    the audio you hear was played through your MODEM if you didn't have a sound card. and for some reason we had an atari-style joystick that worked with this game. i dont know why.

    i want to believe that this game was the inspiration for Lee Carvello's Putting Challenge

    The second game was another DOS era game called Street Rod

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gZ_ikC_V8oY


    DOS ruled.

    Jasconius on
  • MorivethMoriveth BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWN BREAKDOWNRegistered User regular
    The Zak McCracken theme song was rad

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VaIj51k6b_g

    I mean hell, all the old Lucasarts games had fantastic music

  • Raijin QuickfootRaijin Quickfoot I'm your Huckleberry YOU'RE NO DAISYRegistered User, ClubPA regular
    I had a really weird console when I was a kid that had like 4 games on it and I still don't know what it was called.

    Just spent 20 minutes resesrching

    We had an Aquarius!

    I remember playing Snafu, Utopia, and Night Stalker!

    Whoa, I don't remember that one at all. Night Stalker sounds familiar though - there may have been a version of that for the Texas Instruments computer? I want to say I was intrigued by the name of the game but didn't have whatever system you needed to play it.

    I have no idea where we got or how we ended up with it but I remember it was after the life of the console was past because we couldn't find any games for it.

  • TayaTaya Registered User regular
    My first computer was a Tandy TRS-80 as seen here. I guess this was about 1985.



    I've entertained the idea of buying one on eBay but they are either expensive or broken.

  • jgeisjgeis Registered User regular
    At one point my dad got a bunch of pirated games from the guy he worked with and that prompted the first upgrades to the Gateway. I know for sure that one of the games was Unreal, but I can't remember any of the others. We ended up getting more RAM and a 3DFX VooDoo 2 and most stuff played fairly well on that set up for years. Well, played well enough for my tastes as a kid I guess.

  • EncEnc A Fool with Compassion Pronouns: He, Him, HisRegistered User regular
    Bucketman wrote: »
    Ask me about LOOM

    I remember it with.... perfect..... clarity....
    ~dies~

  • rhylithrhylith Death Rabbits HoustonRegistered User regular
    edited January 2019
    My parents were putting Atari controllers in my hands when I was like 2. Vague memories of playing a ton of kaboom, pitfall, and keystone capers.

    Some of my earliest fully formed gaming memories were playing simon’s quest with my dad and playing a huge chunk of the original final fantasy alone at like 5 or 6 years old.

    We borrowed it from my dad’s friend for like 6 months. When we returned it, i had managed to save with a tent out in the middle of nowhere with everyone poisoned and out of PUREs. It was basically impossible to get back to town alive.

    I eventually got my own copy a couple years later and beat it, which is now sitting on my shelf signed by Hironobu Sakaguchi.

    rhylith on
  • BahamutZEROBahamutZERO Registered User regular
    edited January 2019
    I think my first video games were tetris, pipe dream, and some sort of weird abstract adventure game or coloring book game on a macintosh plus or classic II or something with that form factor.

    wait no I forgot, before we had the mac we had some sort of TV console I played a couple times when I was like 4, there was some sort of side scrolling shooter game on it, the controller was a little black joystick with some buttons. I have no idea what system that was or what the game was.

    Asked my dad, apparently it was a Commodore 64 he got from my grandpa. It's weird how time rubs the rough edges off of memories of images and such, I remember it looking more like a Genesis or SNES game graphically but that's impossible if it was a C64.

    e: actually looking at screenshots of searched up commodore 64 side scrolling shooters, yeah these look about how I remembered them, the C64 had pretty good graphics for something made in 1982!

    BahamutZERO on
    BahamutZERO.gif
  • TallahasseerielTallahasseeriel Registered User regular
    I have a turbo fucked up c64 in the trunk of my car...

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