http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19055707

Thirty years, blimey…

I feel old! 😉

I had a Spectrum growing up, so when I saw the graphics I was quite impressed.

ah remember the tape deck? having to wait for games to load up?
rola cola and party rings?
jumpers for goalposts?
isn’t it?

Marvellous!! 😀

It is indeed..
M’old…. 😥

Games might have got better but was there ever any better videogame music than this?

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ca1E8nQNdIM[/video]

Chapaking, what game is that from? I’m sure I recognise it? Is it Desert Strike?

I remember thinking how the graphics where brill!

I had a Spectrum growing up, so when I saw the graphics I was quite impressed.

I had a Spectrum growing up, so when I saw the graphics I thought ‘hm, low res and blocky’. (-:

Bless it. I may have a game of Paradroid in its honour later.

Cougar. I think it may be the range of colours that I was impressed with.
Spectrum by name but not by nature.

We had a ZX Spectrum 48k AND a C64 because my dad was ace. I have many fond memories of playing games with my dad and my brother, and it was such a major influence on my life it kind of decided what I did for a living and who I married…

I miss bonkers British games – nowadays it’s all, “Oooh, you’re a space marine, you have to save the universe”, or “Ooooh, you’re a marine, you have to save America”… when all I want to be is a retired filthy rich miner with a hangover who’s being forced to clean up his house before he can go to bed. 🙁

Except your housekeeper won’t let you. Should’ve sacked the cow.

35899,0.

Cougar, it’s been 30 years. You can let it lie now.

Philbert – Sanxion, music by the genius Rob Hubbard.

ah remember the tape deck?

Nope. I had a Vic 1541 disk drive which meant I only had to wait about 10 minutes.

10 PRINT SC-XC
20 GOTO 10;

SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC SC-XC…

Mrs Toast – Yes, I stopped with games when I realised they were all really dark (to hide the graphics limitations of the machines?) and I couldn’t tell what was going on. This may just be old age though.

The games industry is bigger than movies (or was it music?) now though, so you’d think they’d have come up with more formats and plots for games instead of less!

At least there’s Angry Birds.

Cougar, it’s been 30 years. You can let it lie now.

(-:

I wonder if in 30 years, 40-somethings will be hanging around in whatever passes for the Internet by then, going “NO UR GHEY, TEH IPHONE WZ GR8EST!!”

Plus ca change.

C64 rocked! I spent hours gaming on mine in my school days.
It was amazing how games programmers stretched the capabilities of this machine as time went on.

10 PRINT SC-XC
20 GOTO 10;

No. That would print:

SC-XC
SC-XC
SC-XC
SC-XC
…

You need a semi-colon after the PRINT statement (which you’ve erroneously stuck on the second line), and “SC-XC ” needs to be in quotes (with a trailing space, or you’ll get SC-XCSC-XCSC-XCSC-XCSC-XC instead).

Chapaking – I’m still a keen gamer, but I do miss some of the colourful silliness and bonkers concepts. It’s nothing to do with the hardware, it’s just about style and what’s in fashion. The problem is that games on the home consoles now cost so much to make that publishers don’t want to take risks – the mid-budget titles have pretty much died out completely, so it’s either AAA (your Call of Duty types) or low budget (kids franchise tie-ins).

Bayonetta was fairly big budget for example, and critically acclaimed, but it was just too ‘Japanese’ to sell well in the West. People couldn’t get their head around a witch who uses her hair as a weapon, has guns on her feet and smashes up monsters to a J-Pop version of ‘Fly Me to the Moon’. Brutal Legend nearly didn’t get made because Activision wanted to change the theme from heavy metal to hip-hop, and despite the fact you could ride around in a car that was pimped by Ozzy Osbourne and call a giant burning zeppelin out of the sky to crush your enemies (including Tim Curry), it didn’t sell very well. 🙁 Sadly, brown and grey shooters do sell well.

There’s still lots of original stuff out there though, especially in the indie market. I donated towards this!

I had a zx spectrum 128k +, I got it for chrimbo, I found out father Christmas didn’t exist but I wasn’t really bothered cos I got to play Rookie with the light gun!! Although my favourites where the Dizzy games!

Although my favourites where the Dizzy games!

I work for the Oliver Twins, there’s a display cabinet on the second floor that has a section dedicated to Dizzy, with a ZX Spectrum, all of the games, and models of the Yolk Folk. 😀

Now you’ve started something, eBay here I come! 😆

Wow, thirty years. I used to sell them on my Saturday job when I was in sixth form. Spectrums, Vic 20, Atari400, C64, Colecovision?(with Donkey Kong included!), TI console and a bunch of handhelds. The other half of the department was bikes, which basically meant Raleigh Burners, nothing else sold. This was Uptons in Middlesbrough, now occupied by Psyche. Was talking old crap tech with friends last night, one has a really bad Research Machines 380Z problem with half a dozen of the things in his loft, my ZX81 and Atari400 don’t seem so weird now.

This was Uptons in Middlesbrough, now occupied by Psyche

my Nanna’s favourite shop, she was distraught when it closed.

a really bad Research Machines 380Z

Circa the mid 80s, that’s what passed for a computer network at my school. We had half a dozen 380z’s linked up to an 80s “NAS” – a dual 5.25″ (I think, maybe 8″ even) floppy drive.

Six kids all trying to load the same data at the same, you can about imagine how fast it wasn’t. Took at least half the lesson to load anything.

MLC – that tickled me “a really bad RM380Z problem.” Ho ho.

I used to spend hours in Laskey’s on Market Street in Manchester. ONce we’d had our fill of the ever so smooooooth and slow tape eject on the higher end audio, we’d head downstairs to bother the computers.

I used to move around them like a bee on a flower bed.

TI99/a, Jupiter Ace, the “portable” Osborne 01 (like a cool box with a 4″ screen), Apple IIe, Dragon 32, Camputers Lynx, TRS80, Newbrain, Husky, Commodore PET, Oric Atmos……oh happy days.

TI99/a

TI99/4a.

Sorry, I’ve got my pedant’s hat on today. I’ll leave you all alone now though, I’m going out. (-;

Paradroid

Days of my young life spent on this.

ONce we’d had our fill of the ever so smooooooth and slow tape eject on the higher end audio

oo I miss that!

//wanders off to find an old tape deck 😉

Dragon 32

also 30 apparently

http://www.reghardware.com/2012/08/01/the_dragon_32_is_30_years_old/

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-19055707

Buggy Boy! \o/

Although I played it on the Amiga…

Turrican, Last Ninja, Creatures, Golden Axe, Batman, Desert Strike and Sensible Soccer days!

Had a Speccy, C64 and an Amiga.
Then PS 1+2 and Xbox but haven’t had the time to play.

Emulators?

As is usual in C64 threads, I’ll just leave these here:
http://www.c64.com – loads of games to download
http://www.ccs64.com – emulator to play them on

sighs happily as he remembers his uni days on a Computer Science degree whilst using a Commodore Pet…………… as well as Algol68, George3, pipe, slippers,

my god 30 years old!

i was a spectrum boy myself, then amiga….

still cant beat the game play of the old skool stuff.

if you want a laugh, install MAME on your PC,mental!

have a PS3 now the only thing that has got me hooked is zombies on COD

I still have an Amstrad CPC464 with colour screen and it still works!!!

I work for the Oliver Twins, there’s a display cabinet on the second floor that has a section dedicated to Dizzy, with a ZX Spectrum, all of the games, and models of the Yolk Folk.

Sorry.. just saw this.

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TELL THEM TO DO A DIZZY REMASTER ON THE IPAD!

It’s worked incredibly well for loads of old games (Pirates, Monkey Island, Civilisation, Settlers etc)

If they don’t do it then I will (except for copyright reasons it will be called Dozy and feature a rugby ball character instead of an egg 😉 )

FOR THE LOVE OF GOD TELL THEM TO DO A DIZZY REMASTER ON THE IPAD!

Dizzy Prince of the Yolkfolk was released on iPad last year. 😉

Dizzy Prince of the Yolkfolk was released on iPad last year.

OMG Why wasn’t I told! That’s tonight sorted. 😀

Can we have Treasure Island Dizzy next?

The 64s are interesting: 64k 30 years ago, 64 bit ~10 years ago, 64 cores ~5 years in the future?

Also, my computer as a kid (~22 years ago): 64k = 2^16 bytes; current computer: 6*24G = 2^37.

2^21 improvement since I was playing dizzy!