That Brøderbund triple crown never fails to bring me back to the half-underground computer software shop on the Main Street in my town some time in the early 1990s. I would read about upcoming games in PC Magazine, and visit almost daily when a new game came out to see if they had it in stock yet.
Either that shop was pretty casual about staying on the cutting edge, or release dates were fuzzier back then, because it would often be months of agonized visits before the game showed up on shelves. By then, of course, I’d have gotten another PCMag, and my attention had leapt to a different — clearly far more advanced and interesting — game that was “only days” from launch.
Anyway, during one of my Saturday morning visits to the musty-smelling and over-dehumidified shop, I ended up idly browsing through the Borland section and a Turbo C box caught my eye. My dad was incredibly pumped that I was showing an interest in something that could actually be productive and creative, so he bought it for me.
Unfortunately, nine-year-old me did not turn out to be a natural prodigy. My dad’s coding experience stopped somewhere south of FORTRAN (he had juggled some accounting systems for ABC in the early 1980s) so he tried his best but couldn’t really make it click for me.
So Turbo C went back on the shelf. Dark Forces was coming out next month, and I didn’t have time for twiddling with incomprehensible runes when there were stormtroopers to kill.
If it makes you feel any better, I was (am) a game-addicted kid who did indeed pick up Borland C++ and coded a graphical DOS version of hangman alongside my older brother when I was 12, and made a tank game with a map editor solo when I was comfortable with pointers before I was 14 — it hasn't made me a prodigal pioneer of computer programming or a wildly successful silicon valley C[E/T]O. While I do still enjoy coding/gamedev and earn a modest living from it, as a more evenly matured adult I have other interests that I care about just as much and keeps me occupied instead of poring over the latest and greatest in tech or gamedev.
I guess what I'm saying is that being interested enough to become competent at a young age doesn't necessarily equate to becoming an industry-leading savant by age 34...nor is it a prerequisite. If you are passionate today, I bet you could still level up to the forefront of whatever niche you care about with enough commitment.
I tried Turbo C as an 8 year old and got as far as printf hello world and scanf. The pointer stuff seemed obtuse to me (coming from BASIC) and it was strange it didn’t have automatically sized string types (it was char[7] or something). In retrospect I should have gone the Turbo Pascal route as an 8 year old.
When I was around 12 years old I convinced one of my parents to buy a little book about C++ for me. I read the first chapter with great interest and wrote variations of input and output things with pen and paper.
Then I tried to follow the instructions on how to build and run a program on a computer.
I managed to install the IDE they recommended; one called Bloodshed Dev-C++. I managed to type the code for hello world into the IDE, and I managed to compile the program.
It produced an exe file that had a black terminal icon.
I double clicked the exe and it opened and closed very quickly.
It would only be several years later, when I started at the university, that this confusing interaction made sense to me.
At the time I thought I had made some mistake and I didn’t understand what or why.
But what happened of course was that the program started, printed its output and exited, and it all happened so fast that I just saw a window open and quickly close.
Fortunately I did eventually get better introductions to programming. But that first experience was a bit unfortunate heh.
I like turbo pascal and still run its bridge for fun. But I wonder if you go this route would it be a dead end, unlike c. Pascal is very strong that era. Apple use it a lot. Still. Not much pascal these days. For a reason.
I did have IBM's C compiler and a full set of printed manuals. Never clicked for me. I did however get turbo pascal, it was amazing. Compile/edit/run cycles measured in seconds. Online docs/examples, etc.
Ended up reading PC Tech journal, wrote an EGA driver for Turbo pascal, and even a few games. Had some silly mine based game written in Turbo Pascal that showed how many mines were adjacent, with the revolutionary idea that you didn't have to hit enter after every move. It floated around as shareware on BBSs, someone even binary edited it make amusing changes to the text when you died. I allowed mines to cause chain reactions, people were amused that past a certain point increasing mine density made the game easier since the chain reactions got larger.
So funny! I too was nostalgically brought back seeing that logo again - I literally stopped and evaluated it for a good moment, letting memories wash in.
Hey dark forces was my introduction to modern 3D first person shooter level design - I played it before I played quake, before I even played DOOM. I made handfuls of custom levels for it over my childhood years, before moving up to half life / source. Still have a very strong nostalgia for Dark Forces.
> Either that shop was pretty casual about staying on the cutting edge, or release dates were fuzzier back then, because it would often be months of agonized visits before the game showed up on shelves.
I haven't played the original, but Lode Runner: The Legend Returns is one of my favorite games of all time. The later levels can be very challenging and I don't remember ever reaching the final stage but it was an addicting experience. You can download a faithful remake of Legend Returns here: https://mmr.quarkrobot.com/. Highly recommended!
Lode Runner: The Legend Returns is the best version of the game I think, the old one is too pixely (like the classic version on iPhone) and the later 3D ones lose the simplicity of the original.
Agreed, one of my favourites. I also liked the background art, and the animated clips in between some of the different levels, and the CD's Redbook audio soundtrack. It kind of reminds me of the game Creaks.
I also remember it was one of the games that used WinG[0], before DirectX game out.
Lode Runner was the first game to impress me with its play mechanics and its level builder. It was really an elegant little game. I don’t think it would make my all time top 10 today but it would probably make a “top 10 to date of release”.
Oh I stopped paying much attention to games after DOOM so it would be tough. But from the up-to-1983 era, Star Raiders and M.U.L.E. would be all-time greats, not necessarily equalled since.
The original loaded pretty much instantly. Software of that era didn't have minutes long "Loading ... Please Wait" screens for everything.
Also, the original didn't <s>try to data collect</s> ask to enter a name. For some odd reason, it took a while to get past this annoying dialog box on this web game.
On the original, the player would keep running whereas this new game is laborious in that you need to hold down keys to keep moving. The original keyboard layout is:
> The original loaded pretty much instantly. Software of that era didn't have minutes long "Loading ... Please Wait" screens for everything
Huh? Just about everything that didn't come on a cartridge took forever to load, especially on a C64. That's why there were "fast load" extensions. Most games would load once at the beginning, but sometimes you'd "need to insert disk 2" or "flip the disk over" to finish loading.
What was truly impressive is that games like Times of Lore could entirely fit in 64k and only hit the disk when initially loading.
> On the original, the player would keep running whereas this new game is laborious in that you need to hold down keys to keep moving.
The original worked with a joystick, where you'd hold it in the direction to keep running. I'm not sure I ever played the original with the keyboard. You need to be able to stop in loadrunner in order to direct and avoid the movements of the enemies and dig holes in the right spots.
> The original worked with a joystick, where you'd hold it in the direction to keep running. I'm not sure I ever played the original with the keyboard. You need to be able to stop in loadrunner in order to direct and avoid the movements of the enemies and dig holes in the right spots.
I believe you would run endlessly on the Apple II version, because it had a non-centering joystick and it was more nimble of a game that way. You could stop the character with the space bar.
The MS-DOS version had a nice control scheme with the numeric keypad. You character would run endlessly left or right, but the "5" key on the keypad (right in the center of the arrows) would make him stop.
> Huh? Just about everything that didn't come on a cartridge took forever to load, especially on a C64.
Taking a long time to load doesn't mean having a minutes long "Loading ... Please Wait" screen.
Civilization needed a lot of time, on a contemporary computer, to create the map. While doing so, it plays a slideshow with captions:
In the beginning,
the Earth was without form,
and void.
But the Sun shone upon the sleeping Earth
and deep inside the brittle crust
massive forces waited to be unleashed.
This goes on for quite a while, accompanied by appropriately epic music.
How do I even know that this is actually a loading screen? Simple - the animation is not skippable on a low-powered computer. You can try, but the actual skip will only occur later, when the computer is ready for it. On a Windows-95-era computer, you can skip the whole thing; the game will be ready before the slideshow starts.
But just because the game required a loading screen didn't mean the designers thought it would make any sense to punish the player by making them spend minutes staring at a message saying "I bet you feel pretty stupid for buying this game now, huh?". The Civ I intro is famous and well loved. You can watch a youtube video of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtK388b9drE . You can read the entire text on TvTropes, where a fan has posted it as a memorable quote: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Quotes/Civilization . It is the first thing listed on that page.
I remember having a Compaq computer in the 90s (some 486-based all-in-one with a CD drive), and had The Legend Returns. I kinda grew into liking it, but I'm not sure where the disc ended up. I found an ISO of Mad Monks Revenge (an expansion/re-release) on an abandonware site 15+ years ago. Works great on my retro PC.
I remember going quite deep on lode runner’s level editor in school with friends. I think there were a variety of edge cases that (almost like exploits) that allowed our levels to be incredibly complex and harder than any of the pre built level. A great reminder that giving people tools is almost always a creative boon.
This is pretty great, I used to love this game as a kid. I played it on a PC in the late 80s. Besides being a fun game, it was probably the first game I've played where you could design your own levels, which was awesome, we used to challenge each other to custom levels in our school's computer lab.
Readit News
Either that shop was pretty casual about staying on the cutting edge, or release dates were fuzzier back then, because it would often be months of agonized visits before the game showed up on shelves. By then, of course, I’d have gotten another PCMag, and my attention had leapt to a different — clearly far more advanced and interesting — game that was “only days” from launch.
Anyway, during one of my Saturday morning visits to the musty-smelling and over-dehumidified shop, I ended up idly browsing through the Borland section and a Turbo C box caught my eye. My dad was incredibly pumped that I was showing an interest in something that could actually be productive and creative, so he bought it for me.
Unfortunately, nine-year-old me did not turn out to be a natural prodigy. My dad’s coding experience stopped somewhere south of FORTRAN (he had juggled some accounting systems for ABC in the early 1980s) so he tried his best but couldn’t really make it click for me.
So Turbo C went back on the shelf. Dark Forces was coming out next month, and I didn’t have time for twiddling with incomprehensible runes when there were stormtroopers to kill.
What could have been.
I guess what I'm saying is that being interested enough to become competent at a young age doesn't necessarily equate to becoming an industry-leading savant by age 34...nor is it a prerequisite. If you are passionate today, I bet you could still level up to the forefront of whatever niche you care about with enough commitment.
Then I tried to follow the instructions on how to build and run a program on a computer.
I managed to install the IDE they recommended; one called Bloodshed Dev-C++. I managed to type the code for hello world into the IDE, and I managed to compile the program.
It produced an exe file that had a black terminal icon.
I double clicked the exe and it opened and closed very quickly.
It would only be several years later, when I started at the university, that this confusing interaction made sense to me.
At the time I thought I had made some mistake and I didn’t understand what or why.
But what happened of course was that the program started, printed its output and exited, and it all happened so fast that I just saw a window open and quickly close.
Fortunately I did eventually get better introductions to programming. But that first experience was a bit unfortunate heh.
Ended up reading PC Tech journal, wrote an EGA driver for Turbo pascal, and even a few games. Had some silly mine based game written in Turbo Pascal that showed how many mines were adjacent, with the revolutionary idea that you didn't have to hit enter after every move. It floated around as shareware on BBSs, someone even binary edited it make amusing changes to the text when you died. I allowed mines to cause chain reactions, people were amused that past a certain point increasing mine density made the game easier since the chain reactions got larger.
Certainly a different world back then.
Also, I suck at LodeRunner.
Omnious crow much.
(I am serious - we will see some upcoming shifts in the way black boxes interpret.
Distribution was pretty fuzzy back then.
Agreed, one of my favourites. I also liked the background art, and the animated clips in between some of the different levels, and the CD's Redbook audio soundtrack. It kind of reminds me of the game Creaks.
I also remember it was one of the games that used WinG[0], before DirectX game out.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WinG
Also, the original didn't <s>try to data collect</s> ask to enter a name. For some odd reason, it took a while to get past this annoying dialog box on this web game.
On the original, the player would keep running whereas this new game is laborious in that you need to hold down keys to keep moving. The original keyboard layout is:
Someone never played an Electronic Arts game on C64.
Huh? Just about everything that didn't come on a cartridge took forever to load, especially on a C64. That's why there were "fast load" extensions. Most games would load once at the beginning, but sometimes you'd "need to insert disk 2" or "flip the disk over" to finish loading. What was truly impressive is that games like Times of Lore could entirely fit in 64k and only hit the disk when initially loading.
> On the original, the player would keep running whereas this new game is laborious in that you need to hold down keys to keep moving.
The original worked with a joystick, where you'd hold it in the direction to keep running. I'm not sure I ever played the original with the keyboard. You need to be able to stop in loadrunner in order to direct and avoid the movements of the enemies and dig holes in the right spots.
I believe you would run endlessly on the Apple II version, because it had a non-centering joystick and it was more nimble of a game that way. You could stop the character with the space bar.
The MS-DOS version had a nice control scheme with the numeric keypad. You character would run endlessly left or right, but the "5" key on the keypad (right in the center of the arrows) would make him stop.
Taking a long time to load doesn't mean having a minutes long "Loading ... Please Wait" screen.
Civilization needed a lot of time, on a contemporary computer, to create the map. While doing so, it plays a slideshow with captions:
In the beginning,
the Earth was without form,
and void.
But the Sun shone upon the sleeping Earth
and deep inside the brittle crust
massive forces waited to be unleashed.
This goes on for quite a while, accompanied by appropriately epic music.
How do I even know that this is actually a loading screen? Simple - the animation is not skippable on a low-powered computer. You can try, but the actual skip will only occur later, when the computer is ready for it. On a Windows-95-era computer, you can skip the whole thing; the game will be ready before the slideshow starts.
But just because the game required a loading screen didn't mean the designers thought it would make any sense to punish the player by making them spend minutes staring at a message saying "I bet you feel pretty stupid for buying this game now, huh?". The Civ I intro is famous and well loved. You can watch a youtube video of it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtK388b9drE . You can read the entire text on TvTropes, where a fan has posted it as a memorable quote: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Quotes/Civilization . It is the first thing listed on that page.
I think our Compaq Presario at the time must have come packaged with a sierra disk.