One of my Uncles owned a Video Games Console. I’m not sure what it was exactly, and haven’t been able to find a picture of it on the web despite extensive searches (although I think it was a Grandstand). The graphics were terrible but I couldn’t resist having a go. For the first time, I was playing games on the telly. Formula One, Tennis, Bat and Ball games all featured and each cartridge had about 10/20 odd versions of the games with different difficulties.
A BRIEF HISTORY OF JOPS - PART ONE
Age is a horrible thing! It slowly robs you of your fond and rose tinted memories of the past. Well, I though that as we were putting together this website of Retro Nostalgia, that it would be nice to look back on what memories remain and reminisce. Of course, being as old as I am, recollections are starting to get a bit cloudy so I’m going to not try and guess the years that things happened as I would probably get them all wrong. So here goes.........brace yourselves for Part One..
As a kid, I was quite happy with my Star Wars toys, Lego and Plastercine. All kept me occupied for hours and must have been fantastic for my parents as I actually behaved myself. But born in 1974, there wasn’t a murmur of gaming in the home. All I knew about were the Arcades down the east coast. This was all good though as living in Norwich, It was only a short journey to the seaside. Although getting my bucket and spade out was great fun, so was walking around the arcades, mesmerized by all the fantastic attract modes of the games.
My first experience of playing computer games at home came a little later when LCD and LED games became the rage. I remember owning "Donkey Kong Jnr", "PacMan" and the wicked "Firefox F7". At the time, I thought these were great. But greater things were afoot.
I also remember traveling to Southampton to visit another Uncle and Aunt. Fantastic times there!I had my "Bash Street Kids" Annual, "Fighting Fantasy" Books, Star Trek (the original series) on TV and the discovery that they owned an "Atari 2600". Oh wow! This little beast was so cool. This was a lot more like the arcade in your home. They had classics like "Centipede", "Invaders", "Battlezone" and "Missile Command". Once again, these kept me occupied for hours.
My first proper experience with a computer came with a friend who lived the same close as where I lived in the early 80`s. His name was James and he was the proud owner of a small insignificant black micro-computer called a "Sinclair ZX Spectrum". It was one of the 48K machines and obviously was tape loading (which took forever - I don’t know how we ever had the patience. And that’s not taking in the dreaded "r-tape loading error", where you'd have to start all over again). Two games that I remember us playing lots were "3D Starstrike" and "Cauldron". "Starstrike" was an obvious rip off of the "Star Wars" Arcade machine and "Cauldron", which was a great (if very difficult) little platform game. It was at this point that I wanted a computer of my own. I was extremely jealous! Oh - and I also acquired off him another little LCD Game called "CGL Galaxy Invader 1000" , very much like "Galaxians".
It was then when I'd started my middle school that my dad went out and bought a bargain computer - the "Commodore Plus 4". I believe the main reason he bought it was because it was cheap (for its time) and that it came with 10 games. Always one for a bargain was my dad. It was sold as a business/games machine and remember it having applications built into it like a "Spreadsheet"! Anyway, It also came with a cartridge "Impossible Mission" from (then unknown to me) author "Scott Adams" and a company called "Adventure International". This was a game based in a nuclear reactor that was about to go critical. Bloody tough and I never really played it much because of this. I recently found you could play it off the web. The link is http://www.ifiction.org/games/index.php?cat=3
We spent ages going to local shops trying to find software for our new computer but the selection was limited and predominantly for the smaller "C16" machine (which was compatible with the "Plus 4". It was also at this time that that we discovered "Brian Howarth". Both himself and "Scott Adams" will be covered at a later date in a retro article but suffice to say - these games really fired my imagination and kick started a passion for text adventure games.
So there you go...It was still the 80`s and I could play a real live computer. This of course was only the tip of the iceberg and more was yet to come. But, I’m going to talk about that next time. I don’t want to bore you too much this early on.....
Article by Jops, April 2006.
