Can A Computer Make You Cry?
September 30, 2009
I started life on a TI-99/4A. After a year or so I sold it and got what I considered my first "real" computer, the just-released Apple //c in the first half of 1984. (No offense to TI-99 aficionados intended.) In that time, the most compelling home computer game studio was Electronic Arts. Back then they spoke of their developers as "software artists" and produced a series of ads that depicted them as rockstars. Their game packaging even looked like an LP sleeve. I recall those ads well and they fed into the mythos that was the Electronic Arts game studio. I had so much fun with Archon, Pinball Construction Set, Music Construction Set, and Seven Cities of Gold in those days it's silly.
I recall the ads in magazines of the time. EA was such a great force in the home computing scene back then. Neil Young of major iPhone game studio ng:moco often invokes those heady days of garage programmers and true, indie, creative gamemaking.
Three or four years ago I decided I really wanted to grab one of the EA rockstar / "We See Farther" / "Can a video game make you cry" ad posters for the wall of my own personal Byte Cellar. I looked high and low for quite a while, but found none. Until, one day, I learned that a regular on the Macintosh IRC channel I've frequented for the last 11 years had just such a poster. I attempted to purchase it from him repeatedly, but he never wanted to sell.
Until recently.
I was quite happy to finally have acquired said poster and was quick to get it framed and hung on the wall. It was several weeks before I took a look at the included magazine, however. But the magazine, it turns out, might be the biggest treasure of all.
I mentioned that I started out on the TI-99/4A. It was my first computer and the one on which I learned BASIC. I used to buy this or that computer magazine at random, hoping to find a TI-99 game to type in and play. I was 11, way back when.
One day I bought this magazine that had a pretty solid side-view shooter involving aircraft and an aircraft carrier. It was known as Pearl Harbor by Jerry Hunter. I was quick to type it in, save it on tape, and spend hours enjoying its arcade action. Good times, way back when.
I paid dearly for said magazine and poster, but feel it was well worth it. I consider the pair to be one of my most precious retro finds. It seems it's all about getting back to those golden days. Here, it seems, I struck a goldmine of nostalgic bliss.
Posted by blakespot at September 30, 2009 6:44 PM
Wowzers! Thanks Blake- this post really hit home for me. I can remember hurrying home from school so that I could type in another few pages of some game from Compute!s Gazette magazine. Sometimes the games would be even better then I imagined (and there would be plenty of imagining during the days and days of typing). Sometimes the games would be a huge letdown, but it would never discourage me from trying with a different game listing. For me, typing in those magazine game listings was a big part of the magic of computing in the early days..
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