Last weekend I attended the second annual Boatfest gathering, which again took place in Hurricane, West Virginia. Despite its name, the event has nothing to do with boats — it’s a gathering of retrocomputing and retrogaming enthusiasts named after the organizer, John “Boat of Car” Shawler.
Boatfest is difficult to summarize because it’s different things to different people. Some people go to Boatfest to show off their vintage computers and gaming systems, while others go just to see them. It’s an event where old friends reconnect, and new friendships are made. There are tournaments, there are presentations, there are people repairing things, and this year there was even an auction. And the fun didn’t stop at the show, as the party moved to local restaurants each evening. At its core, Boatfest was simply fifty people meeting in a single location to have fun.
This year’s Boatfest took place in the Copper Room, an event space located above a Connolly’s, an Irish Pub… that recently went out of business. Fortunately, Boat was able to work a deal and maintain use of the space. The room was twice as large as last year’s space, with a capacity of approximately 50 people. A series of round tables were available for attendees to set up their vintage equipment. In the front of the room, couches and chairs faced a makeshift presentation area complete with cameras, microphones, and a projector screen. More tables, filled with items for the auction and things for sale, lined one of the walls. There was also a large chest-style refrigerator full of drinks, a restroom, and a kitchen area. With the addition of a few extension cords and power strips, the room was ready for business.
Several people associated with show are involved in podcasts, many of whom performed live shows in front of the attendees. Boat, the event’s organizer, is one of the hosts of the Amigos Podcast, a show about Amiga computers. Boat’s podcasting partner, Amigo Aaron, does another show with his brother, The Brent, called ARG Presents. Both of those shows did live performances, and I did one as well for Sprite Castle, covering the 1986 game Friday the 13th. There were also a couple of Jeopardy-style trivia challenges, but in between those events it was all about the gaming and checking out each other’s tables. My time was spent pretty evenly between demonstrating the things I brought, and checking out everyone else’s goods.
For my part, I brought two computers. First was an Apple IIe with a CFFA-3000 card installed that allows users to load games and programs via a USB stick. I also brought my old Commodore SX-64, which was a portable version of the Commodore 64 (complete with a 5″ color screen). Boatfest is a place where terms like “rare” are relative. Approximately 9,000 SX-64s were originally sold back in the mid 1980s. Of those, of course, many have since died. It’s a nearly 40-year-old computer that cost $1,000 in 1984 and was relatively obscure even when it was new… and there were four of them in the room.
There were so many neat systems on display that it would be impossible for me to list them all. One of my favorite displays was a working Video Toaster running on an Amiga 2000. The Video Toaster was a video editing suite that could be used for video production. It’s a legendary piece of equipment which I have heard about for decades but never actually saw in person. At Boatfest I was able to sit down in front of one, play with it for nearly an hour, and walk away with a DVD-R copy of the experience. All over the room people were having similar experiences, whether they had stumbled across some holy grail from their past or discovered something new for the first time.
Building off of last year’s swap table event, in 2023 Boatfest held an actual auction. Attendees were encouraged to bring items from home, set a reserve, and let ‘er rip. The Brent did a fine job of running the auction, and I had about a dozen entries for sale. I tried to keep things interesting by putting both some low and high dollar items up for sale. For example, I brought five 10-packs of NES cartridges that I listed for $1/game. On the other end of the spectrum, I decided to sell my NTSC Amiga CD32. It is a rare variant of a rare console that ended up selling for $475. The buyer was happy with the price and I was happy to pass it along to someone else to enjoy. I have such a hard time parting with things, and knowing they’re going to someone who will appreciate them as much as I did makes it a little easier. Some of the items in the auction sold much higher than I was expecting, while others went surprisingly low. I didn’t talk to every buyer and seller so I can only speak for myself when I say I thought everything with amazingly smooth and I was more than pleased with what my items sold for.
There was always something happening at Boatfest. In the front corner of the room, Frank and Jason from Retro Rewind were busy soldering on people’s broken machines, doing their part to keep these old computers operational. In the rear of the room, PacBilly and his brother had organized an Astro Duel Deluxe tournament, which had four people at a time shooting each other’s spaceships. There were two separate Jeopardy-style trivia contests that took place. I competed in the first and took second place with -100 points. On the second game, I knew like seven answers in a row — sometimes it’s the luck of the draw! But in addition to all these activities, conversations were happening non-stop, and everyone was always approachable. There were many times I found myself walking up to a conversation in progress and joining in — and, just as often, there were times I was talking to someone and suddenly three or four people had gathered around. There wasn’t a single person at the show who was stand-offish or negative.
At Boatfest 2022 attendees were on their own for meal arrangements, and even though it was never really a problem, each time I skipped out to grab sometime to eat I felt like I was missing part of the show. In 2023, this was rectified by shutting down the show each evening for 90 minutes and inviting everyone in attendance to a local restaurant. This worked out great for multiple reasons. Not only were attendees able to sit down and eat without worrying about missing any part of the show, but it was nice to get away from the noise for a bit and reset. Each night I ended up sitting by different people and had some great conversations. Plus, Hurricane, West Virginia has a surprisingly number of great restaurants!
Traditionally the Sunday after the show is spent visiting local locations and winding down. Unfortunately for my buddy Jeff and I, the beds in our rental RV weren’t as comfortable as we had hoped and so we made a command decision to hit the road back home Sunday morning. We took turns driving and made a few stops to stretch, but ended up driving all 990 miles back home on Sunday. It was a long day on the road, but sleeping in my own bed was 100% worth it.
Both Jeff and I had a blast at the show, and I haven’t heard that anyone didn’t have a great time. If there’s a Boatfest 2024, I’ll definitely be there… although probably not in an RV next year. ;)
Today I am repairing a Commodore 64 keyboard. Not just any keyboard, but the one I grew up using back in the 1980s.
The original Commodore 64 came with brown keys. For a brief period of time, Commodore made a similar computer, the Commodore 16, which came in a black case with grey keys. A few years after the C16 was discontinued, Commodore’s stock of replacement keyboards flooded Radio Shack. Although the two keyboards were not electronically compatible, the keys themselves were. I bought one of those keyboards back in the late 1980s, plucked the gray keys off of it, and swapped them onto my C64. While I’m sure I wasn’t the only person to think of doing this, I’ve never seen another one exactly like it in person.
Unless you paid good money for one, it’s just as easy to swap out a USB keyboard as it is to repair it. That’s not the case with vintage computers, a market that has seen skyrocketing prices over the past several years. A broken Commodore 64 is liable to set you back $50 at this point. Elbow grease, some Google-Fu, and a bit of luck all contribute to keeping these old machines functioning.
With the case separated, the machine spills its guts like a dishonored samurai. Underneath this brown board are a series of contacts. Each key consists of a cap, a post, and a spring. When you depress a key, the bottom of the post makes contact with the circuit board. It’s incredibly simple and incredibly complicated at the same time.
The circuit board is held in place by 23 tiny screws. If it were built today it might have six, or four, or none at all — just some tabs that would break when you tried to remove it. Someone, at some point in history, looked at this circuit board and decided 23 was the perfect amount. There is no shortcut to removing them. A few of them are located under a clear piece of tape. I peeled away the tape trapping those screws 30 years ago. Thanks, younger me.
The “Shift Lock” key (what we now call Caps Lock) was a mechanical key that had metal leads running to it that were originally soldered in place. There are two ways to remove the circuit board. One is to desolder the leads and carefully remove the wires so that they can be reattached. The other is to cut them off and say “to hell with caps lock!” which is apparently what I did when I was a kid. Oh well.
I used a bit of electronics cleaner to clean off the contacts. There are many arguments on the internet as to whether electronics can be safely cleaned with 50% and 70% isopropyl alcohol, or if 91% is required. The last time I cleaned the inside of the keyboard three decades ago, I used 100% spit.
With everything clean and dry, I reassemble the keyboard. As I work my way down the circuit board, I wonder if all 23 of these screws are necessary. Would it work with only 22? 21? 3? By the time I’m done daydreaming, they’ve all been reinstalled.
The old keyboard has been installed in a new case. The new case has three spots for screws, but it also snaps together so I didn’t use any.
Late last week my newest computer, THEC64, arrived. I’m not in the business of buying things for myself this close to Christmas, but this was a computer I pre-ordered back in August. After multiple production and shipping delays, the machine finally found its way to me the first week of December.
Most people know I’ve been a fan of Commodore computers, and specifically the Commodore 64, since the mid-1980s. I’m still a fan of the computer today; I’ve written two books about my experiences with the computer (Commodork and Commodorkier), and record a podcast called Sprite Castle where I play, discuss, and review Commodore 64 games.
For many years, it hasn’t been necessary to own a real Commodore 64 to enjoy Commodore games. There are free emulators for every platform imaginable, which allow hobbyists to play C64 games on personal computers and consoles. There are several other alternatives as well: I own an Ultimate 64, a MiST FPGA, and a BMC64 setup, three Commodore solutions that in many ways are more convenient and arguably better than owning and using the original software.
Which begs the questions: what is THEC64, why did I buy one, and should you?
In 2018, Retro Games released THEC64 Mini, a miniature Commodore 64 with sixty-four built in games. The system, about 1/4 the size of a real Commodore 64, was meant to compete with similar miniature consoles like the miniature NES, SNES, and Sega Genesis. Unlike those systems, which added layers of security designed to prevent gamers from modifying the system and adding additional games (ROMs), the THEC64 Mini embraced openness by building in a simple way for owners to add their own games to the system. Nearly any Commodore game imaginable could be downloaded, saved to a USB stick, and played on the system.
The new THEC64 (sometimes referred to as THEC64 Maxi) is, more or less, a 1:1 scale version of the original C64. Like the Mini, the Maxi comes with sixty-four built in games, but this one also has a fully functional keyboard.
From the front, THEC64 could pass for the original. It’s only after looking at the ports on the rear and side of the new machine that you can spot the differences. Unlike the original which sported a user port, a cartridge port, a cassette port, and multiple connectors for video and serial accessories, the rear of the THEC64 is a sea of beige save for three tiny ports: USB, mini USB (for power), and HDMI. Replacing the original’s joystick ports on the side are three more USB ports and a soft power button. THEC64 comes with a USB joystick that includes multiple buttons to save players from constantly having to hit keys on the keyboard. Retro Games has revised the joystick since the release of the Mini. That one sucked; this one’s passable.
THEC64’s biggest selling point is the low cost of entry. For just over a hundred dollars, you get everything you need to get started. Simply plug the computer into the wall using the included USB cord (with adapter), connect the HDMI cable to your television, plug in the USB joystick, and you’re ready to go. Of the sixty four games included, a third were relatively popular, a third will be recognized by more dedicated fans of the system, and a third are downright obscure. The ones I immediately recognized were Boulder Dash, California Games, Gateway to Apshai, Impossible Mission I and II, Jumpman, Paradroid, Pitstop II, Street Sports Baseball and Basketball, Summer Games II, Super Cycle, Sword of Fargoal, Temple of Apshai, Uridium, Who Dares Wins II, Winter Games, and World Games..
From the same menu, users can drop directly into BASIC. In this mode, you can write programs and even save them to virtual floppy disks on a USB stick. You can also switch the machine into a VIC-20, the predecessor to the Commodore 64.
Commodore 64 disk images (in .D64 format) can also be loaded from USB. This takes the system’s library from sixty four games to tens of thousands. Literally every Commodore 64 game you can recall can be found using Google, and 99.9% of them work on THEC64. The functional keyboard even allows users to play text adventures and role playing games. With THEC64, there’s no need for physical floppy disks, cassettes, and cartridges. Everything is read from a USB stick (that you provide).
For casual gamers looking to quickly scratch a nostalgic retrogaming itch, THEC64 is likely to meet their needs. That being said, true hobbyists and discerning fans of the system may end up wanting more. THEC64, like most emulators, trades authenticity for convenience. The emulation is close, but not perfect. The machine also lacks the physical connections required to connect vintage accessories like disk drives and vintage joysticks to the system. It also lacks any online capabilities, if that’s your thing.
For anyone who owned (or was friends with someone who owned) a Commodore 64 for a few years back in the 1980s and wants to revisit some 8-bit memories, the THEC64 Maxi will probably meet those needs. The sixty four included games may be enough for some people. While I would be a little hesitant to let children use some of my vintage computers, I would have no qualms with hooking this thing up to the family television and letting kids (or drunken friends) bang away on it. While emulation is free, it can also be complicated. THEC64 is intended for people who want a slice of nostalgic pie, not for those wanting to set up their own bakery.
After an extroidinarily long period of procrastination, I got my Ultimate 64 up and running over the weekend.
The Ultimate 64 is a drop-in motherboard replacement for the original Commodore 64. Not only does it retain most of the original’s ports (joystick, cartridge, video, and serial) but it adds USB, ethernet, and HDMI output to a nearly 40-year-old computer. The USB ports allow modern joysticks to be used and games to be loaded directly from a USB stick, eliminating the need for a physical disk drive. The ethernet port can be used to connect to BBSes hosted on the internet, or control the device. The addition of HDMI obviously allows the computer to to be connected to modern monitors.
The Ultimate 64 only comes with a motherboard; owners have to provide their own “donor system” to house the device. Several years ago I purchased a bunch of Commodore 64 cases through Kickstarter (including this clear one) which I used, but I still needed the actual keys. In the late 80s, I built a custom Commodore 64 keyboard by mixing and matching brown C64 keys with gray ones from a C16 replacement keyboard I found at Radio Shack. I don’t remember why I disassembled that machine (maybe it died) but I’ve had the keyboard stored away in a box “just in case I need it” since sometime around 1990. 30 years later, I finally needed it. (It ain’t hoarding if it’s useful!) It feels a little weird to type on the same keys I used 35 years ago.
To match the clear case, I pulled out a clear monitor I’ve been saving for just this occasion. I own two clear computer monitors, purchased at separate garage sales. If you’ve never seen or heard of a clear television before, you’re probably a good person. Clear televisions are most commonly found in prisons; the clear plastic makes it difficult for prisoners to hide contraband inside them. I have two, one CRT and one flat screen, and if you were to purchase one new they are unreasonably expensive compared to traditional monitors. The flat screen one I’m using is a 15″ model that sells on Amazon for $150 (you couldn’t give away a traditional old 15″ flat screen monitor). It’s part of the prison racket; prisoners are forced to buy these see-through electronics through the prison system at an exorbitant markup (which traditionally means their families pay for them). Once they leave prison they can take the electronics with them, but if they ever return, they cannot take them back inside and must purchase new electronics. Typically once purchased they tend to stay inside the prison system, which is why it’s so rare to run across them on the outside. I’ve only run across two of them for sale in my entire life, and I own them both.
My Ultimate 64 build isn’t finished. The main problem I’m having is the keyboard’s keys are stiff and partially non-responsive. A friend of mine is shipping me his dead Commodore 64 so that I can salvage the keyboard from it. In the meantime I was planning to disassemble this one and give it a thorough cleaning, but I ran out of weekend before I ran out of projects. Maybe one day this week after work I’ll find some time.
There are dozens of ways to enjoy the Commodore 64 today, from inexpensive models such as the Commodore 64 Mini and TheC64, to homebrew applications like BMC64 (a Commodore system that runs on a Raspberry Pi) to expensive FPGA implementations like the MiSTer and the Ultimate 64. The flooded market is the opposite of a problem; there are solutions for every price point, and the number of solutions points to both how popular the Commodore 64 was, and how active its fan base is to this day.
I can’t remember if I mentioned this or not — I can’t remember anything, anymore — but my 3D printer wasn’t working properly for a while. It was working okay, but not great. Everything I printed was coming out with a weird, rough finish. For the longest time I thought there was something wrong with my printer, but after doing a bunch of online research I narrowed the issue down to a single software setting. Literally, checking a single box in the software fixed the issue.
I bought an Ultimate 64 over a year ago. The Ultimate 64 is a modern replacement motheboard for the old Commodore 64 computer. I bought a new case to install the new motherboard in, and discovered that it required some additional plastic brackets for everything to fit together. The brackets can be purchased, or 3D printed… if you have a working 3D printer. For a while, I didn’t have a working 3D printer. By the time the printer was working, I had torn down my office to install new tables. The takeaway here is that I spent a lot of money on a project that’s been collecting dust for over a year.
it’s ironic how during the pandemic I have nothing but time and yet seem to get very little done. Setting up my office should have taken a weekend; it’s taken me a month. Lately it seems like nothing is a priority. I’m spending a lot of my spare time working on podcasts and videos, and not wanting to work on much else.
Susan is participating in an online Girl Scout meeting this weekend. Saturday, she was online for twelve hours, from 10 a.m. until 10 p.m. That gave me some guilt-free time to organize, clean, and do some 3D printing. I know I’ll feel better and enjoy these projects after they are finished, so I’ll keep pushing forward until they are done.
In the world of computers and video games, “killer apps” are defined as programs or games so useful or desirable that it actually drives hardware sales. In other words, people want the application or game so bad that they will buy a computer or video game console just to play it. Two of the earliest examples of killer apps were VisiCalc, the first electronic spreadsheet that sent small business owners running to their nearest Apple computer dealership, and Space Invaders, a game that caused sales of the original Atari 2600 console to triple.
It’s hard to think of a bigger killer app in the 80s than Super Mario Bros., which came bundled with the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES). The home video game market had been circling the drain for a couple of years when an Italian plumber named Mario showed up and turned the gaming world upside-down.
By the time the NES arrived in North America, our family had already owned three home computers; around the time Nintendo-Mania really began to heat up, I had my own Commodore 64. While Nintendo cartridges cost $30-$40 each, computer games, thanks to disk-swappers and bulletin board systems, were free. For each game my Nintendo-owning friends purchased, I downloaded a hundred.
And yet, there was one game I didn’t have, and seemingly never would: Super Mario Bros. Each time I showed my computer system to a neighborhood kid or classmate, they always asked the same question. “You got Mario on this?” No matter how many disks I had or games I showed them, there was always one I would seemingly never have.
No. I didn’t have Mario.
I had things that were close, though. The most famous Super Mario Bros. clone for the Commodore 64 was the Great Giana Sisters, which was infamously modified by a cracking group named Abyss to resemble Super Mario Bros. It did, in the way those cheap knock-off sunglasses at the flea market resemble more expensive brands. It was Mario…ish. The main character kind of looked like Mario and you collected things that were round like coins, but… it wasn’t really Mario. Not really.
The good news was, everybody who owned an NES owned a copy of Super Mario Bros., so there were plenty of opportunities for me to play it… just not at my house. It bugged me so much that in 1991, I bought a used NES from a kid who was upgrading to a Super Nintendo just so I could play Super Mario Bros. (and its sequel, Super Mario Bros. 3) in my bedroom. I still owned my Commodore 64 and had acquired literally thousands of games by then, but next to it on my computer desk sat a used NES with a small collection of games.
It took almost 35 years, but finally, and out of the blue, the Commodore 64 has had its come-uppance.
Last week, a programmer named ZeroPaige announced they he was releasing a port of Super Mario Bros. for the Commodore 64. I’d heard rumors for years that this was in the works, but there are always things in the works — until they come out, I tend not to pay them much mind. Many of those projects never see the light of day, and some of the ones that do weren’t worth the wait.
This, however. Wow.
WOW.
It’s Super Mario Bros. For the Commodore 64. It’s really Super Mario Bros.!
There are few companies that protect their intellectual property as fiercely or aggressively as Nintedo (Star Wars would be a close second), and Mario’s parent company swooped in as quickly as a flying Goomba, issuing DCMA cease-and-desist (takedown) notices to every website they found hosting the ROM. Didn’t matter that it was free, didn’t matter that it was for a computer system that Super Mario Bros. was never sold for, didn’t matter that the game was 34 years old — when Nintendo’s lawyers speak, it’s a good idea to listen.
A few people have replied with snark. “What did you expect?” And, they have a point. Some have suggested using an original character instead of Nintendo’s mascot wouldn’t have attracted the big N’s attention. Then again, I say, those people missed the point. I, and lots of people who grew up using Commodore computers in the mid-80s, were led to believe that the Commodore 64 was simply incapable of running as complicated and advanced as Super Mario Bros.
You proved ’em wrong, ZeroPaige. You proved them all wrong.
The old saying “you get what you pay for” is usually true.
Recently I had a brilliant idea. Instead of hooking up my old computers and video game consoles to a large television, wouldn’t it be nice if I could hook them up to a small flat screen monitor? I have a couple of 4:3 ratio flat screen monitors out in the garage that could work for just such a project. The only hurdle is that those monitors only have VGA inputs, and my old computers and video game consoles all have RCA (composite) outputs. If only someone made a cheap RCA-to-VGA converter…
Enter SLLEA, who sells just such an adapter on Amazon for $20. Before I go any further, I must mention two things. One, SLLEA is one of a dozen companies selling essentially the exact same product. The external plastic cases of these devices are slightly different, but based on the layout of the inputs and outputs, inside, they’re all the same. And second, all of these devices hover around the $20 range.
In the top picture, you can see the ins and outs (literally) of the device. In the second picture, you can see the series of buttons that allow you to configure the device. The fact that the word “MENU” is misspelled on the label gives you some insight to the quality of the manual.
Without belaboring the point, here were my results with SLLEA’s adapter.
Yikes.
The first thing you’ll notice is that large rainbow-colored bar running across the top of the screen. That’s… not normal. I should also point out all the vertical “noise” lines running through the bottom half of the screen, and the blurry (and fading) text across the top portion. Sometimes phone cameras can introduce distortion into a photograph of a computer screen, but I can assure you, it looked just as bad in person.
For a thorough test, I decided to load up a game and see if it fared any better than plain text.
When I saw this screen, I got my hopes up. The distortion bar across the top is still there, but it’s barely visible. The Commodore 64 in particular has a border around the main portion of the screen. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad after all?
Unfortunately, once the game entered “full screen mode,” the bar returned.
I tried two additional systems for testing — an Apple IIe computer, and an original Nintendo Entertainment System — and got the same results. To be completely fair, I rescanned the device’s Amazon reviews and found several people who said it worked for systems newer than the Super Nintendo. Specifically, I read positive reviews from people who tried it with a Nintendo GameCube and a Sony PlayStation 2. If you’re looking for a Composite-to-VGA solution for one of those systems and feel adventurous, maybe you’ll have better luck with one of these devices. If, like me, you’re hoping to connect some old 8-bit systems up to a VGA monitor, this probably isn’t the device for you.
Although I used a Commodore 64 as my primary computer for several years in the 1980s, I didn’t own all that much hardware for it. Two floppy drives, a printer, a modem and a joystick were just about all needed to keep myself entertained for more than half a decade.
People occasionally ask me if I ever owned a hard drive for my Commodore 64. I didn’t, but not because I didn’t want one. The most popular hard drive for the Commodore 64 was the Lt. Kernal, which held 10MB and cost $1,000. It would have been nice to store hundreds and hundreds of floppies on a single hard drive (instead of in multiple shoe boxes, which is how I did it), but the logistics of buying a hard drive that cost the same as my first car were impossible.
My friend Justin owned a 1581 disk drive. It was the only disk drive made by Commodore for the C64/128 that used 3.5″ disks instead of 5.25″ ones. While traditional, single-sided Commodore floppies held 664 blocks (170k) of information, a 1581 could store 3,160 blocks (800k) per disk.
I always wanted one of those drives. Earlier this week, I bought one.
The 1581 wasn’t terribly compatible with either of Commodore’s other floppy drives, meaning it wouldn’t load most multi-load games and would only run the simplest of programs. Only a dozen or so commercial titles were ever officially released on 3 1/2″ disks, and most of those were utilities. The drive was designed more for storing programs than playing them. Because of that, lots of BBS sysops ended up purchasing them (that’s what Justin used his for).
There was, at one time, a way to read and write disks designed for the Commodore 1581 disk drive on an IBM with a 3.5″ disk drive. This requires a physical drive controller on the PC (a USB 3.5″ drive won’t work), which rules out most modern PCs.
At a Commodore convention I attended in 2006, a attendee was selling used 1581 disk drives for $100. “I’ll wait until the prices drop,” I said to myself. I haven’t found one cheaper since… until this past weekend. I paid around $80 for mine, and as you can see, it’s just about as mint as a guy could hope for. The 1581’s box was wrapped in plastic, surrounded by bubble wrap, and submerged in Styrofoam peanuts. Even if the drive hadn’t worked, I feel like I got my money’s worth in packing materials.
Inside the box, the manual was still sealed inside its plastic container. I spent a few minutes pulling the drive out and hooking it up. Everything works A-OK. Thirty years of sitting inside this box didn’t hurt it at all.
From what I have read, newer DSHD diskettes (1.44MB) will work with the 1581, but aren’t as reliable as older DSDD (720KB) ones. I’ll have to keep an eye out and pick some up in the near future.
I do, on occasion, get requests from people (sometimes complete strangers) asking if I am able and/or willing to convert their Commodore disks over to usable disk images. I can, and will. Once, I had someone ask if I was able to read data off of some old 1581 3.5″ disks. Back then I couldn’t. Today, I can — another feather in the nerd hat.
Many years ago when I began collecting vintage computer hardware, every acquisition got me excited. Each new computer, floppy drive, and box of assorted peripherals that came into the house made me absolutely giddy. But after you’ve tested, cleaned, and aligned your hundredth floppy drive, and installed additional shelving in your garage to hold all those old CRT monitors you might need someday, the elation of “yet another” old piece of hardware begins to wane.
What never gets old for me, however, is digging through other people’s software collections.
A year or two ago I acquired a(nother) complete Commodore system through Craigslist. If memory serves I gave the computer and disk drive to a friend, kept the monitor, threw the printer into the garbage, and put the box of disks onto a shelf to go through at some later date when I had some spare time.
Last weekend, I had some spare time.
According to a detached label I found floating around inside the box of disks, the original owner of this collection lived in Checotah, Oklahoma. I am immediately struck by the fact that I have never been to nor heard of Checotah, Oklahoma. When I began collecting old computers, it seems like I mostly acquired them from the original owners. Each purchase came with an oral history and testimonial, some of which were more interesting than the contents of disks themselves. When I acquire things today, it is usually not from the original owner. Often it’s from someone who inherited the items after the original owner passed away.
Unlike hardware, floppy disks are like snowflakes. Each diskette is a unique combination of its owner and the times, beginning with its label. The labels that document each disk’s contents are usually handwritten. There are different styles and colors; some are glossy and some are matte. Some contain the name of a single game while others list specific loading instructions. The one in my hands reads, “TRACK AND FIELD. LOADING SCREEN IS GARBLED. WAIT THREE MINUTES FOR GAME TO LOAD.”
By default only the top side of Commodore, Apple, or Atari floppy disks could be written to, but by using a cheap disk notcher, data could also be stored on the back side. While official disk notchers were available for $5 or less at most computer stores, some people opted for office-issue hole punches, leaving a signature half-circle on the left hand side of each disk. Others resorted to scissors or knives. A couple of the diskettes in this collection look like the owner let a squirrel gnaw on the edge for a while. Whatever works.
There was a time when converting these physical disks into digital disk images that can easily be accessed and stored on modern computers required a degree in geekery and a wizard’s bag full of magic cables perform. Not any more. Today I have two or three different methods of slurping the data up; the one I use depends on the contents of the disks. I usually start with a ZoomFloppy and a 1571 disk drive. For disks that need more love I move to a 1541 modified with a parallel port. Occasionally, I’ll resort to using my 1541 Ultimate with a 1541 acting as a slave. There’s no right way to do any of this, although there are plenty of people standing by to tell you you’re doing it wrong.
Not always, but often, I can tell how well a disk is going to transfer by the sound. Most of them emit a smooth, rotating sound. Others click loudly. Sometimes, one will squeal and creak like a parched door hinge desperate for oil. By and large, the more sound a disk makes, the more likely I won’t be able to read it.
There are more desperate methods of recovering lost data, although for most of the stuff I’m archiving, they’re rarely worth performing. If something looks really interesting I’ll clean the drive, clean the disk, and fiddle with the drive’s speed and alignment. If all that fails, the disk either makes its way to a rainy day stack or the trash, depending on the mood. I’ve put a lot of time and effort into saving things that I haven’t quite figured out why I’m saving, or who I’m saving them for.
If there was one disk that disappointed me, it was this one. The original owner packed so many programs on this single disk that he needed two labels to list all the programs. Bingo! Banner! Dice Roll! Man, if these don’t sound like a good way to spend a Friday evening, what does? Unfortunately, this was one of those disks that hung up at the 5% mark. I tried all the tricks I know and still couldn’t get it to read. Considering that all of these disks are 30+ years old, the fact that any of them still work is somewhat amazing.
Most of the programs I archive fall under one of three categories: games I’ve seen a thousand times, BASIC programs that were either typed in from magazines or created by enterprising computing enthusiasts, and “other.” It’s the promise of that last category that keeps me doing this. Each time I find a disk of pictures that someone drew 30 years ago, or school newsletters, or someone’s school reports, those are the snapshots in time that make all of this interesting to me.
Someday when I get things organized I’ll zip everything up and post them online. Until then, I’ll just keep doing what I do.
A friend of mine recently asked me to name five games I would recommend playing all the way through from beginning to end. There are tons of modern games (The Last of Us, Halo, Portal) that have great story lines, but I wanted to go somewhat old school with my list. I also couldn’t possibly limit myself to just five, so instead here are ten games I recommend modern gamers go back and play through from beginning to end. Note that this is different than my list of games that will always stick with me; the games on this post were picked for their memorable story lines and the rewards that come with completing them.
Presented roughly chronological, let’s start at the beginning.
01. Adventureland (Scott Adams, 1978)
It all begins with Adventureland. From Wikipedia:
“Adventureland is an early, formative work of interactive fiction. It was written by Scott Adams, and was not only the first text adventure game to be commercially published and sold for the then-new home computers, but was the first commercially available adventure game of any kind for use on the systems.”
Why you should beat it: Quite simply, because this is where it all began. All roads to computer gaming eventually lead back to these original text adventures. There are many, many text adventures to choose from, including all the great ones released by Infocom, but to really understand where it all began, you should play Adventureland.
When you’re done reading the list, you can play Adventureland online right here.
Although the original was text only, later releases added static pictures for players to look at.
02. Adventure (Atari 2600, 1980)
The Atari 2600’s hardware was somewhat designed with Pong in mind. Pong contains two players (“paddles”), a ball, and a background (in Pong’s case, a simple vertical line dividing the screen). Most of the system’s early games like Combat and Outlaw were technical riffs on this design. Programmers weren’t trying to figure out how to create an adventure game for the Atari 2600 back then — they were all trying to figure out how to make working games using the console’s limited resources. Most of the system’s early games (including the ones I just mentioned) took up 2k of ROM each. That’s way less information than the words in this article.
Inspired by Colossal Cave (the original text adventure), Warren Robinett decided to create an an adventure — unoriginally titled Adventure — for the Atari 2600. He used the Atari’s backgrounds for the mazes, the two “player” sprites for monsters, the “ball” as the player’s avatar, and the “bullets” for additional maze features. He crammed all of this into 4k.
In retrospect Adventure looks incredibly simple and archaic; at the time of its release, it was heralded as imaginative and groundbreaking. According to Wikipedia:
Atari’s Adventure sold one million copies, making it the seventh best selling Atari 2600 game in history. As the first action-adventure video game and first console fantasy game, Adventure established its namesake genres on video game consoles. In addition to being the first graphical adventure game on the Atari 2600 console, it was the first video game to contain a widely known Easter egg, and the first to allow a player to use multiple, portable, on-screen items. The game was also the first to use a fog of war effect in its catacombs, which obscures most of the playing area except for the player’s immediate surroundings. The game has been voted the best Atari 2600 cartridge in numerous polls, and has been noted as a significant step in the advancement of home video games. GamePro ranked it as the 28th most important video game of all time in 2007. In 2010, 1up.com listed it as one of the most important games ever made in its “The Essential 50″ feature.” (Link)
Why you should beat it: Because Adventure was first, and for so, so many game developers, this was the first adventure game they ever played. With 4,096 bytes of code, a few blocky blocks and a dragon that looked like a duck, Adventure showed gamers what video games could be — an adventure.
03. Karateka (Apple II, 1984)
Originally released for the Apple II but quickly ported to other home computer systems, in Karateka players must punch and kick their way through a long line of opponents in order to rescue Princess Mariko, who is being held prisoner by Akuma in his castle. At the time of its release, Karateka was championed for its fluid animation and cinematic experience.
Few martial arts games of the 1980s had plots. The plot of Karate Champ is “keep winning tournaments,” while the plot of Kung Fu Master is “keep punching people until you save Sylvia.” Karateka was different though, and was presented like a mini movie complete with cut scenes and jumps in location as parts of the plot were revealed. When I saw Princess Mariko slump down in her cell for the first time, man, I knew I had to save her.
Karateka also features multiple enemies that can kill you with a single blow, including deadly portcullis and, ultimately, Princess Mariko. There is no saving your game, no bonus lives, and no continuing. In Karateka dead means dead — no happy ending for you.
Why you should beat it: Because both in life and in Karateka, you only get one chance. This game taught me that video games could be tough, fair, and rewarding all at the same time. From finishing off a tough enemy with a triple kick-kick-kick combo to punching Akuma’s bird out of the air in mid-flight, the whole game just seems fun. And for most first time players, the game ends with you being insta-killed, causing them to slap their foreheads and play through the entire game again to rescue the princess. Just like real life, sometimes 99% isn’t enough for a woman.
04. Bard’s Tale III (Interplay/Electronic Arts, 1988)
Wizardry (released by Sir-Tech in 1981) is cited as one of the first D&D-style games to be released for home computers. According to Wikipedia it was the first true party-based role-playing video game, the first dungeon crawl, and the first to feature color graphics. I loved Wizardry, but it wasn’t perfect. Soon, other games inspired by Wizardry came along, improving some of the original’s shortcomings. One of those was Bard’s Tale, released by Interplay and Electronic Arts in 1985. This was followed by Bard’s Tale II in 1986 and what I consider to be the best game in the series, Bard’s Tale III in 1988.
While Wizardry mostly limited players to multiple levels of the same dungeon and Bard’s Tale introduced us to multiple dungeons in the land of Skara Brae, Bard’s Tale III had players travelling to multiple worlds, parallel dimensions, and ultimately through time. It combined the dungeon-crawl layout of the previous games with the ability to enter short parser-based commands in order to handle certain objects.
Why you should beat it: Not only does Bard’s Tale III have a great story that takes place in great locations, but to me it’s the epitome of first-person old-school dungeon crawlers (Ultima be damned). I love this game and has dreamed about wandering around Skara Brae at night, dealing with wandering Wights and Ice Giants. The pixel-drawn animations are charming, the music is creative, and the whole game is enormously rewarding. None of that stupid grinding levels for the sake of grinding levels here (unless you’re starting with a fresh party). Instead it’s all about quest after quest after quest.
05. King’s Quest (Sierra Online, 1984)
King’s Quest holds the title of “first 3D graphical adventure game,” although the definition of 3D as it applies to video games has changed throughout the years. King’s Quest was called 3D because Sir Graham, the protagonist, could move both up and down as well as left and right and could walk behind objects as well as in front of them. It’s a far cry from Oculus Rift, I’ll give you that, but at the time it was still pretty amazing.
King’s Quest was designed to show of the graphic and sound capabilities of IBM’s first foray into home computing, the PCjr. The PCjr launched for $1,269 ($3,000, adjusted for inflation); for that you got 128KB of RAM, a horrible chiclet keyboard, no mouse, and no monitor. (A complete system with a few sensible upgrades brought the price closer to $1,500.) Prior to its release it was predicted that the PCjr would put all other home computing companies out of business, but that didn’t happen. Instead the PCjr was discontinued after three years, after having sold only 500,000 units.
Despite the PCjr itself which is viewed as a flop, the greatest thing to come out of its release was a new line of games made specifically for it. Sierra On-Line was paid in advance to develop a launch title that would show off the PCjr’s capabilities (including its 16 color mode and three voice sound chip, provided by Texas Instruments). That game ended up being King’s Quest.
King’s Quest was the first point-and-click game, a genre that became very popular in the 80s and 90s and died off as other interfaces took favor. In these games you use your computer’s mouse to click on the screen, causing your character to walk to that spot. (Again, I realize that’s not particularly groundbreaking today.) For computer owners without a mouse, you could still control the game using the keyboard’s directional arrow keys. This control scheme was combined with a simple parser that allowed players to interact with this new graphical environment. To pick up a rock you can’t just type “GET ROCK” as you’ll be greeted with “You’re not standing close enough to the rock.” You have to actually stand near things to interact with them.
The plot of King’s Quest is simple and involves gathering three treasures hidden throughout the land. You’ll have to solve small puzzles to retrieve them. As a kid, I struggled with some of the puzzles; as an adult, you’ll struggle with the interface as you’ll constantly be trying to figure out what you can do and what you can’t do.
Why you should beat it: King’s Quest isn’t the best point-and-click adventure of all time, and if you like this style of game there are many better ones you should try including Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis, Sam and Max hit the Road, Full Cycle and The Dig. Sierra also released several other series of Quest games including Space Quest, Police Quest, and Hero’s Quest. That being said, it’s always fun to explore the roots of gaming. Better games came from companies like Sierra On-Line’s radical thinking and willingness to throw things to the proverbial castle wall to see what would stick. I found defeating King’s Quest a rewarding experience — and if you do too you’ll be excited to know that not only was the game later remade with better graphics, but there are also seven official sequels which will keep you busy for a long time to come.
06. Another World (Delphine Software, 1991)
In half an hour, Another World manages to tell a complete story. It does this without any spoken or written dialog and with no additional information other than the game presented on the screen. Of course it doesn’t need to show your health information because if anything touches you in this game, you instantly die.
Another World begins with a video showing Lester Knight Chaykin’s particle accelerator being struck by lightning. Even though as we watch the action unfold we know what’s about to happen before Lester does, the moment he is zapped away into the alternate universe the game takes place in is still jarring. The transition from introduction to gameplay is seamless; you will find yourself suddenly controlling the action you were just previously watching. (If you don’t, you will soon find Lester drowning…)
Why you should beat it: The polygon style of graphics used in Another World were very unique at the time, although I suspect many of the techniques invented for this game live on in modern gaming. Even if it didn’t have a groundbreaking art and storytelling style — which it does — it would still be a great game.
I’ll be honest with you: this game gets super hard toward the end and the odds of you beating it are pretty low. If you aren’t compelled to play this game, or don’t get very far after trying, you should at least watch the entire playthrough below on YouTube. It’s 23 minutes long and will spoil the ending for you, but it’s almost as enjoyable to watch as it is to play.
07. Maniac Mansion (Lucasfilm Games, 1987)
By the time Lucasfilm Games had entered the ring, point-and-click adventures had dropped manual parsers and were completely point-and-click games. While some gamers didn’t like losing the control the parser provided, being able to select verbs from a menu and objects from the screen took some of the guesswork out of “what am I supposed to do here” problems gamers previously experienced with these games.
Maniac Mansion introduced a few new ideas to the genre, including the ability to switch between multiple characters in multiple locations in order to solve puzzles, but more than that, it was funny. Really, really funny. I grew up with the Commodore 64 version, although the DOS version is also very good and playable. Some of the 16-bit version like the Amiga don’t look “right” to me. I suppose it comes down to what you’re used to.
Why you should beat it: Because you kind of need to play this one before playing the equally funny Day of the Tentacle. And because no other game on this list allows you to put a hamster in a microwave.
08. The Incredible Machine (Sierra On-Line, 1992)
While many games are about action and strategy, The Incredible Machine is all about puzzle-solving. On each of the game’s 84 levels, you’ll be presented with a puzzle and some tools, and it’s up to you to come up with some sort of Rube Goldberg device in order to complete the level’s goal. Some of the goals are simple (“Pop the balloons”) while others are more complex. On each level you’ll be given some combination of tools to deal with: pulleys, ropes, belts, gears, ramps, scissors, and so on. Many of these tools can be combined to make more complex machines. Guns can be made to fire by connecting their triggers to objects using ropes, for example. Little “motors” (hamster on treadmills) can be started by hitting their cage. All of the tools can be “flipped” left-to-right to modify their actions. For many levels there are often obvious and intended solutions, but you don’t have to solve them that way.
The first 20 levels are “tutorial levels” that pretty much tell you how to solve them. After that, the difficulty ramps up and you are on your own. You’ll spend half your time trying to come up with workable solutions using the few tools you’re given for each level, and the other half trying to make those things work. It’s a fun kind of problem-solving.
The game also comes with a free-form editor mode that allows you to create wacky machines with no restrictions. The Incredible Machine has two direct sequels as well as another similar line of games (The Incredible Toon Machine). Another line of Incredible Machine games (“Contraptions”) were released in the early 00s, and in 2011 the game was added to Apple’s App Store although it has since been retired.
Why you should beat it: Because it’s a game that can be both frustrating and fun at the same time, something that many modern games forget is possible. If you enjoy physics-style games like Crayon Physics, you should check this out. I don’t have to ask you to beat this one; once you get started, you’ll just want to.
09. Fallout (Interplay, 1997)
There were a lot of 8-bit games that tried to recreate post-apocalyptic worlds, but few did it better than Wasteland. Another Interplay/Electronic Arts teaming, Wasteland takes place generations after a nuclear holocaust. While the game is highly revered among classic gamers, for whatever reason the relationship between Interplay and Electronic Arts soured; the Wasteland connection was removed from EA’s planned sequel (Fountain of Dreams), and Interplay’s sequel (Meantime) was cancelled. Even through Interplay no longer retained the rights to Wasteland, ten years later in 1997 they released their own “spiritual” sequel: Fallout.
Although the setting is the same between the two games, Fallout is presented with a more modern interface. Although most of the game’s events play out in real time, combat remains turn based. The main plot of Fallout revolves around the search for water, although players will experience many side plots and tasks along the way. Despite the game’s gritty and bleak setting, Interplay injected the story with tons of humor.
Why you should beat it:Fallout was named “RPG of the Year” by GameSpot in 1997 and in 1988 by Computer Gaming World. PC Gamer once named it the fourth best PC game of all time. Artwork from the game is on display as part of the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s “The Art of Video Games” exhibition.
Fallout is one of the best computer role playing games ever released, period. In 2014 a fan-made sequel to Wasteland was finally released. It’s really good, and in fact the games interface is better than Fallout’s, but Fallout is such a great game that I stuck with it. But if you like it then yeah, definitely check out Wasteland 2 too.
10. Hotline Miami (Dennaton Games, 2012)
Hotline Miami (the newest game on my list by 15 years) takes place in 1989 and is presented in a top-down retro style. After receiving a somewhat cryptic message on your answering machine, as the first chapter begins you will decide what kind of mask to don (rooster, owl, tiger, pig, or horse, each with its own advantages) before walking into an enemy’s building and single-handedly massacring dozens of enemies. Some of them you will knock to the ground and bash their brains in mercilessly with a crowbar or a baseball bat before obtaining an Uzi or a shotgun and really getting the party started.
Throughout the game you’ll discover things are not all as they seem. Your senses will be thrown off by minor changes in levels and items coming and going. You’ll also get killed. A lot. A lot lot lot. Fortunately each level restarts immediately after your demise. Going in with guns blazing didn’t work? Try hiding around a corner with a bat and see if that doesn’t do the trick. Line of sight is important in this game.
The story itself is unsettling. Just when things don’t make sense, they’ll begin to, only to get more confusing again. There’s no point in trying to explain Hotline Miami. I played this game for hours a night every night for a week or two before beating it. It wasn’t until the very end that I understood the entire plot. At least I think I did.
Why you should beat it:Hotline Miami moves fast, plays fast, and gets weird fast. Figuring out how to beat each level is so much fun that you’ll quickly lose track of how many hundreds of lives you’ve violently taken. Which is okay when you’re the good guy, right? At least I think you’re the good guy. The game’s story is good, but more than that it goes to show how effective old school graphics and gameplay can be when done right. Also, Hotline Miami 2 was released last month.
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The following games came up while I was brainstorming but eventually fell off the list. They’re all great games and rewarding to play through in their own right: Prince of Persia, Oregon Trail, Ikaruga, Double Dragon, and countless others.
Now it’s your turn. What games do YOU think people need to play through? New or old, doesn’t matter — let’s hear your additions to the list!
The Adventures of Rob, Susan, Mason and Morgan O'Hara
