Hey, hey 16K (something for Friday)

Something nostaligic for those who owned such old skool classics such as the Sinclair ZX81 and Spectrum:

http://www2.b3ta.com/heyhey16k/ (Flash movie with music)

"Hey, hey, 16K, what does that get you today? You need more than that for a letter: old school rampaks were much better." (from http://www.adactio.com/journal/ )

Duncan Smart
Friday, May 14, 2004

Speaking of the "oldies but goddies", I dropped my kid off at school this morning and saw in one of the class rooms an Apple II which is still in use.  Thats what I had when I was in school!  This was at a Suburban Boston school.

Bill Rushmore
Friday, May 14, 2004

"old school rampaks were much better."

I'll second that.

A few weeks ago I was playing a soccer game, can't remember the name, but had FIFA in it.

"This key's for this kick, that key's for that kick, that other key's for this jump, that one over there is for faking a penalty, that other is for picking your nose, etc".

And I kept thinking - gimme a Speccy emulator and Match Day.

Speccy games that kept me glued to the keyboard - Skool Daze, Everyone's a Wally,Manic Miner, JSW, Bomb Jack, Match Day, Arnhem... It's a looooong list of good games (even if some were arcade ports).

My list of PC games that kept glued to the keyboard is a *lot* shorter - Wolfenstein, Doom, Civilization, Myst (incl. Riven, Myst III). And that's it!

Who needs MB of memory and GB of disk to have fun, anyway?

Paulo Caetano
Friday, May 14, 2004

Those were the days when games for the C64 with great gameplay were smaller than a Windows icon ;-)

Gollum
Friday, May 14, 2004

I used to love Spectrum games and even wrote a few myself, as well as collaborating on others.

Those were the days. You could be a teenager and run a games company from your bedroom. Okay, so you only made enough money to finance the weekend's drinking, but as after-school jobs go, it was a pretty good one.

Steve Jones (UK)
Friday, May 14, 2004

Did anyone else have the "flight simulator" for the Sinclair?

It was written in basic and behaved like it, but it was the only game I had.  I actually started programming by changing the code in that game.  Great fun.

Steve Barbour
Friday, May 14, 2004

Peek, Poke, Z80 machine code, jumpers for goalposts...

Duncan Smart
Friday, May 14, 2004

+1 for Castle Wolfenstein as being incredibly addictive. You DID mean the original Apple II game, right, not the later id first person shooter that basically ruined the game?

Beyond Castle Wolfestein was even better.

Mind you, I think the most addictive game of all time has to be Counter Strike (and just to go even further off topic, if you're a CS fan - or even you're not, be sure to check out The Terrible Mr G: http://overstated.net/03/02/05-the-terrible-mr-g.asp)

GUI Joe
Friday, May 14, 2004

Everytime this comes up I promise myself I'll get my ZX80/81 going - if only to frighten the children.  I just need to find the right power adapter.  Memo to self:  get on with it.

a cynic writes...
Friday, May 14, 2004

Gollum's remark reminds me that today's hard drive overhead (aka cluster size) is larger than some of the old game software.

Does anybody out there recall what the overhead was for 8-bit machines like the Apple II?

AtariMaven
Friday, May 14, 2004

Manic Miner was incredible. Boy was I hooked on that. JSW just didn't do it for me. Perhaps the format had worn out by then.

Just me (Sir to you)
Friday, May 14, 2004

"+1 for Castle Wolfenstein as being incredibly addictive. You DID mean the original Apple II game, right, not the later id first person shooter that basically ruined the game?"

I never knew the original. Anyway, I said "PC games". I prolly should have named it "Wolfenstein 3D". It kept awake some nights, pushing against every inch of wall, looking for the fabled secret doors. Boy, was I dumb - no comments about the use of the past tense, please ;)

How was the original?

Paulo Caetano
Friday, May 14, 2004

The original Castle Wolfestein was a crude overhead view game. The appeal was in the strategy rather than in causing all kinds of carnage - it was very simple, yet asorbing. You couldn't simply shoot your way through the game - but at the same time, it wasn't about secret switches and other such mysteries.

That said, I do enjoy a good 'ol shoot 'em up FPS on occasion too (so hurry up id and ship Doom III already! Damn, talk about schedule slip...)

GUI Joe
Friday, May 14, 2004

With one well placed blow Thorin cleaves your skull.

Monday, May 17, 2004

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