Video Games of eras past

ScottM

ScottM

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iBazinga!
http://www.thegameconsole.com/

I had forgotten all about the Magnavox games. They were highly coveted when I was a kid. The first Telstar was one that I had and it rocked at the time. About the time that Sega Genesis came out I had grown tired of those TV games as I had access to a Cray XP via a port on my VAX at the the time. My computer games were far more fun.
 
Good times...

I had an Odyssey2 (1978) with maybe two game cartridges beyond the one the came with the system. Loved it.
But, I think I had more fun with a friend's Atari 2600 - she had more games, like Frogger, Pitfall, and (eventually) real Pac-Man. (Although, I have to admit, I was fond of my Pac-Man-like game on the Odyssey.)

Even better times were had when I started programming the computers of the day... Creating my own games and playing a few commercial games along the way - I remember having a copy of subLOGIC FS1 for an Apple II... without a manual and controlled only by the keyboard, let's just say it was a bit less than intuitive. :rolleyes:
 
JoeSelch said:
Good times...

I had an Odyssey2 (1978) with maybe two game cartridges beyond the one the came with the system. Loved it.
But, I think I had more fun with a friend's Atari 2600 - she had more games, like Frogger, Pitfall, and (eventually) real Pac-Man. (Although, I have to admit, I was fond of my Pac-Man-like game on the Odyssey.)

Even better times were had when I started programming the computers of the day... Creating my own games and playing a few commercial games along the way - I remember having a copy of subLOGIC FS1 for an Apple II... without a manual and controlled only by the keyboard, let's just say it was a bit less than intuitive. :rolleyes:
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I had (still have? The computer still worked in June this year) Flight Sim for the Timex Sinclair 1000. I modified it to use an Atari joystick. We've come a long way...
 
A little off post but it has been driving me nuts for a couple years. There was a video game (full size) in the mid 80's that I used to enjoy for hours but can't recall the name. Here's the gist:

You had a full motion shooting thingie (went 360 and up/down/left/right) and the objective was to shoot boulders. The boulders broke into smaller rocks which also needed to be destroyed. All was well until the big alien thingie came and tried to destroy you. There was more to the game but that is all I can recall. Any help???? lol
 
kevin47881 said:
A little off post but it has been driving me nuts for a couple years. There was a video game (full size) in the mid 80's that I used to enjoy for hours but can't recall the name. Here's the gist:

You had a full motion shooting thingie (went 360 and up/down/left/right) and the objective was to shoot boulders. The boulders broke into smaller rocks which also needed to be destroyed. All was well until the big alien thingie came and tried to destroy you. There was more to the game but that is all I can recall. Any help???? lol
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Asteroids

Somewhere I have a version that runs on windows and looks and plays like the old video arcade game.
 
fgcason said:
Asteroids

Somewhere I have a version that runs on windows and looks and plays like the old video arcade game.
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Hmmm, I recall it being more advanced than Asteroids. The game I remember was really intense with a low "roar" voice/sound that happened when the "thing" came out to attack. Now that I think about it, the "thing" had to be shot at and killed to continue. Dang flashbacks lol
 
Wow Scott what a find. I had that Magnavox Odyssey!! The pong turned into tennis or hockey depending upon which plastic overlay you put on the screen.
 
In the early seventies i played a fantasic vidio game. It involved simulated flying in a mach 2 interceptor as a mach 3 target coming at you from the front but moving right & left rapidly. I would lock on, fire a simulated nuke, and recieve the 'fire/ pull out signal. The best part was I was getting paid. My Uncle, Sam, paid me to have this fun under the guise of repairing F-106 attack radar. Pong came later, & I loved it too.
 
Ddayle said:
In the early seventies i played a fantasic vidio game. It involved simulated flying in a mach 2 interceptor as a mach 3 target coming at you from the front but moving right & left rapidly. I would lock on, fire a simulated nuke, and recieve the 'fire/ pull out signal. The best part was I was getting paid. My Uncle, Sam, paid me to have this fun under the guise of repairing F-106 attack radar. Pong came later, & I loved it too.
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LOL, did you call out, "Judy" when you locked on?


Trapper John
 
Ddayle said:
In the early seventies i played a fantasic vidio game. It involved simulated flying in a mach 2 interceptor as a mach 3 target coming at you from the front but moving right & left rapidly. I would lock on, fire a simulated nuke, and recieve the 'fire/ pull out signal. The best part was I was getting paid. My Uncle, Sam, paid me to have this fun under the guise of repairing F-106 attack radar. Pong came later, & I loved it too.
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Air-2A

Where were you stationed?

(I was at GAFB 1980-1983-- the F-106s based there had the AIR-2A rockets)
 
I had an Intellivision.

I actually still have my old Commodore VIC 20 and games at the house.
 
dmccormack said:
Air-2A

Where were you stationed?

(I was at GAFB 1980-1983-- the F-106s based there had the AIR-2A rockets)
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I was at McCord AFB '72'-75'. We went on full alert during the 73 "october war". While getting everything ready to go i hopped on a trailer for a ride and Hugged a Genie Nuke missile. Not many people outside Slim Pickens & I have done that . Dave
 
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Guess I'm into different things. I liked 'Hard-Hat Mac' on our Apple IIe. Wish there was a modern version for my MacBook.
 
A real response from me:

Cross Country USA will always be the best game ever made for any system. Followed secondly by Doom and Doom ][.
 
bsdunek said:
Guess I'm into different things. I liked 'Hard-Hat Mac' on our Apple IIe. Wish there was a modern version for my MacBook.
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How about Lode Runner, Deathmaze 5000 or Missiles?

BTW, my old 1983 Apple IIe is one of the very very few items that survived the great posessions dump I did 3 years ago. It's in pristine condition and still works.
 
fgcason said:
How about Lode Runner, Deathmaze 5000 or Missiles?

BTW, my old 1983 Apple IIe is one of the very very few items that survived the great posessions dump I did 3 years ago. It's in pristine condition and still works.
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Heh, I wasted a bunch of time playing Crystal Quest on very early Macs - I think it was originally an Apple II game, though...


Trapper John
 
I had pong when it first came out. I remember having an intellevision, atari console, then bought my first commodore 64 and took off from there. I think sublogic had a FS for the C64 and I bought alot of extra floppies for the US maps.
 
kevin47881 said:
Hmmm, I recall it being more advanced than Asteroids. The game I remember was really intense with a low "roar" voice/sound that happened when the "thing" came out to attack. Now that I think about it, the "thing" had to be shot at and killed to continue. Dang flashbacks lol
Click to expand...

Sinistar.

That was a fun game, but once those little worker drones mined enough crystals to build him, he was a tough bugger to kill. Game over.
 
Does drawing on the plastic covering the screen of the old 17" Stewart-Warner B&W TV to help save Winky-Dink count as a video game? Otherwise I'd have to vote for one my son had on the TI-99 I gave him when he was in middle-school. Can't remember the name of the game but it had to do with flying low-level missions over some planet and popping up to shoot at incoming aliens while avoiding flying into terrain.
 
tdager said:
I had an Intellivision.

I actually still have my old Commodore VIC 20 and games at the house.
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I had the intellivision, the II, and the III which was a repackaged original. I probably had over 100 games from Matel, Atari, and numerous other 3rd party companies. In addition to the consoles, I bought the "computer", keyboard, and voice modules.

Intellivisionlives.com has remade many of the original games. Most are done through an emulator.

Remember TRON!?!? B-17 Bomber? and one of my favorites... Astrosmash. I nearly missed a party because I didn't want to quit out of my MILLION + game.
 
silver-eagle said:
I had the intellivision, the II, and the III which was a repackaged original. I probably had over 100 games from Matel, Atari, and numerous other 3rd party companies. In addition to the consoles, I bought the "computer", keyboard, and voice modules.

Intellivisionlives.com has remade many of the original games. Most are done through an emulator.

Remember TRON!?!? B-17 Bomber? and one of my favorites... Astrosmash. I nearly missed a party because I didn't want to quit out of my MILLION + game.
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A number of sites have some of the old games online. Try http://www.getback.com/games http://www.gametap.com/ and http://games.vh1.com/gameinfo.php?gid=33
 
In the Mid 80's when I was in college, the local (Atlanta) mall arcades would sell off their old games for nearly nothing. At one time or another I owned fully functioning, stand up versions of Missile Command (my favorite game of all time), Rip-Off (a fun 2 player space game), and some other shoot-em up thing that I can't remember off-hand.

All these games were eventually purchased from me and installed in the rec lounge in my dorm at GA Tech. The games were set to the maximum number of plays you could get for $0.25. The hall council made a small fortune off of each of the games. You'd be surprised at how much a video game can make if it gets played pretty much 24/7 and each game goes for say 20-30 minutes. That money paid for a lot of events and parties... Even better, with all the EE and computer folks around, even when the machines broke, there was always someone around who could fix 'em...

In hindsight, I bet those games accelerated the flunk-out process for dozens of undergraduate engineer wanna-bees.
 
I love missile command and moon patrol! I play them frequently when I can pull myself away from tetris on the original NES.
 
AuntPeggy said:
Alice for the Mac.
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I think you mean "Through The Looking Glass," which IIRC was the first Mac game. Apple was vehemently opposed to games on the Mac early on because they wanted it to be taken seriously as a business computer despite its nice graphics.

My favorite games:

Atari 2600: Pac-Man

Apple ][: Moon Patrol (Still have it on a 5 1/4" floppy somewhere...)

Mac in the 1980's: Dark Castle and Beyond Dark Castle, which were amazing for their time. They can now be had along with a bunch of new levels in the extremely well-done Return To Dark Castle for modern Macs (OS X). :yes:

Mac in the 1990's: Marathon series. This was the first major 2.5D game from Bungie, and it was Mac-only... They eventually ported to Windows starting with Marathon Infinity, the 3rd game in the series; then they wrote Halo and were bought out by Microsoft.
 
Anybody remember "hack"? One of those character-based dungeon games you could play with a VT-100 terminal. I actually had a DOS version of it.

(Slightly) more recently, Sid Meier's Civilisation series.
 
I had an Atari. I was terribly jealous of friends with the Intellivision. The football game was far superior.

Dark Castle for the Mac? I once spent 22 hrs playing that game (I was in college, senior yr, 2nd semester). It took me over 3 hrs to kill off all my extra lives after I decided I didn't want to play any more. Great game.

One family I knew had 3 girls. Dad bought them an Odyssey system to encourage boys to come over and play with the girls. Too funny. They were cute, but they were so straight they made Mother Theresa seem like a stripper.
 
This brings back lots of memories for me. I had the opportunity to work for Pizza Time Theater, Inc. and Nolan Bushnell. It was Bushnell that brought Pong along as a cabinet game and along the way started Atari (name taken from the game Go). After awhile he started Pizza Time (Chuck E. Cheese) and bought that from Warner. At the time he had to sign a no compete clause for the video game market. As that time period came to and end Pizza Time started a company named Sente Technologies (name taken from the game Go). Unfortunately this was during the time that Pizza Time entered deep financial trouble so Sente Technologies never really got very far. Their concept was a stand up game console that had changeable cartridges so the console could be reused as new games were released.

I got to travel around and install the shows at new stores for a couple of years and had a lot of fun. I ended up leaving the company after the merger process began between Pizza Time and Showbiz.

My first computer was an Atari 800 on which I played the equivalent of Pacman on. Can't remember what the game was called. I can still remember loading some games from the attached cassette drive. About the only game I play today is FSX to work on flying skills. First version of Flight Simulator I had was for the Atari 800. Used to be able to fly from Meigs to Champaign. What fun!
 
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fgcason said:
XYZZY
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Adventure was the first (and possibly last) computer game that I was completely hooked on. I spent days exploring every nook and cranny and eventually completed the final phase. Somewhere in my disorganized piles of paper I probably still have the maps I drew out by hand of the whole game space along with my notes on what did and didn't work.

And my very first computer "game" was a program that ran on a PDP9 (with vector graphics display) that simulated the Gemini space docking concept. I know I wasted a lot of time with that when I was supposed to be programming something else.
 
Adventure is a great game. As for graphics-based games, I think Doom has never been topped.

(BTW, I say that because it's fast moving, not because of the quality of the graphics.)
 
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