"And you can play silly games on them..."

"And you can play silly games on them..."

Given the sheer amount of money associated with the computer gaming industry, it's a little ironic how dismissive Mac is of games in general when the subject comes up on 'The Computer Programme'.

Chris loads up a copy of 'the old wall game' on the BBC Micro and it's not long before Mac starts using words like 'degrading'. Even at the time, I thought this was a bit rude, considering that number of magazines on the market that either concentrated on or ran features on games.

The 1981 episodes of '3-2-1' had already made use of a 'Breakout' variant, of course, and the ZX81 provided me with a window on what could be done in your own home, but it was only when I got hold of a ZX Spectrum that I felt I was really taking games a bit more seriously.

It's recently been announded that Rick Dickinson, designer of the core Sinclair machines, has passed away, and that news has prompted me to look some old stuff up on YouTube.

Stuart Ashens covers the history of home computers in more depth than I would ever dare, and his videos have jogged my memory about such long-forgotten beasts as the Dragon 32, one of very few micros that were made in Wales. These were almost as rare as real dragons, at least in my neck of the woods.

'Thorin sits down and starts singing about gold' is a phrase that is etched into the mind of anyone who plaed 'The Hobbit' - the version I got even came with a copy of the book! As adventure games go, this way pretty frustrating, especially when Gandalf would simply tell you to hurry up. You're the one with the magic, matey, why don't you do something to help?

There's a bit of gameplay of 'Atic Atac' knocking about and the thing that really came flooding back was the roast chicken that slowly turned into bones as your health ebbed away.

'Manic Miner' led to the even odder 'Jet Set Willy', but 'Lunar Jetman' (the sequel to 'Jetpac') is perhaps less well-remembered. I spent ages on it as this was one of the few games you could get that made use of the Currah Microspeech add-on. It was pretty mindblowing to have your computer telling you 'MISS-ILE FI-ERD!!" when the missile was fired. It was more annoying when it simply said 'OH NO!' when you died again.

Inevitably, we all had games that seem a lot less thrilling in hindsight. The time-consuming activity of moving a load of armoured units about on the rather bland map of 'Stonkers' doesn't really bear comparison with anything you'd play today, but this was where all this stuff started, after all!

And I really hope Warren and Lisa will be able to provide some personal memories in this vein, when we finally get around to doing 'The Computer Programme'.

Sorry, Mac, we're still playing computer games over 35 years later!

(By Andrew Trowbridge)