Blast from the past.......

[owain_k]

All that talk about Amigas got thinkin the other day (very rare:) )

What's peoples' favorite computer from "back in the day" ?

Spectrum, Atari, Amiga, Dragon, BBC, Acorn, Amstrad..............?

Still got my Atari 1200 console lying around somewhere but reckon the ZX Spectrum was the one that did it for me 1st !

PS. If anyone is after original games or consoles....I can point you in the right direction too ;)

[Ruben A]

My first computer was the "ping-pong" machine with two controllers. Can´t remember the name - but it was wicked... I also had a lightgun for it!!
Then a Commodore 16 - a commodore 64 (with tape. Later a diskstation) - Amiga600 (Octamed 2.0) - Atari Mega 1 (which I only used for sequencering ofcourse...)

Still love those games for commodore and amiga...
hey forgot - the handhold games; donkey kong etc!


hehehehe..

nice days!

;)

[CV]

as some of the crew on the board already know , my first and true love was the Oric 1 - i wasn't so into the Oric Atmos ... but I knew the Oric inside out - 6502 machine code and direct peeks and pokes - it where I programmed my first sequencer , using ASCII strings as the notes and durations! it had the Yamaha AW sound chip , one of the first true chip sound synth chips , which gave it 3 channel polyphony and noise ... fuckin A

all the old school machines are emulated now ... try http://www.emulation.net for all Mac software versions of those early machines





http://www.zock.com/8-Bit/Oric-1.JPG

[bitch one]

mr vogel, you truly are the nerd's nerd, hats off.

i made my first funny noises with a zx spectrum. if i recall it sort went 'brreeeeewwwwwwweeeeee'. it wasn't very good.

[Mirsha]

I loved the Spectrum, even the basic programming language with it's loving RSI saving features of binding commands to keys. The ickle rubber keyboard was just so dainty as well, I mean you couldn't hit someone hard with a conventional keyboard and expect it to hold in one piece but those rubber keys wouldn't break very easily! Anyone else remember having to fiddle with the audio vlume on yuor external tape players to get it to load games correctly? Or just stopping the tape and hitting break and seeing what the loader looked like?

One of my favorite things was the Technician Ted loader, all the little men walking back and forth endlessly.

[DsD]

ha i have a litle z80 with beeper that u have to programm in mnemonik but my first computer was a c 128. i hated it cause it did what i never wanted and never did what i wanted ;)

[bitch one]

remember those daft security lens thingies you had to put on the screen to load games like elite?

indeed, remember elite? i played that religiously for about 3 months. taught me how to be a drug dealer in space.

[DsD]

so u learned something usefull for ur job? ;)

[old skool]

Originally posted by bitch one
remember those daft security lens thingies you had to put on the screen to load games like elite?

indeed, remember elite? i played that religiously for about 3 months. taught me how to be a drug dealer in space.

I remember Elite .... could I manage to dock properly ? Could I heckaslike ...

I used to love my Speccie 48k. You could fit about a million games on one 90 (C90 I think they were called then) cassette.

In fact a mate of mine still has his 48k in his loft with an old flat cassette player and a load of games ....

Gonna have to get him to setup that monster and get some serious gaming done.

Renegade and R-Type where are you ????

[DsD]

and the good old jump n runs...
not the modern 3d gaming shit. fun fun fun! ;)
(i still play commander keen and stuff like that on my pc ;) )

[old skool]

Aaah I remember totally fucking up my 'n', 'm' and space bar playing Daley Thompsons Decathlon. Oh and a few of my slender digits too ....

[phono]

hehe, you talking about zx spectrum! :))

yes, many, many hours i was playing with it :)

ELITE, also do you remember DIZZY? :)

[DsD]

hehe and i remember my grades. every time i got a new game my grades sucked ;)

[old skool]

Dizzy strikes a bell !! Was that the spinning top thingy game ?

Ghost and Goblins
Bombjack
Nemesis
R-Type
Bubble Bobble.

Classics - end of.

[deccard]

yeah elite was the game on the c64.
played it endless hours till i got to the next galaxy.

but my fav comp was the amiga500. audio(octamed) and grafix(deluxepaint) ruled on that machine.
uh yeah and xenon2 megablast :) turn up the volume

[zongkong]

..c64 - Last Ninja 1 + 2.........
take a listen to those soundtracks as well, they're simply awesome, especially the one to the sequel.

As for the Amiga 500, Deluxe Paint and a program by Red Sector called Demomaker was something that occupied lots of my time..
and all the games..... hmm.. not that I can remember one that I actually played very much 8-() except for the Turrican series.

[invisibleplanet]

first, i used a zx81 to program a little robot to follow a white line, when i was 15...and then....my father brought home a commodore 64 (which my grandfather still has), and we had fun programming lines of data to make sprites dance, and also music! changing envelopes.......it was 21 years ago...i forget what programs we used!
these machines started my relationship with computers - then went on to a Tandy machine, then an IBM, then a Mac ...there were no graphics programs in those days, and I used auto-cad to create flow diagrams on an IBM by plotting fucking co-ordinates in some three dimensional nightmare.
how glad I was to begin using a Mac in 1986 which had MacDraw!

hmm....i miss those days of nerdy family fun
owain_k - u made me feel so OLD with this thread lol

[wheezer]

my first computer was a ibm pc, got it for x-mas at the tender age of eight years; it sported a whopping 2mb of ram and 40mb of hard disk space, plus a integrated 2400 bps modem! Broke it within two days - major drama at the time, since obviously nobody was able to help me fix it, especially around the holidays :D

[old skool]

I used to be a proper whizz down the arcades and playing games on the puter.

Now I don't know my arse from my elbow when it comes to Playstations and X box thingies. Far too complicated for my liking.

Whatever happened to up, down, left, right and fire ??

[invisibleplanet]

eeeeeeee


when I was young, we used to have to program our own games into a commodore64 lol

[old skool]

That sounds like too much hard work now, never mind back then.

Just used to tape em of me mates.

The nearest thing I got to programming was to either type 'run' or load " "

Aaah good old load " ".... I miss you so ...

[bitch one]

Originally posted by invisibleplanet
first, i used a zx81 to program a little robot to follow a white line, when i was 15...and then....my father brought home a commodore 64 (which my grandfather still has), and we had fun programming lines of data to make sprites dance, and also music! changing envelopes.......it was 21 years ago...

owain_k - u made me feel so OLD with this thread lol

if my arithmetic is correct you are 36! which makes you pretty damned old for these parts...sorry to point that out. but it's nice to not be the oldest.

[DsD]

wups... bitch one never tell a woman that she`s old. hope that she don`t kill u ;)

[Tomoki]

Anyone remembers the games Zak McKracken or Gianna Sisters?
I played them for weeks and weeks.

Unfortunately I never possesed an Amiga, only a friend of mine got one.

But it was very good to be in possesion of the old C64, so I learned a bit how to work with commands ans so on.
People or kids which get a PC today don´t know what commands are.
It´s very easy with the windows surfaces.

[old skool]

Originally posted by bitch one


if my arithmetic is correct you are 36! which makes you pretty damned old for these parts...sorry to point that out. but it's nice to not be the oldest.

Whooa, I like to be cheeky but you could be in for a ruck there mate.

I have actually wondered what the age range of people on this board is anywayz ...

I myself am on the top of the slope to thirtydom.... ie 26.

[DsD]

yes i know both. that are the most known classic games and popular for the game music ;)
dumdidum ;)

[Ruben A]

Giana sisters and bubble bobble WAS the BEST!!

those kind of level-based games was a hit for me! Could really need to have a play now.

Also "ACE" took some hours away from me... and ofcourse Commando - who dares wins... etc!

shoot´em´up!

lol

[DsD]

@ Ruben: do u need some classic pc games? ;)
i have some of them here on my hd ;)

[pille'ocheoni]

i had a amiga 1000, but it was my grandmothers.......as i lived with her most of my life me and my cousin had to share some great games like 720 and others, i wish i had got more into them that time but i was too buisy playing the trumpet.......maybe soon ill get another fun machine like this.....good thread!:)

[old skool]

Anyone remember Barbarian on the Amiga. Where you had that move to lop the bloke's head off in one mighty sweep...and this growl that sounded like .... "eeeeeee en."

[emef]

Originally posted by old skool


Whooa, I like to be cheeky but you could be in for a ruck there mate.

I have actually wondered what the age range of people on this board is anywayz ...

I myself am on the top of the slope to thirtydom.... ie 26.

dont let him kid ya.
26 thats a good one.
i know oldskool well...46 more like. hehe lol

[old skool]

Heh ... the outside is 26, my insides are of a ninety year old more like...

And what are you doing on a pc emef ? Did you manage to complete that 'Computers for Pensioners' course they were doing at the local college .....

Mwwaa haa haa haaaa... cough....aaaa ....

[emef]

lol lol lol lol lol lol lol lol

nah it ws a pretty young crowd in there.
they were all in their 60s
i felt like their dad.

[marcel]

Originally posted by old skool
Anyone remember Barbarian on the Amiga. Where you had that move to lop the bloke's head off in one mighty sweep...and this growl that sounded like .... "eeeeeee en."

oh yeah, babarian, that a game. or r-type, wolfchild, humans, the whole turricanseries...
how many memories are coming up with this thread.
i had an amiga 500(1mb ram!), there where nothing before and after this one. i don't like pc games(except civilisation) and don't play anymore.

the stupidest decision of my life so far was to sell my amiga500 and all of my games(around250) for 300DM back in days.
today i could cry then i think about that

[Lady E]

well i remember getting an atari and playing pong and thinking "this is fucking living!" cris and i got one about 5 years ago and predictably it was pretty shit

a few years ago i went to someone's house who had one of those space invaders pub tables now THAT is class

age is just a number, man.

[old skool]

To be honest, I had this Playstation a while back (before some thieving scouser robbed it) and I bought one of those 'arcade classics' compilations. I thought it was gonna be wicked playing all these old games and they'd be much better than the new ones.

But i have to say, most of them were shite. And the ones I thought I loved, I played for about 10 mins then got bored and put Corrie on.

Ah well.

The past is the past and now is now and the future is the future and that's all I'm gonna say on the matter.

;-)

[Ruben A]

@ DsD - I´ll download a c64emulator... must play some Giana...!!

Maybe you have some great games you can share on the FTP (yes this incredible great fucker we share!!!)

tjuptjuplol

[deccard]

yup the past is the past.
i once downloaded all the soundtracks of my fav old games but beside some memory shakes it sounded really stupid.

another fav was defender of the crown...i loved the pic at the end...*sigh*

at the moment i borrowed a gamecube but there aren´t any real good games on it.

[DsD]

@Ruben: whats about copyrights? ;) isn`t that warez? ;)

[owain_k]

Originally posted by emma


a few years ago i went to someone's house who had one of those space invaders pub tables now THAT is class

Indeedy...

Bomb Jack tables are well cool to....i remember putting the best part of my pocket money in to one of those.....!

Track n field was quite a good un too....but always ended up with sore fingers from too much banging .

[jukka]

i never had an own computer befor my pc but my brother first bought a c64 with this incredible tapedeck and later discdrive....i played decathlon a lot and dstroyed some many joysticks....also i loved to play games like hanse, kaiser etc.....and the first football game i played ever__micropose soccer was awesome these days.
after that my brother bought an amiga 500 ..bomberman rulez....and sensible soccer as well........and some football managers.....errrr at least i can't remember the names of all those great games that were around.

yeaha, and i had one of these ping-pong stastions as well....think there were three or four games on it and all looked nealy the same lol

[Ruben A]

@DsD - ref. c64 games! not pc games.... Anyway, it should be easy for me to download from a fanpage.

@Jukka, since you broke so many joysticks; are you sure you didn´t play "sexgames"???
lol lol lol

[jukka]

@ruben;
i played sexgames a couple of times but no joystick broke down !!!
weren't you the one who told me that he is undefitable__and beeing the world champion !!!! lol

[wheezer]

there was actually a really nice win32 version of bomberman a few years ago, that featured ipx network play! with some special software like kali, one can make serious Internet bomberman battles with something like 8+ players if I recall...

[jukka]

we shoud start a nU--future tournament :)

[DsD]

jukka: do u mean joy sticks for a computer or sextoys? ;)

[piscaries]

it's all about the arcade games... my good friend bought a shell of a broken arcade machine, put in a new screen and bought a big pc arcade controller. then he just threw a computer in the base and is running an emulator (mostly mame) and now has an arcade machine that lets him play almost anything you can think of... all the old (well.. not too old) sega and neo-geo games. very wicked. and cheap too...

[jukka]

was definately a JOYSTICk not JOY STICK____ONE WORD !!!
:-p :D

[DsD]

okok jukka. it was just a question. ;)

[jukka]

okay next one, please !!!
:-p

[DsD]

ok. is it true that u had a relationchip with some fruits? ;)

[jukka]

arrrr..who told you about this banana thing ?

[DsD]

i can`t tell u his name! sorry.

[jukka]

i will find out !!!!!

[DsD]

u`ll never find out that kaoz told me that!

[the captain]

evenin' (I'd introduce myself but it's friday and 'own brand' energy drinks do nasty things, apologies in advance)

get it while you can jukka... 'The Sun (brit-psuedo-newscomic) was forced to abandon its post-Christmas "banana diet" after the revelation that the fruit may be extinct within a decade' -yeswehavenobananas-ho-hum

now then... a beloved BBC B with a Torch 5.25" dual floppy disk unit and Z80 coprocessor running C/PM... that was a machine.

cheers

[jukka]

@captain:
hope this won't happen to the good ol' banana.
bananas tastes so good and you can do ......... with them :)

[invisibleplanet]

it cannot be...
N O B A N A N A S ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

time to turn to hydroponic science methinks.....can do wonders with hydroponics these days....so surely should be possible to grow banana trees???

[Mui]

errr.....riiight
as far as games go i played phantasy star on the sega master system for ages......and elevator action at the pub table....and ghouls and ghosts at the arcade.....used to have a mac classic (with the tiny whitey blue screen that hurt yer eyes) and had this wickid puzzle game 3 in 3....the puzzles were way hard and cryptic and shit....I think I gave up on it after a while....and the mac blew up anyway.....

[the captain]

>>it cannot be...
>>N O B A N A N A S ! ! ! ! ! ! ! ! !

truly a sad day.

http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,5845193%255E2,00.html

[zongkong]

"time to turn to hydroponic science methinks.....can do wonders with hydroponics these days....so surely should be possible to grow banana trees???"

well, since it's possible to grow.......... other...... things.. in hydroponics............ :D
why not bananas 8-()

[dirtyho]

Ha Ha the good old days
I remember going to liverpool for christmas (circa 1983?)and my parents taking my new Commodore Vic-20 with them. Then they stayed up all night drinking & playing one of those text-based adventure games "You are standing at a doorway". They were all really ragged the next day and none of us kids could understand

Ha Ha Halcyon days

[DsD]

i found a nice link ;)
http://www.classic-trash.com/
have fun ;)

[JE:5]

Someone mentioned earlier Daley Thopmsons decathlon on the spectrum.
That game used to turn me into a fucking lunatic, I must have broke about three or four joysticks and the actual computer keyboard twice from playing that game. Not to mention the constant yelling of "Bastard", "fucking piece of shit" etc at the tv screen.

Anyone remember Micro-Drives and Horace goes skiing?

http://www.bioeddie.co.uk/Spectrum/Images/HoraceGoesSkiing.jpg
http://zxplanet.emuunlim.com/history/microdrive.gif

[JE:5]

.....In fact I might still have my Spectrum QL and Microdrive knocking around somewhere..... ;)

[carbonizedeyesockets]

Apparently there is a £1,000,000 prize if you find the black hole on Elite!!!!
I was too busy playing atic atac....

[Lady E]

yes as afar as i understood from my cursory reading of the paper at the weekend, the banana we all know and love was an ancient mutant, a kind happy accident that subsequently was reproduced - but by cloning, ie each banana is a genetic replica of another banana and therefore cannot make itself resistant to disease.

the onlyy thing that can save it, apparently, is genetic modification, which leads me to believe that the whole disease that is threatening the banana was unleashed by the GM giants because for them to 'save' the worlds favourite fruit would cause a shift in public opinion about GM crops in general.

The banana is a potent symbol of freedom in the west, and i think people will want it saved at all costs.

[bitch one]

'genetic modification' is what humans have been doing in a clumsy way since we first began cultivating crops 20,000 years ago - also known as selective breeding. to see the effects of selective breeding, compare a chihuahua to a wolf. everyone seems perfectly happy to accept this form of genetic modification without batting an eyelid. but when we talk about altering the genetics of organisms in a much more precise and careful way which we actually understand, everyone gets nervous. i think this may be back to front...

[dirtyho]

No you are wrong bitch one - cross breeding is not the same as genetic modification in the sense of GE technologies. These intoduce foreign genetic materials in at a cellular level using pathogenic carriers in order to produce unusual or desires properties. I.e genes from deep sea fish in tomatoes to stop them freezing - this could never be achieved "naturally" like brreding dogs and wolves or similar families of plants.

[dirtyho]

There is nothing precise or careful about current GE technologies. It is a very young discpline with very little knowledge of the effects that may occur. How is releasing modified organisms into our environment careful? How is putting a gene with a myriad of functions and effects into a foreign organism (therefore the effects are even less predictable) to achive only one desired function precise?

[bitch one]

natural is a word that should be avoided. the fact that you think there is anything natural about a chihuahua illustrates why you should avoid the word.

i am not saying i am a big fan of monsanto or anything. i just wanted to make clear a point that all the knee-jerk, unthinking luddites seem to miss. GM is held up as some new, scary monster, when we have been doing big GM for thousands of years. everything we humans do alters the environment. like creating fresian cattle. or aberdeen angus, which are very tasty. a far bigger and more real problem which never gets any press is the agriculture industry's indiscriminate use of antibiotics, which i guarantee WILL create dangerous resistant bacteria soon. why do you never hear the green lobby talking about that? because it's not so media-friendly.

to get back to genetics, i'm not sure there is anything fundamentally more scary about 'putting a fish gene in a tomato' than creating something as weird as a chihuahua, when you understand that fish and tomatoes share many many genes. it is likely that in reality all that has been done is the exchanging of a couple of amino acids in a protein for slightly different ones, which slightly alters the function of that protein in a way which is useful. selective breeding for the same function alteration would probably change those exact same amino acids, and therefore the tomato would have acquired the fish gene in a manner which you consider to be 'natural'.

dig?

[dirtyho]

I know what you are saying, thats why the word natural is in "quotations". However you are still wrong, chihuahua etc have been produced through the "natural process" of sexual reproduction, same with cross-pollinated plants. Crazy tomatoes with fish genes can only be produced in a lab with very complex technology (using viruses etc.). That in my mind is a significant difference.

[wheezer]

@dirtyho

afaik, it was salmon & tomatoes, but I'm not gonna split hairs...

[dirtyho]

oops

[owain_k]

Horace goes Skiing....dude !

Any Q-Bert style covers knockin around ?

[bitch one]

all i was tryin to say is - you should be just as worried (perhaps more worried) by 'conventional ' agriculture...

everyone focuses on gm cos it sounds bizarre

[bitch one]

ps i was talkin shit about the fishes - they actually introduced a whole new gene in that case, which is a weird and new thing.

but i still stick to my guns in saying that selective breeding produces pretty damn weird things we should be equally scared of. and also that the antibiotics problem is far far bigger, and not hypothetical.

[dirtyho]

You are right B1, I am worried by "conventional" agriculture". I just get annoyed by the "GE is the same as cross-breeding" line because it is not strictly true and monsanto etc. trot it out all the time. Technically and conceptually they are far removed from each other. Yes you may end up with the same genetic result, but through vastly different methods - and with much more risk (in the case of actual gene insertion on a cellular level). Well thats my opinion anyway - however I'm not that clued up on this technically.