From the Wayback Machine

One of my first experiences with the computer came with the TRS-80 Color Computer 2. Yes, the TRaSh-80, in all it's plug into the back of the TV and save data on audio cassette glory. Nowadays of course it is little more than a footnote in the history of computing, something we sneer at in derision, but back then I couldn't get enough of that beast. I would mess around with it for hours, writing simple Basic programs and playing the few games that were available on it at the time. I owe that system a lot, as it was my first foray into the world of Rogue, which really blew me away and ate up hours and hours of my time. Another game I really enjoyed on that system was a cartridge-based game, Dungeons of Daggorath. It was this exposure that fostered my love of RPGs that persists to this day.

The TRS-80 was also my introduction to text-based adventure games. I spent more time trying to get through games like Pyramid, Raaka Tu, Bedlam and Madness and the Minotaur than I'd like to remember. Back then I had a great imagination (I'd like to think I still have it, no matter how hard real life tries to beat it out of me), and games like this lent themselves to visualizing what was happening in your mind. Entering a command and waiting for the result created tension, and when a command would inevitably send me to my doom, I cheerfully loaded it up and tried again. Pencil and paper helped me try to beat the ingenious situations, but alas it was not to be, because my developing 8 or 9 year old mind never led me to the victory circle in any of these games (maybe it was because I had the attention span of a fruit fly, but whatever).

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I got to thinking about those games and how much fun I had with them back in the day. A little bit of snooping around on the interwebs netted me Figment Fly, a site dedicated to the exact games I grew up with, and a few others. What a blast of nostalgia, looking through the old box art, reading the manuals, and poking around the walkthroughs. It was fun, and a bit gratifying, to find that someone else felt as strongly (more so, obviously, since the went through the trouble of putting together a web site) as I did about these games from the past.

If anyone from this era who remembers these games, or even had an experience with the TRS-80, I recommend checking these out. For a real blast of nostalgia, check out this link, which brings you to an emulator designed to recreate the experience.

Well, there's my first real foray into content for the new blog. It's not extensive or wildy thought provoking, but considering how tired I am (damn reality getting in the way of fun as usual), I'm happy this little tidbit found its way out of my fingers into the blog. Leave a comment if you remember this stuff, or have any feedback on the post. I hope to brain-dump more of this stuff here, as a way to find out if others have similar memories or experiences. Hope you got a kick out of this and will check back as the blog takes shape.