Tuesday 15 December 2015

Memory, Monochrome and Magic - The Early Years


fancy letter I n this day and age, many of you are under the impression that computers are evolving at a mind-boggling rate, but really, you have no idea. Back in my day (I'm old, so I can say that), new types of computers were being created DAILY. It was 1985, and I was only 10 years old, which was an exciting time, as companies all raced to be the best. Amazingly, and sadly, the computers they sold were obsolete the SECOND they hit the shelves. At that time, places like Radio Shack were offering the latest and greatest, and it was there that my parents purchased my first PC. Today's post is all about my experience with that wonderful machine: The Tandy 1000-HX.
The Tandy 1000-HX "How many Gigs of RAM did it have?"

It didn't.

"OK. How many MEGS of RAM did it have?"

It didn't.

No, my hopefully-sympathetic readers, it had Kilobytes of RAM. To be more precise, it had a whopping 256KB of memory. By today's standards, that is enough memory to store about 7% of the average MP3, which MIGHT even cut out before the first chorus. Believe it or not, this was impressive for that particular week. Like I said, computers were getting better at an insane rate, and anything purchased the week after was INFINITELY better than mine. I mean, they even had HARD DRIVES, whereas mine came with a 3.5" floppy drive. That's it. Oh, and my monitor had TWO colours: black and green. These were the days of monochrome monitors, and it was a very scary time, indeed.

It came with a couple of games, which had to be run from the floppy disks, but I showed very little excitement over those. My interest was peaked when I saw a book that arrived with it. I scanned the title: BASIC Programming User's Guide and Glossary.

I was intrigued! I was mesmerized! What did it MEAN? Was this book the secret to creating my own computer programs?  I was determined to find out. I read it from beginning to end. I was fascinated by the description of these WORDS that had the power to manipulate text in any way I wanted. As I tested out more and more of the topics, I figured out how to make everything on the screen do my bidding. It was like magic. 

Now remember, boys and girls: the Internet was at its infancy back then, and the very first domains were being created and registered that very year. I couldn't do a quick Google search and find out how to do all of this. I had to figure it all out by myself. And yes, I really was only 10 years old. I was a shy kid, with only a few friends. I spent most of my spare time on this supernatural contraption, and as I learned more about programming, I would also learn just how much I DIDN'T know about programming. This made me crave more. I kept at it, creating increasingly more complex code. I could make text do whatever I wanted, and it wasn't before long that I created what I thought was an impressive video game, using what would eventually be called Text or ASCII Art.
Starship Enterprise in ASCII Art


Spock in ASCII Art At this time, it was 1989, and I was just finishing grade 8. A few years had passed since I received that first computer, and given that we weren't a wealthy family, I was still using the same one. This game that I created was naturally based on one of my true loves: Star Trek. It was even more exciting to me, because their new series, Star Trek: The Next Generation, was well into its second season, and I just HAD TO make my game about that. This masterpiece of mine used keyboard characters to "draw" the main bridge of the Enterprise, ships in space, and even crew members. 

Donkey Kong on the Atari 7800 Yes, the people I created for this game looked quite silly, but back then imagination was a true necessity. People were still buying games on the Atari 7800, and its tiny, pixelated characters required plenty of imagination, therefore, in my humble opinion, my characters were just as good. So my game took the player through a story that involved ships shooting at each other, "scenes" on the main bridge, and even the Away Team beaming down. Yes folks, I was rather impressed with myself.

But something was missing. I wanted TRUE graphics. I wanted to actually DRAW on the computer, and I wanted those drawings to come to life in a video game. As before, Star Trek: TNG would be my inspiration, but it would take another year before this dream was realized.


to be continued

- Dan Peltier