Location: On my way from misery to happiness today
Thursday, September 14th, 2006 - 8:30pm
I've enjoyed videogames ever since I was around 6 years old or so, so that's going back to 1983-ish, when I played with my grandmother's Atari 2600. I can vividly remember playing 'Combat' many Sundays over with my cousins. That's really my first memory of what a great pass-time this hobby could be.
After that, my cousin got a Commodore 64, and needless to say I was constantly over at her place to play with that thing!
Dad worked for Sperry Marine so my first PC (families first) was an early 8088, first console was an Atari 5200. So I guess (due to a little research) that puts it at around 25 years? Seems like a big number since I turn 31 tommorw, but I wouldnt be suprised if that was the case.
First game I remember is Breakout for Atari 2600. Been hooked ever since. Had a brief affair with Magic that put my gaming on pause, but I always come back.
Somewhere on a deep ocean vent no man has ever seen, God smites a small colony of tube worms because you masturbate.-JoeBedurndurn, on sin
Been playing since the age of 3 on my Commodore 64. Man, those were the days.
So, that'd be 21 for me.
In Ultima Online I used to poison hams and leave them on the ground in cities for people to pick up and eat. I can't believe how many people thought street ham was a good thing to eat. -Elliottx
I'm 31, almost 32. I played Combat on the Atari 2600 with my father incessantly at age 6 or 7. I always made him be the "bomber" and I'd be the 3 tri-planes. So unfair. Of course he let me do it every time.
So, at least 24 years. Yikes.
After Combat I got into Adventure, and ... ok laugh but I was a kid ... E.T. and Indiana Jones. Yes I f'ing liked E.T. as a kid.
As the spiral continued downward ... I vividly remember when my cousin (actually my father's younger cousin, so, 2nd cousin) was stuck babysitting me. He fed me quarters to play Asteroids in Grand Haven, Michigan at an ice cream shop on the channel.
It was my first "arcade" game. I've never been the same since.
Holy crap ... I've just gotten such a swarm of nostalgia I'm seriously about to cry.
The first game I remember playing was Duck Hunt/Super Mario Brothers approximately 18 years ago. Though I'm not sure if I would have called myself a gamer back then, maybe casual gamer. My parents wouldn't buy video games for me so I had to go to a friends house to play. There was a period from about 8th to 10th grade where I was more interested in drugs and alcohol, then I met zero and he pulled me back into the sweet sweet world of video games again. Good times.
My earliest memory is back from when I was around 4 or 5 years old and it involves gaming, so I guess about 28 years for me. I don't even know what the name of the gaming system was as this was about 1978 so it was pre-Atari (barely). The graphics were so limited that the system came with these big plastic static sticky things that you stuck on the screen. So to play the spooky haunted house game you slapped on the "map" of the haunted house on the screen and all the game system produced where your character and the little ghosts that chased you around. You had to get that static thing lined up right on the screen too or the paths didn't match up right. The haunted house game is the only one I vividly remember, but I'm pretty sure there were other games. You just stuck on the plastic static "map" on the screen for whichever game you were going to play.
After that is was the Atari.. and then Intellivision.. Intellivision II.. then a Commodore 64.. upgrade to a Commodore 128D.. Nintendo.. Super Nintendo.. DreamCast.. and then finally a PC. Along with the PC I've also had a Playstation, Playstation 2, and an Xbox but I've never really been a console gamer since I got into PCs. It just doesn't have the same level of interaction and complexity.
-edit-
Holy crap! I've thought about that old gaming system from time to time and have tried to find out more about it but could never find anything on it. This thread renewed my interest and I guess I finally put the right search words together as I think I've found it. I present to you the Magnavox Odyssey. This thing came out in '72-74 so my parents must have got this around the time I was born.
I'm disappointed not to see the haunted house overlay as that was the only one I remembered on my own, but as soon as I saw the one on the left with the black squiggily line the memories all came rushing back to me. I guess the haunted house one was something that came out after or was sold separately.
-edit 2-
I found it! Woo! First one. Man, I can smell the rubbery plastic.. or the nostalgia.. something.
Mr T broke the speed of light in the A-Team van because he wanted to prove that quantum physics was a bunch of Jibba Jabba.
I had an Atari 2600 knockoff known as the "Sears Entertainment System" since I was about 6 years old, which means roughly 1981. I remember my dad getting us about 4 or 5 new games every year for Christmas. Nothing was better than sitting my mom, dad, and brother and all playing 4-player "Warlords" with the paddle controllers. Oh, and "Fishing Derby" and "Atlantis" and so many others. Damn those were good times.
Of course, the NES totally ruled my world (along with the Sega Master System and Game Gear) but then I got out of gaming while I was in high school and college so I missed the whole Genesis/SNES generation on account of school sports and friends. Bought a PSone right after graduating college and have been gaming steadily since 1997.
So, I've been a gamer for 25 years, however there was a solid 7 year hiatus in there. But I make up for it by being a "professional gamer" for the past 6 years.
I won't admit years, but it's been a long, long time. I played some space-type shooter on a pentagon mainframe. I was about 5, and I'm guessing my father had no idea what to do with me during a meeting or something, I dunno. I wrote my first "choose your own" text adventure game on punchcards in 6th grade as a girls scout merit badge project. My dad wrote a bunch of games for me for a computer that he built long before the AppleII hit the market...he may have written the operating system too, but I was so young, I don't really remember, and a ton of early rev. console type systems that used the TV as a monitor...something from TI that had a crocodile jumping game, and of course an Atari, a Commodore 64, plus the Apple series, then PCs as Mac weren't really gaming boxes. I bought one of the first Sega Genesis machines, and didn't buy another gaming console until the Duck brought home a PS2.
Vega wrote:
You just stuck on the plastic static "map" on the screen for whichever game you were going to play.
Oh man, I had completely forgotten about those! Those were *so* cool.
*Legion* wrote:
Poor be the man who has not learned from watching Looney Tunes that if you make the wick too long, the target will extinguish it before it blows. Meep meep.
Uh, I think in '92. It's really hard to know for sure because I was so young, and the NES was on the market churning out new games for a very long time. The first game I owned was SMB/Duck Hunt/Track and Field trio. Man the pad for the Track and Field game was horrible..
Yet even then we ran like the wind,
whilst our laughter echoed under cerulean skies...
Man the pad for the Track and Field game was horrible..
I can't even tell you how many joysticks I broke playing Track and Field and the many many many Olympic related games that came out for the C-64 back in the day (my favorite being the Caveman Olympics). Almost every event involved shaking the stick back and forth as fast as you could and then hitting some combination of buttons to jump or whatever. My parents eventually stopped buying me those games because apparently the joysticks were kind of expensive. My 2 main memories from the C-64 days were LOAD "*",8,1 and the second memory was being bummed when I realized I had forgotten to rewind the tape cassette from the previous playing.. man, that thing was slow.
Mr T broke the speed of light in the A-Team van because he wanted to prove that quantum physics was a bunch of Jibba Jabba.
Man the pad for the Track and Field game was horrible..
I can't even tell you how many joysticks I broke playing Track and Field and the many many many Olympic related games that came out for the C-64 back in the day (my favorite being the Caveman Olympics). Almost every event involved shaking the stick back and forth as fast as you could and then hitting some combination of buttons to jump or whatever. My parents eventually stopped buying me those games because apparently the joysticks were kind of expensive. My 2 main memories from the C-64 days were LOAD "*",8,1 and the second memory was being bummed when I realized I had forgotten to rewind the tape cassette from the previous playing.. man, that thing was slow.
Ha, I feel young reading that since I have no idea what you are talking about. Rewind video games? The madness.
Yet even then we ran like the wind,
whilst our laughter echoed under cerulean skies...
Location: Go that way for many moons, then hang a left
Thursday, September 14th, 2006 - 10:31pm
My parents picked up a 2600 for Christmas 1980, if I recall correctly. So I would have been 5 years old at that point, so I guess I have been gaming for 27 years now. Jesus. I actually have that 2600 in a box in the garage. Ah, all those summer days whiled away playing Cosmic Ark and Combat.
I still have my Pong. Had several Atari's including a 400 and 800. With Tape deck backups. used to code games for them in basic. 30 years at least and going strong.
as a note. I know two Five year olds in my Wow Guild. On a PVP server. They can't read but they get HKs while wandering around questing. Think how bad that is, getting owned by an illiterate 5 year old.
I've played video games ever since I was a little girl, when my grandfather (and then, later, my older stepbrothers) and I--not to mention my army of stuffed animals--would game it up in the basements of various houses.
But I didn't become a 'hardcore gamer' until I was given a first gen PS2 by my uncle, who, upon the arrival of his first daughter, figured he wouldn't have time for gaming anymore. So in the scheme of things, I've only been really knee-deep in gaming for a couple of years. But I've always followed it casually, here and there.
"Today's Tom Sawyer, he gets high on you, Kat. You." - Haakon7
I've enjoyed videogames ever since I was around 6 years old or so, so that's going back to 1983-ish, when I played with my grandmother's Atari 2600. I can vividly remember playing 'Combat' many Sundays over with my cousins. That's really my first memory of what a great pass-time this hobby could be.
After that, my cousin got a Commodore 64, and needless to say I was constantly over at her place to play with that thing!
Cerebri Music - Play. Rewind. Repeat.
Twitter | Xbox Live: dhaelis | PSN: dhaelis
Not consistently, but for 24 years. Perhaps a bit longer.
HatchetJob.com - a netcast about more than videogames.
Since Space Invaders which was released in 1978. So, 28 years for me.
"I think Elysium has the right of it" - Certis
Hours nothing, I wish somewhere someone was keeping tabs on how many Nazi's I've put down.
Danjo Olivaw Lives
And at what age did you have a beard? I'm guessing at about 4.
HatchetJob.com - a netcast about more than videogames.
Dad worked for Sperry Marine so my first PC (families first) was an early 8088, first console was an Atari 5200. So I guess (due to a little research) that puts it at around 25 years? Seems like a big number since I turn 31 tommorw, but I wouldnt be suprised if that was the case.
Warrior Asherr
Hunter Ghorin
First game I remember is Breakout for Atari 2600. Been hooked ever since. Had a brief affair with Magic that put my gaming on pause, but I always come back.
Somewhere on a deep ocean vent no man has ever seen, God smites a small colony of tube worms because you masturbate.-JoeBedurndurn, on sin
Been playing since the age of 3 on my Commodore 64. Man, those were the days.
So, that'd be 21 for me.
In Ultima Online I used to poison hams and leave them on the ground in cities for people to pick up and eat. I can't believe how many people thought street ham was a good thing to eat. -Elliottx
I'm 31, almost 32. I played Combat on the Atari 2600 with my father incessantly at age 6 or 7. I always made him be the "bomber" and I'd be the 3 tri-planes. So unfair. Of course he let me do it every time.
So, at least 24 years. Yikes.
After Combat I got into Adventure, and ... ok laugh but I was a kid ... E.T. and Indiana Jones. Yes I f'ing liked E.T. as a kid.
As the spiral continued downward ... I vividly remember when my cousin (actually my father's younger cousin, so, 2nd cousin) was stuck babysitting me. He fed me quarters to play Asteroids in Grand Haven, Michigan at an ice cream shop on the channel.
It was my first "arcade" game. I've never been the same since.
Holy crap ... I've just gotten such a swarm of nostalgia I'm seriously about to cry.
Farthest back I can recall is SMB on the NES. So, about 20 years, give or take.
Sometimes, if you wanna save the world, you have to push a few old ladies down the stairs.
-Bernard
20-ish years. I think it was Karateka on an Apple IIe.
JUST PUZZLED YOUR ASS UP, SON! -Mr Crinkle
The first game I remember playing was Duck Hunt/Super Mario Brothers approximately 18 years ago. Though I'm not sure if I would have called myself a gamer back then, maybe casual gamer. My parents wouldn't buy video games for me so I had to go to a friends house to play. There was a period from about 8th to 10th grade where I was more interested in drugs and alcohol, then I met zero and he pulled me back into the sweet sweet world of video games again. Good times.
The darkness comes and the darkness goes
Last.fm
My earliest memory is back from when I was around 4 or 5 years old and it involves gaming, so I guess about 28 years for me. I don't even know what the name of the gaming system was as this was about 1978 so it was pre-Atari (barely). The graphics were so limited that the system came with these big plastic static sticky things that you stuck on the screen. So to play the spooky haunted house game you slapped on the "map" of the haunted house on the screen and all the game system produced where your character and the little ghosts that chased you around. You had to get that static thing lined up right on the screen too or the paths didn't match up right. The haunted house game is the only one I vividly remember, but I'm pretty sure there were other games. You just stuck on the plastic static "map" on the screen for whichever game you were going to play.
After that is was the Atari.. and then Intellivision.. Intellivision II.. then a Commodore 64.. upgrade to a Commodore 128D.. Nintendo.. Super Nintendo.. DreamCast.. and then finally a PC. Along with the PC I've also had a Playstation, Playstation 2, and an Xbox but I've never really been a console gamer since I got into PCs. It just doesn't have the same level of interaction and complexity.
-edit-
Holy crap! I've thought about that old gaming system from time to time and have tried to find out more about it but could never find anything on it. This thread renewed my interest and I guess I finally put the right search words together as I think I've found it. I present to you the Magnavox Odyssey. This thing came out in '72-74 so my parents must have got this around the time I was born.
I'm disappointed not to see the haunted house overlay as that was the only one I remembered on my own, but as soon as I saw the one on the left with the black squiggily line the memories all came rushing back to me. I guess the haunted house one was something that came out after or was sold separately.
-edit 2-
I found it! Woo! First one. Man, I can smell the rubbery plastic.. or the nostalgia.. something.
Mr T broke the speed of light in the A-Team van because he wanted to prove that quantum physics was a bunch of Jibba Jabba.
I had an Atari 2600 knockoff known as the "Sears Entertainment System" since I was about 6 years old, which means roughly 1981. I remember my dad getting us about 4 or 5 new games every year for Christmas. Nothing was better than sitting my mom, dad, and brother and all playing 4-player "Warlords" with the paddle controllers. Oh, and "Fishing Derby" and "Atlantis" and so many others. Damn those were good times.
Of course, the NES totally ruled my world (along with the Sega Master System and Game Gear) but then I got out of gaming while I was in high school and college so I missed the whole Genesis/SNES generation on account of school sports and friends. Bought a PSone right after graduating college and have been gaming steadily since 1997.
So, I've been a gamer for 25 years, however there was a solid 7 year hiatus in there. But I make up for it by being a "professional gamer" for the past 6 years.
I won't admit years, but it's been a long, long time. I played some space-type shooter on a pentagon mainframe. I was about 5, and I'm guessing my father had no idea what to do with me during a meeting or something, I dunno. I wrote my first "choose your own" text adventure game on punchcards in 6th grade as a girls scout merit badge project. My dad wrote a bunch of games for me for a computer that he built long before the AppleII hit the market...he may have written the operating system too, but I was so young, I don't really remember, and a ton of early rev. console type systems that used the TV as a monitor...something from TI that had a crocodile jumping game, and of course an Atari, a Commodore 64, plus the Apple series, then PCs as Mac weren't really gaming boxes. I bought one of the first Sega Genesis machines, and didn't buy another gaming console until the Duck brought home a PS2.
Oh man, I had completely forgotten about those! Those were *so* cool.
*Legion* wrote:
I think about 17, but in my defense I am younger than all of you. Combined.
Wait...
Letters to the Internet
That could be quite the long number if you started with Wolfenstein 3D and just went up from there.
As for myself, I'm at about 19. Started with a Coleco Vision when I was 5 and haven't stopped since.
XBLive: Thin J
PSN: Thin_J
I don't imagine master craftsmen leaping away from completed projects and shouting "Done, motherf*ckers! - 1Dgaf
Wow, were we ALL about 5 when we started gaming heavily? Is that just a magic age?
Letters to the Internet
Uh, I think in '92. It's really hard to know for sure because I was so young, and the NES was on the market churning out new games for a very long time. The first game I owned was SMB/Duck Hunt/Track and Field trio. Man the pad for the Track and Field game was horrible..
Yet even then we ran like the wind,
whilst our laughter echoed under cerulean skies...
You've earned a lot of street-cred here; I think a long time playing games would only enhance it.
EDITED: Because me trying to be nice sometimes sounds like me being rude.
HatchetJob.com - a netcast about more than videogames.
I can't even tell you how many joysticks I broke playing Track and Field and the many many many Olympic related games that came out for the C-64 back in the day (my favorite being the Caveman Olympics). Almost every event involved shaking the stick back and forth as fast as you could and then hitting some combination of buttons to jump or whatever. My parents eventually stopped buying me those games because apparently the joysticks were kind of expensive. My 2 main memories from the C-64 days were LOAD "*",8,1 and the second memory was being bummed when I realized I had forgotten to rewind the tape cassette from the previous playing.. man, that thing was slow.
Mr T broke the speed of light in the A-Team van because he wanted to prove that quantum physics was a bunch of Jibba Jabba.
Ha, I feel young reading that since I have no idea what you are talking about. Rewind video games? The madness.
Yet even then we ran like the wind,
whilst our laughter echoed under cerulean skies...
I even fell in love with my husband over a game of sim city. He liked my mayorial skills
.
Nah, I was 7. I was born in 1973, and it wasn't till 1980 that I was hooked.
My parents picked up a 2600 for Christmas 1980, if I recall correctly. So I would have been 5 years old at that point, so I guess I have been gaming for 27 years now. Jesus. I actually have that 2600 in a box in the garage. Ah, all those summer days whiled away playing Cosmic Ark and Combat.
Revolution? Vacation? Somebody fart?
I was born in 1981.
In 1982-1983, people at the health club my parents went to would shove quarters into the Pac-Man machine for me to play.
I've yet to stop playing games since.
WII FRIEND CODE: 6936 4764 8384 6058
Gaming / PC Tech Blog: www.blastprocessing.net
Xbox Live: Legion SB / PSN: Legion_SB / Steam: legion028 / Twitter: legion
I had an Amiga...I had three boxes full of pirated games. That is when you know you have a problem.
I also had an atari 800...the lamest atari ever, but I learned to program in basic on it.
My dad won a Pong gaming system as part of a sales prize in 1976. So 30 years for me. Crazy, I didn't even realize I had hit a milestone anniversary.
Xbox Live: JayhawkerGWJ
last.fm: JayhawkerGWJ
I still have my Pong. Had several Atari's including a 400 and 800. With Tape deck backups. used to code games for them in basic. 30 years at least and going strong.
as a note. I know two Five year olds in my Wow Guild. On a PVP server. They can't read but they get HKs while wandering around questing. Think how bad that is, getting owned by an illiterate 5 year old.
I've played video games ever since I was a little girl, when my grandfather (and then, later, my older stepbrothers) and I--not to mention my army of stuffed animals--would game it up in the basements of various houses.
But I didn't become a 'hardcore gamer' until I was given a first gen PS2 by my uncle, who, upon the arrival of his first daughter, figured he wouldn't have time for gaming anymore. So in the scheme of things, I've only been really knee-deep in gaming for a couple of years. But I've always followed it casually, here and there.
"Today's Tom Sawyer, he gets high on you, Kat. You." - Haakon7
My Website v. 3.0