Remember Amstrad 64...
My first purchase was a cassette tape with a program for word processing. I believed it was on a C15 tape. You can hear the binary codes spewing zeroes and ones when it was loading!
My first word processor was Wordstar - I think. I couldn't memorise all the control key, so I had these enlarged and pasted on a wall. I was typing theses for a living then whilst employed as a house husband and father to my first born!
I read up a bit on Basic, got some magazines as references and modified a simple atari (was it?) game. You fly an aeroplane and shoot down the buildings before you land or crash into them. The sound? What sound. It was tough enough to write the game and you asked for sound? Looking for errors was like looking for a diamond in a bucket full of silica. Picture perfect - I guess, since you have all the colours of the tv but you limited yourself to your prowess as a wannabe programmer!
Then came the Discs not long after, with an upgrade to Amstrad CPC464. These were small compact disc players spinning (Was it?) 2.5 inches discs. Smaller in diameter then the current DVD. No more whirring sounds...it takes minutes rather than hours to load programs. Why bother then for I had use for only one - the word processor!
There were bundled games that came with the CPC464 and a colour monitor to boot. What was the resolution? It was a dedicated colour monitor, so who cares. Mouse? Unheard off at that time.
Anyway, back to the games - none sticks out. Guess I was busy finishing off the theses.
Next was 8088. Most memorable were Wordstar, dB and "dig dug". Icons? What? Black and white or green and white were the colours. Format was 5.25 inches. Sound came from the small speaker in the desktop. Rudimentary at best. But I was totally hooked on "dig dug" (you dig tunnels and let it cave in on "monsters")...from dawn to dusk, at times.
8086 came with colour monitors for me. For my workhorse, a two colour screen laptop from Total Peripherals - there were no batteries for it. Dig Dug and Outpost (build a colony on the moon - paid RM50 from Sogo on its opening day for an original) sticks to mind. Wordstar and dB2 were my favourites. Lotus123 was for the spreadsheet.
Other DOS games? None were memorable enough for me. It was during this era that I dabbled in networking - for the office - to share printers mostly. Dabbling with chkdir, chkdis, dir...in DOS
Was it during 80286 when we had the MSOffice? Gone were wordstar, dB4 and Lotus 123. MS Project, MS Access...were my add-ons.
Wasn't it that time when we had peer-to-peer networking? I had 4 desktops connected at home to play games. My one and only favourite was Command and Conquer - solo or multiplayer mode. I had every new add-ons. The advent of pirated CDs helped a lot. Collections of DOS Games numbered in the hundreds collecting dusts now.
Too many that I didn't have a favourite game? In addition to those from Microsoft, I concentrated on Adobe's stable of software especially Acrobat, and simple 3D software (for me to build simple homes with interior design elements and 3D simulated movies)
I kept upgrading desktops and laptops. With it were, the must have, Windows and MS Office (95, 97, 2003, 2007...) up to 2007. No more CD games cos the internet games are plentiful - so says my kids. X-boxes, PS2s...are much, much better. Gone are DOS (or is it? Only the geeks knows where they reside)
But...and a big but at that...I have NEVER ever had or used anything from the late Steve Jobs.
17 Oct 2010 845pm JB
(Ps. This piece is mundane, boring, lack everything...)
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