commented out

While cleaning out my attic the other day I came across some old goodies. So, let’s embark on a trek… back in time!

Nintendo has recently made a big splash in the gaming waters with its motion-sensitive Wii, but this isn’t the first time Nintendo’s been involved in motion-related technology. Around 1989, Broderbund released the U-Force, a fold-up motion-sensing device based on infrared technology. It came with a T-bar and two handles that could act as a makeshift flight-yolk, and a sensor bar that I could never figure out. In order to get it to work, you had to configure switches based on the game you were playing. The only problem is, while the idea was certainly novel, it failed miserably when it came to actual execution.

The other major find was the remnants of my old 386 SX20, the second computer I ever took apart, and the first gaming computer I ever had. Before this I had an IBM 8088, complete with state-of-the-art amber-colored graphics. I learned a lot from the 8088, but it was this 386 that became the launching point for a life of upgrades and spare parts.

This machine had a 20mhz processor, four megs of EDO RAM, and an 80 meg hard drive. I later upgraded it with a 4x CD-ROM drive (top of the line!), a Sound Blaster 16, and even a 1.2 gigabyte hard drive (which took no small amount of effort to get running). I had some games on the old 8088, but this is where I really cut my gaming teeth. Classics like Space Quest, SimCity, and Wolfenstein 3D brought the true wonders of PC gaming to my attention.

It’s hard to tell if computing has gotten simpler or more complicated since then. I suppose in some ways it’s simpler, while more complex in others. Back then, DOS was still a primary operating environment for gaming, and you had to configure your system effectively to get the most from your games. Often, a boot disk was necessary to free up extended memory (remember SmartDrive, and himem.sys?) for some games to even load. The hardware was simpler, all you really needed was a fast enough processor and enough RAM. Nowadays, while the act of loading a game doesn’t take as much effort, there are many hardware options to choose from with both hardware and software compatibility to think about. Maybe ten to fifteen years from now I’ll be digging my current machine out of a box in the attic and remeniscing all over again.