Remember when

[realmzmaster]

How many of the group remember when CRPGs came on casstte tape? I remember getting Temple of Apshai, Hellfire Warrior, Warriors of Ras, Dragon's Eye, Telengard and others on casstte tape for my Atari and Commodore 64 8-bits. The first CRPG I remember was for my Commodore Vic-20 called Dungeon of Death. It had two different parts. The first part was the character creation program. You ran the program, revoved the game tape and inserted your character cassttee tape (usually a 10-minute tape) to save your chracter.

You remove the character tape and inserted the game tape to run the program with the actual game. The game program would then ask for the character tape to load your character. You then had to re-insert the game tape and continue.

The Atari and Commodre 8-bits had dedicated tape players you could purchase. The Timex Sinclair, TRS-80, and COCO used regular cassette players.

Many of us used the cassette players because disk drives were down right expensive. Sometimes the disk drives exceed the cost of the computer! Automated Simulation (Epyx) sold their games in cassette and disk formats!

Don't you wish for those good old days?

[Kreador Freeaxe]

Temple of Apshai! That's the one I was trying to remember that I played on our TRS-80. Fun game, even if I did have to wait for the tape all the time.

[BasiliskWrangler]

I was lucky- my dad bought me a floppy disk drive ($575) for my Atari 800 computer.

I've said it before: my first RPG was Ultima 2. Man, there was so much "magic" to that game. And I remember when the local computer store got Ultima 3 which was $60 I believe, way too expensive for a game, and I stared longingly at that box wondering what incredible things it must contain.

[Feidb]

I started computer games when the Commodore 128 came out. Came with a separate disk drive. Never got a game on cassette. Almost built an analogue synthesizer that used one for programs, but luckily, I couldn't afford it, as that technology quickly died for that system (PAIA, by the way).

My first RPG was probably Phantasie followed by Bard's Tale. Then the Gold Box series came out and I played most if not all of them.

[Dragonlady]

Telengard! Now that brings back memories! Our first computer, the C64 with tape. I played that for hours and mapped on graph paper...poor house went dirty for a long time! My son was lucky to get fed! I was so amazed at the increase in speed when we got the regular drive for it and then came the C128! Those were the days! Ha! I remember getting on the internet..so to speak, ie. connecting to a BBS with our A500 and the world opened. Sigh.

[realmzmaster]

Most people may not know it but there was an Ultima game for the Commodore Vic-20 called Ultima: Escape from Mt. Drash published by Online (Sierra Online). It came on cassette and required the 8K cartridge expansion. It was done by Keith Zabalaoui president of Atomic Games back in 1983. It really was not a Ultima, Online just thought it would sell better with the Ultima name on it!

I wish I had kept my Vic-20 stuff, now the casstte is extremely hard to find.

I remember back in 1979 the Atari 800 had a list price of $1200

[Saxon1974]

I was lucky- my dad bought me a floppy disk drive ($575) for my Atari 800 computer.

I've said it before: my first RPG was Ultima 2. Man, there was so much "magic" to that game. And I remember when the local computer store got Ultima 3 which was $60 I believe, way too expensive for a game, and I stared longingly at that box wondering what incredible things it must contain.

Ultima III was the first RPG that consumed my life. My older cousin used to come to our house after school until his mom could pick him up. He had Ultima III and would bring it with him and play for an hour or so on my Dad's C64. He eventually stopped coming to our house and took Ultima III away! I didn't have money to buy it, so I had to ask for it for Christmas and wait a few months to get it.

I remember going to the store and holding it in my hands just imagining the day I could get my very own. That is probably my fondest Christmas memory. I think I played it non stop for an entire year.

[joshuasmyth]

I'm not that old

My first RPG was Quest for Glory (came on nine 5 1/4" floppies)

[Asgard The Elder]

How many remember the Crystal Caves? All Text based game that I had for my trash 80 - cassette loaded. Graph paper a must and a good imagination...

Looking back at all the computers I've owned over the years..wow what a list of antiques, just like me..!

[Kreador Freeaxe]

Asgard, did you also have the predecessor to Civilization: Santa Paravia? Where you had to maintain and improve your city to try to outgrow your opponents. All based on information on spreadsheets.

Ah, the joys of text-based games.

[realmzmaster]

Speaking of text-based games, does anyone remember the British games development firm Level 9 (founded by the Austin brothers: Michael, Pete and Nicholas). They were called the Infocom of England. Their text adventures came on cassette for Atari, Commodore, BBC, Oric and Sinclair computers. I have Red Moon and Emerald Isle. It is unbelieveable the amount of detail and text they squeezed onto the cassette

Level 9 developed their own interpretation language called A-Code and had text compression routinues which compressed the text by 50%. Quite an achievement for the early 80's. Unfortunately Level 9 closed shop due to the decline in the text adventure market.

Let's not forget Scott Adams and Adventure International.

[Asgard The Elder]

Asgard, did you also have the predecessor to Civilization: Santa Paravia? Where you had to maintain and improve your city to try to outgrow your opponents. All based on information on spreadsheets.

Ah, the joys of text-based games.

Never did that one. Played many different sims through the years though. Still like to reomp around the world in a battle sim. Still find Cossaks a bit of fun to play and American Conquest, No Man's Land etc.. And yes I do have Sid Meier's Cicilization..LOL

[Grue]

Ahh, the good old text adventures! Must've played nearly all Infocom's and a good deal of Level 9's games, among others. I have great memories of them (just check my sig)... and some great frustrations with them as well.

You see: a key
> Get key
You cannot get the key
What do you mean I cannot get the key? But it's there! You said it was! Hmm, okay...
> Take key
I don't understand you
Aaaargh!!

Good times!

I first started with a C64 and its cassette drive. I remember waiting for ages for a game to load, hoping against hope to see a start screen after the load screen (if there even was one), only to be greeted with a clank as the tape player stopped when the cassette had run till the end and the game had failed to start. Okay, sigh, start over. Sometimes it took 3 or 4 tries before it worked and I got to play the game. Saving? Uhh, don't want to go there. Writing down tape tracker numbers and such. Ouch. Heh. You can imagine my joy, when I finally got a floppy drive!

[Grue]

Ahh, got to share this. If you don't want to watch it all, go to 1:30 when he goes on to the text adventures. It's hilarious!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7oe3ZSMz ... re=related

Get ye flask!

[Saxon1974]

I only played a few of them in the early 80's. I played Zork and a couple of the legend games I think.

I do remember the feeling of imagination of playing Zork though, they were still great games as far as imagination goes.