First computer you used to play games

The first I played a game on was a TRS-80 in elementary school. The first I owned that I played games on was an IBM PC Jr

Originally Posted by pibbur
A programmer had moved to the US with his family. One day his little girl was out playing, when one of the boys got angry with her and yelled at her: "Go to hell". The girl came running, screaming, into their house. "Daddy, he said the ugly word. He said GOTO!!"

Maybe an oldie, but I still like it. A modern version would be something non OO or non functional?

1000+ rows long code consisting of nothing but multiple inner if-else-switch-cases. Everytime I see one it makes me want to kill myself. Especially if it includes copy-paste code and gotos too.

The first computer i ever used (at school) was a CP/M machine called "Juku" (a VERY limited CP/M machine actually). It was somewhere around 1990 or so. These machines were designed and made in soviet union (my country was part of this monstrosity at the time). It wasn't until 1992-1993 or so until our school got our first "real" computers ( a couple of 486 sx macines with 8 mb of RAM). The first computer i bought for myself was a 66 mhz 486 DX2 with a whopping 32 mb of RAM. By 1995 or so when i got it, it was a bit outdated, but still lasted me a couple of years.

Originally Posted by tolknaz
The first computer i bought for myself was a 66 mhz 486 DX2 with a whopping 32 mb of RAM. By 1995 or so when i got it, it was a bit outdated, but still lasted me a couple of years.

That was a lot of RAM for back then. My first modern system was a 486 with 4mb Ram that I got in 1994. I remember paying over $100 to ugrade it to 8mb in 1996 so I could play Quake in Windows.

I didn't know it could even address that much RAM…

Originally Posted by JDR13
That was a lot of RAM for back then.

Yes it was. What's more, all this RAM was only in one 72-pin SIMM module. Anyway, 32 mb was a whole lot at the time, especially for a 486. My next machine a few years later was a pentium 166 mmx, that had the same amount initially

Games like Commander Keen REQUIRED ALL of the 640 KB RAM … BUT in foreign (read : non-English-languiage machines) this was not possible without throwing ALL country-specific device drivers out …

This was the time with the hunt & race for the smallest country-specific keyboard driver possible … I guess you didn't have this problem. This was the high time for RAM managing programs like QEMM etc. … Because no-one really wanted to type in DOS on a country-specific keyboard with English letters … For example the German letter "ß", which we call a "sharp s" is unknown to English keyboards - like ä ö ü as well - and thus not available within English-language keybard drivers …

So, if a German for example wanted to write a sentence with one or more of these "special letters" (Spanish, French an Danish languiages for example have their own specialities), one had to type

ae = ä
oe = ö
ue = ü
ss = ß

which looked somewhat weiord and was a clear indicator of someone writing without a country-specific keyboard driver.

Plus, the keyboard hs different layouts. The \ sign, for example, can be accessed on a German keyboard only by pressing AltGr and ß at the same time.
The ? can be accessed only by pressing shift and ß …

And now imagine some moron hardcoding the \ key of the English-language keyboard layout …

If you wanna take a look at this mess, then please visit this page : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout

There, just take a look at the differences … For example between Belgian (as I learned at Larian) and English keyboard layouts …

Belgian : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#Belgian
German : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboar…Switzerland.29

And you had to be aware of the different English-language keyboard layout when you wanted to play Commander Keen, for example !

Quit yer damn whinin' and learn ya some English on proper American keyboards! Simple. Damn fer-ners. Uppity Euros think they're too damn good for 26 letters. Dem crazy languages jus a bunch a grunts n howls anyways--don't know why you'd need extra letters jus fer that gibberish. *spit* *clang*

On a serious note, I do remember fighting non-stop with MOM because it demanded 589k free RAM and I just couldn't get that much clear on my rig no matter how I set up the autoexec.bat and config.sys (IIRC, I had a memory expander that took me from the 640kB base to 1MB, but it reserved some space in the base to serve as the swap point and that, along with a required driver or two, capped me at 584k free).

Apparenbtly it's back: The brand new Commodore 64

I started with a gift from santa as a 4 year old. Apple IIe! I played loderunner and conan and karataka.

BUT

Things didn't really get rolling until I got an Amiga 1000 around 1988. I got well into games then. Bought magazines with coversdisk demos, etc. Internet killed my mag reading, but I have so many old Amiga mags you wouldn't believe. must be 300+

My first RPG was The Faery Tale Adventure. Never did finish it, but I found the golden swan.

My first "hardcore" rpg was Curse of the Azure Bonds which I clocked with the aid of the Hint Book. Which in no way made the feat any less fun, in my mind.

Then I went on to clock Champions of krynn and import my party to deathknights! SirJames was my human knight.

I played just about every ADND game on amiga, then around the time Doom came out all the best games were on 486s. By the time I played Mechwarrior 2 I finally gave up my rabid Amiga fanboyism and convinced my parents to buy a pentium 120!

Anyways, what is this, my life story? Ill let you and I get on with other things, shall I? xD

Or do you want to hear about my first videocard?! Voodoo2! Have you even SEEN quake2 running in glide?! :þ

TL;DR
apple IIe - 1st computer
Amiga 1000 - 1st RPG (curse of azure bonds)

Originally Posted by SirJames
Or do you want to hear about my first videocard?! Voodoo2!

The Voodoo 2 was the first 3D card for me as well. I had the Diamond Monster 3D II.

My first 3d card was a rendition verite. It was the only card that could run Nascar Racing in all its accelerated glory.

I still have my first 3d video card (also a voodoo) somewhere in the stack of old computer cards up on my shelf. I really ought to go through them one of these days.

Originally Posted by BillSeurer
I still have my first 3d video card (also a voodoo) somewhere in the stack of old computer cards up on my shelf. I really ought to go through them one of these days.

Don't. Let your heirs try to figure it out. It's only fair that they work a little for all the money you leave them.

Originally Posted by SirJames
Or do you want to hear about my first videocard?! Voodoo2! Have you even SEEN quake2 running in glide?! :þ

If we talk 3dfx, I still remember my dear Matrox Mystique with the Voodoo1 riding piggyback. I even cut out the Joker from the cardboard box that held the Mystique and glued it onto a file folder (still have that, by the way). That was around the first Quake I think.
My first piggyback rider, however, was a Yamaha soundboard. It made RotT and Duke 3D sound better as long as it didn't crash. Then sounds got stuck which rather… eh… mysterious effects.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
Plus, the keyboard hs different layouts. The \ sign, for example, can be accessed on a German keyboard only by pressing AltGr and ß at the same time.
The ? can be accessed only by pressing shift and ß …

And now imagine some moron hardcoding the \ key of the English-language keyboard layout …

This reminds me of the first time I had to log into one of the QA machines to investigate a localization issue at a former company. The machine was running German Windows with German Keyboard and I was unable to actually login to the machine with my account because I could not type my password which used several symbols that were not obviously available on the German keyboard. I think I ended up changing my password temporarily to get in though there was probably some special keycombo that could have made it work.

I'm impressed that Commander Keen even got to Germany! That was back in the bulliten board & CompuServe days, right?

Mine was a Commodore 64.

After that I remember getting a Tandy, think it was in 1985 or 86. It had an 8 mhz processor, floppy drive and a 16 color monitor.

But my best memories were from sometime around 1989 when I upgraded that to a 286 (16 mhz now, woot!) and an Adlib card - I think it was one of the first, if not THE first soundcard.

Shortly after I was playing the awesome SSI D & D gold box games Lucasarts' "Loom" (wonder why they never made a sequel, it had an interesting premise) and a bunch of Infocom text adventures! Oh and the original Prince Of Persia which was freakin amazing back then!

Man, those were the days!

My first video card was the Radeon 7500, in 2002 I think.

Not a good gaming card but I hadn't had a PC since 1994 when my PC broke (around the same time I was playing in several bands so no time for gaming until I got back into consoles a couple of years later!) so no idea what was good.

Shortly after I got the Radeon 9800Pro which was a huge improvement! I think Morrowind was what drove me to upgrade. Damn, that reminds me I shelled out $300 for the Gefore7800 GS (plus $100 for a new power supply) when Oblivion came out!

First computer was a Commodore 64. I actually had a game that my grandfather programmed for me, in order to teach me how to handle computers. This computer lasted as the only system until about '91, when my grandparents moved back from OK. They gave us a rip-roaring 386, with a mighty 640k of RAM, and a 45mb HDD that only had about 25mb left after the bad sectors.

Afterwards came a E Machine running Win95, which died within a week. At this point, Win98 had just come out, so we moved upscale to a compaq with that. AMD K6-2 processor, don't recall the RAM or anything else. It was followed by a HP that we eventually upgraded with a Voodoo 2 card, Soundblaster, and some more RAM.

Now I have a quad core 3.2ghz with 8gb of RAM. Compared to 2 decades ago, this is amazing.

First console was a NES technically. We had an Intellivision, but I don't recall much of that. I've been more a Nintendo fan since, though I do have a soft spot for SEGA consoles.

First computer game was actually The Bard's Tale: Tales of the Unknown. My grandfather introduced me to RPGs at the early age of 3. First console game was Super Mario Brothers or the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (when we got the NES, TMNT was the only game besides SMB/DH that we had).

First game ever beaten was Mega Man 3, while the first RPG I ever beat was Champions of Krynn.

I still have my Commodore, my NES, and even the Intellivision. Commodore games no longer work, since the disks are long gone, but the consoles are still playable.

I also want the new Commodore; I just wonder if the games are included or what. I'd probably just install Ubuntu, and keep my current system for Windows, but then I may go triple boot, and have at least my older Win games on it. That'd be fun, and hilarious. Not sure I care for the keyboard case though, those things were a pain back in the day.