If you are of a 'certain age' (as I am) and you grew up in the UK, you may very well remember the BBC putting out "The Computer Programme" and "Micro Live", back in the early '80s

Well, there's a couple of these being hosted under the "Collections" series, on BBC iPlayer. I find it fascinating to be reminded of where we were, just 40 or so years back and compare to where we are today. There's also one or two 'predictions', if you will, which are fascinating to hear.

1 minute ago, Rob101 said:

I find it fascinating to be reminded of where we were, just 40 or so years back and compare to

the pure utter cr4p that the BBC puts out now 🤣

1 hour ago, unofix said:

the pure utter cr4p that the BBC puts out now 🤣

I know, apparently they pay an ex footballist £1.35 Million/year to chat about football, incredible! Not to mention a Radio2 presenter who has lost 200,000 in audience ratings but gets £900,000 for her talent 🤣

5 hours ago, Rob101 said:

you may very well remember the BBC putting out "The Computer Programme" and "Micro Live", back in the early '80s

I do, and I still have my BBC Micro (made by Acorn Computers, now ARM).

21 minutes ago, mjt said:

... I still have my BBC Micro...

Nice one!

I had a ZX81, then the "Speccy", before moving on to a Atari 520ST. I never had a BBC Micro, but I am thinking about getting one, or maybe a Commodore 64, or maybe both 🙂

7 hours ago, unofix said:

the pure utter cr4p that the BBC puts out now 🤣

Allegedly theres 50 hours of footage gone missing showing Amanda Abbingdon.

 On topic ZX81, Commodore Vic 20, Amiga 500 cartoon classics pack with the 40gb hard drive add-on

I loved the old tech. 
I remember at primary school we had a BBC computer and could run educational games such as Granny's Garden by inserting the massive floppy disk. 
Until about year 9 in high school, we had the Acorn computers (similar to the Amiga systems) with 3.5 inch disks. They were stolen from the school and were eventually replaced with PCs (who would want to steal an Acorn computer, lol). 

In terms of owning old tech, I actually have several retro gaming systems including an Atari 2600, a ZX Spectrum+, an Amiga 600, a Nintendo Gamecube, a Nintendo 64, Sega Master System, a Sega Mega Drive and pretty much every PlayStation system (except the original PSX). 
I'm hoping to get hold of the PSX and another Mega Drive this year from the same person who I bought the Atari, Gamecube, Master System and N64 off (my sister's boyfriend). 

Now were up in X Box One specs I cant even play on a PS1 anymore, the d pad is so clunky and I've got knackered thumbs anyway.

All my tech got traded and given away when I moved in with the missus. 128k Spectrum with plastic keyboard and inbuilt tape deck. Glad I lived through that, kids today dont know they're born (always wanted to say that). Waiting for Manic Miner to load and just when it reached the end of the tape, crash city.

I'm gobsmacked with the fact that the save files for some of my games now could fit nearly every game we played back in the 80s in the memory required.

But saying this I'm a game play gamer. Graphics are stunning now, but if there's no substance it just aint worth it. 

And wow have games got head twistingly indepth. I like simple, but games like Red Dead where you've got to feed horses (like a Tamagochi) or Fallout building settlements (Hello Sim City). When all you want to do is a bit of exploring and pew!pew!pew!

But I digress, as long as bairns remember it was our lot that invented computer games. And parents of those bairns remember that it's our generations fault they're all pasty faced button punchers who never see daylight and are hooked on mobile phones. And we've got the nerve to moan about it!

We always become our parents. Unfortunately.

5 hours ago, Mr E said:

All my tech got traded and given away when I moved in with the missus. 128k Spectrum with plastic keyboard and inbuilt tape deck.

I had the 48k Spectrum but my mate had the posh one you had, was always jealous of him. All my old tech has been Ebayed off years ago, apart from my 1990 Nintendo Game Boy. For some reason I have an emotional attachment to it... Yep, kids, don't know they're born 🤣

I've still got my Amiga 500 up the loft, plus lots of other, old, games consoles.

The Amiga was a great machine, I loved it

55 minutes ago, StephenFord said:

I had the 48k Spectrum but my mate had the posh one you had, was always jealous of him. All my old tech has been Ebayed off years ago, apart from my 1990 Nintendo Game Boy. For some reason I have an emotional attachment to it... Yep, kids, don't know they're born 🤣

I remember getting one of the original Gameboys myself but as it was a Xmas gift rather than b'day, I'm struggling to remember which year it would have been.  Must've been several years later than 1990 though, potentially 1996, didn't realise they had such a long production run!

That would've been the oldest gaming system I had I think.  Next was either a Gameboy Color or PSOne slimline.  Also had a PS2 slimline (the only one in the country that didn't overheat lol).  Then I switched to Xbox 360 in 2007 for the online multiplayer...and that kept having overheating issues.  Fixed it twice but the third time I couldn't get it to work.  Didn't game at all for 3 years and then treated myself to an Xbox One at the end of 2014.  Same year I bought the Focus.  

1 hour ago, DaveT70 said:

I've still got my Amiga 500 up the loft, plus lots of other, old, games consoles.

The Amiga was a great machine, I loved it

Loved Treasure Island Dizzy on my Amiga. Back to the ZX81 you bought the monthly magazine, spent days typing in the code, it didnt run and had to wait for the next month for the typo's. Many of the old games had a "feel" thats sadly lacking in todays offerings. Spent many a day me solving the puzzles and my daughter swinging around the screen Tombraider on the original Ps.

2 hours ago, Jimpster said:

Back to the ZX81 you bought the monthly magazine, spent days typing in the code, it didnt run...

Yeah, as often as not, but tbh, I learned how to code BASIC (well, the Sinclair dialect, least ways) by doing that, and trying to debug, before the next mag was issued. In fact, I got way more satisfaction from creating my own code and debugging the listings, than I did from simply playing the games. Then, I learned Z80 assembly language and got up to all sorts of mischief, by learning how to 'hack' commercial games, which taught me even more about Z80 assembly coding... happy days.

3 hours ago, TomsFocus said:

I remember getting one of the original Gameboys myself but as it was a Xmas gift rather than b'day, I'm struggling to remember which year it would have been.  Must've been several years later than 1990 though, potentially 1996, didn't realise they had such a long production run!

That would've been the oldest gaming system I had I think.  Next was either a Gameboy Color or PSOne slimline.  Also had a PS2 slimline (the only one in the country that didn't overheat lol).  Then I switched to Xbox 360 in 2007 for the online multiplayer...and that kept having overheating issues.  Fixed it twice but the third time I couldn't get it to work.  Didn't game at all for 3 years and then treated myself to an Xbox One at the end of 2014.  Same year I bought the Focus.  

Then you'll like these. Found some old Game boys and gave them some TLC and new shells. Gave then to my Pokemon loving daughter.

2 hours ago, Jimpster said:

Loved Treasure Island Dizzy on my Amiga. Back to the ZX81 you bought the monthly magazine, spent days typing in the code, it didnt run and had to wait for the next month for the typo's. Many of the old games had a "feel" thats sadly lacking in todays offerings. Spent many a day me solving the puzzles and my daughter swinging around the screen Tombraider on the original Ps.

Original Tombraiders were ground breaking and so much fun. Saying this the new trilogy is excellent and the the remaster of the originals to me is unplayable. Shame really. Too used to thumb sticks now. 😢

Put 'Gameboy shells' into Ebay and if you've got a couple of quid, a knackered Gameboy and some Nintendo screwdrivers (some kits come with them) it's not difficult at all and so satisfying. And it makes you look like a genius for under a tenner or so. 🤣🤣

In the ‘good ‘ol days’, I started with the Specy and learnt and wrote my first home budgeting programme in BASIC (Beginners All Purpose Instruction Code) which  I gradually updated over the years as GW-BASIC followed by VIEW-BASIC (upgraded to an Amstrad with floppy drive ..WOW). Then came along then Microsoft decided us plebs were all too stupid to want it anymore and dropped it from ‘Windows (for workgroups I think). A lost generation of potential gamer writers then followed. I remember spending days copying and typing in from a mag for a ‘machine code’ game as this wonderful alien language was so much faster than the BASIC programmed games. It never ran haha. Much later I started with the Raspberry Pi ….supposed to be for school kids !!!! A bought a book to explain it all, nothing ever worked, then I found reviews much later saying it was the worst book ever as it was full of errors!

Remember ‘Ant Attack? That was about the last time I ever played a computer game. 

 

29 minutes ago, Kenny321 said:

In the ‘good ‘ol days’, I started with the Specy and learnt and wrote my first home budgeting programme in BASIC (Beginners All Purpose Instruction Code) which  I gradually updated over the years as GW-BASIC followed by VIEW-BASIC (upgraded to an Amstrad with floppy drive ..WOW). Then came along then Microsoft decided us plebs were all too stupid to want it anymore and dropped it from ‘Windows (for workgroups I think). A lost generation of potential gamer writers then followed. I remember spending days copying and typing in from a mag for a ‘machine code’ game as this wonderful alien language was so much faster than the BASIC programmed games. It never ran haha. Much later I started with the Raspberry Pi ….supposed to be for school kids !!!! A bought a book to explain it all, nothing ever worked, then I found reviews much later saying it was the worst book ever as it was full of errors!

Remember ‘Ant Attack? That was about the last time I ever played a computer game. 

 

I remember my Dad buying Input magazine and week by week typing in the code for Space Invaders. It never worked, however it was also the reason for the 128k machine. My Dad gave the 48k Spectrum a reprogramming it would never forget.