BETT 2023 GIVEAWAY - What is your earliest gaming memory?

[enbiggen]

Oh the nostalgia!

 

 

I can feel the opening and closing of the cassette box when I remember this, the sound of the plastic case hinging open, the colours of the inlay being so vibrant!

 

I think we may have started with the 16K version of the ZX Spectrum, with my Dad upgrading it to 48K, but having looked at the instructions for doing this online I'm impressed as it looks to involve more than just fitting a few extra memory chips into sockets. (My Dad was handy with a soldering iron, so it wouldn't surprise me if my memory was correct).

 

 

Thanks for the opportunity to take a trip down memory lane.

Edited March 21, 2023 by enbiggen

[altecsole]

A Pong game that my brother and I got for Christmas, probably around 1978. It had slider controls, and we thought it was amazing. The only problem was, it needed a 9v battery and our mum hadn't realized. Luckily, our local shop were good enough to open for us on Christmas Day, just to sell us a 9v battery. Happy times.

[NorrthDown2]

I had a Sinclair Spectrum 16k to thank for getting into programming. My earliest memory of gaming on it- Horace Goes Skiing and getting the titular character across the road. I was always envious of friends who had the 48k Spectrum and could run The Hobbit.

[Davit2005]

The one I most remember was Pirate Cove on a Vic 20 early 80s. My first PC was the Vic 20, other games were Mission Impossible these were text based adventure games.

 

Did some basic programming on both the Vic20, C64 and Amiga, not to mention nights spent with my dad entering programs from magazines which rarely worked, lol.

 

We did have pong tennis type game on an earlier console in the 70's, cannot remember the console make or model.

Edited March 21, 2023 by Davit2005

[caffrey]

In our school in the 70s they had a Commodore Pet which was wheeled around on a trolly. Who worked the hardest in class got to have a play with it, guess who was always first ? Still have fond memories of playing ascii invaders on it, started my lifelong interests.

[korifugi]

Earliest? Crikey.... well......

 

Playing Air Sea Battle on my uncle's Atari 2600 (I was always more interested in it than him - he's a Cosmetic Scientist* now and I'm a Nerd so I guess that figures...)

 

 

 

 

damn, I feel old.

 

 

*Not a comment to say people in different careers can't like gaming - just an observation that he went deep into science while I went deep into tech

Edited March 21, 2023 by korifugi

[Fenney186]

Playing Counter strike with my brothers when counter strike became available in 1999! I must have only been 6 or 7 at the time! Also watching my brother play Final Fantasy 7.

[mitchell1981]

Getting to go on 'The Computer' in primary school. BBC Micro with proper floppy disks. Being terrified of the Granny's Garden witch!

 

[Accura2k7]

My earliest gaming experience was on the Commodore Vic 20, it was a very basic worm (line) flying through space through some tunnels. You could only go up or down, had me hooked for hours!

 

Aside from this, when I was young I played Supremacy on the Amiga, a game both myself and my older brother enjoyed. When I was asleep one night, he came in to my room when I was asleep and asked me if he could borrow it, i replied yeah and told him where it was... I had no recolection of this the next day when I was looking for it! lol

[JJonas]

Probably Space Invaders or Pong in an arcade

 

Then Combat on the Atari 2600 and JetPac on the ZX Spectrum

Edited March 21, 2023 by JJonas

[fiza]

Around 1983 or 84 getting my dad to buy me an Amstrad CPC 464 for £250. We were not well off in any way but my dad saved up so he could buy it for me.

My best mate and I played a game called Dun Darach and completed it quite quickly so we wrote up a walkthrough and sent it into a magazine called Amstrad Action and surprisingly it was published and we won some more games!

I remember having a screwdriver and fiddling with azimuth head alignment on the tape deck to make it load the games.

[simonw]

My earliest memory was a Binatone TV Master MK IV with tennis, football and squash

[TwistedHelixis]

I had a game that I think was on the Amstrad CPC464 that had actual speech. Maid Marian would call out 'Help me robin', its was totally amazing that a game had real speech.

 

I still have the Amstrad + monitor and a few games, never could bring myself to sell it.

[smurfomatic]

I had a game that I think was on the Amstrad CPC464 that had actual speech. Maid Marian would call out 'Help me robin', its was totally amazing that a game had real speech.

 

I still have the Amstrad + monitor and a few games, never could bring myself to sell it.

 

Super Robin Hood!

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9GfUMBGvlYo

[emenHX]

Prince of Persia DOS game on win95.

[TwistedHelixis]

Super Robin Hood!

 

OMG you have just transported me back to when I was a young-ling. Looks like it had more speech than I remember, amazing for the time.

Thanks

Edited March 21, 2023 by TwistedHelixis

[RedwayNetworks_Michael]

The Commodore 64 with the tapes! Oh the tapes were the bane of the system where they would take forever to load and then suddenly the system would crash.

 

Infact i remember a friend having an Atari and we picked one up from a car boot sale.

 

Then onto the Amiga where we had 3.5" floppys and game loading was so much quicker! Things such as Lotus Challenge, Outrun, creatures, a football game with oranges and pears, Lemmings along with a game that had an egg as a character and another game had some small elf characters - one was called "Fingers". We ended up copying some games and waiting for the dots to turn from blue to red whilst it was copying.

 

Moved on to the master system 2 with Alex Kidd built in, a friend of mine had the NES, then on to the Game Boys (both grey and clear with accessories) along with colour versions, Game Gears, mega drive 2, SNES, PC with Windows 3.11, PlayStation & Saturn (which ive still got), N64, Xbox, Game Cube, PS2 and the rest is history.

 

I can so relate to this, Had the commadore 64 aswell with tapes, had 2 tapes space invaders and Blockbusters haha

I went to Sega after with the Mega drive, loved this console and is the one i most remember from been a child. Games like Spot , streets of rage, golden Axe and of course sonic

 

I do remember a friend having a PC with windows 3.1 and minesweeper, then a few years later the internet came to life and a friend had dial up so we would all gather round his on one PC. it was mainly Counter Strike back then

 

Then came the PlayStation and we all know where things went from here

 

I know i too cant win but i like to take part

[MegatronusP]

First console memory is the PS1 and the first game I can remember playing was Spider-Man!

 

I know my youth may upset some people in this thread!

[Davit2005]

First console memory is the PS1 and the first game I can remember playing was Spider-Man!

 

I know my youth may upset some people in this thread!

 

Nothing wrong with the PS1. Spent many hours playing and crashing on Colin McRae rally. In the day where you could get better vehicles by doing well in the game rather than having to pay for them.

Edited March 21, 2023 by Davit2005

[RedwayNetworks_Michael]

Nothing wrong with the PS1. Spent many hours playing and crashing on Colin McRae rally. In the day where you could get better vehicles by doing well in the game rather than having to pay for them.

 

These days they just dont have many extra cars. Historics seem far and few between and with Rallying in general just on abit of a decline with hardly any manufacturers its sad times for Rallying (im a big fan)

Another game from PS1 i expect people to remember has to be Destruction Derby

[sigma]

"The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy" DOS - a text based game! I think I still have the 5.25" floppy with the game on.

[tmoon-mint]

Ridge Racer! Which was a launch title on the original Playstation. Played it to death as a kid. The soundtrack is nuts too. Racing games are a tad more advanced these days.

 

[Norphy]

My earliest memory is a very, very vague recollection of playing a Mr Men game on an Acorn Electron which my dad got out of the cupboard every once in a blue moon. After that, I have much clearer memories of playing Alley Cat on an Amstrad PC1512 and other games off PC Plus super disks.

 

The first game that I played on a computer that I, personally actually owned, I.e. bought with my own money, was Carmageddon.

[Gurtlush]

Playing Gato submarine simulation on a Compaq Portable (Still have it the attic) around 84/85 . used to spend hours on it.

[SamanthaD]

Dynamite Dan on my old Amstrad CPC464 (with green screen monitor, none of this fancy colour stuff!)

 

Though I seem to remember the back of the user manual had a BASIC program in there for Poker? Happy to be corrected on that, I was 6 at the time!