LATEST CHATTY HEADER

My first gaming memories were on a Commodore 64. It had the external 5 1/4" floppy drive (which had 2 slots for easy swapping for programs spanning multiple disks), a couple one-button joysticks and what must have been a 10" eye irradiating color screen.

Regardless of its simplicity, it had games, so I couldn't help but love it. This was back when I was around 5 or 6; an age where I was simply happy with what I was given. I had Ghostbusters and TMNT games (both other childhood obsessions), but I was too rubbish to get much farther than the first level. I had gauntlet as well, which I have fond memories of because it was 2-player, which allowed me to play with my brother (making it easier as well). I also had Mini-Golf, which could be played with up to 4 people (I've always preferred playing games with others present, and still do; shame that consoles, the last bastion of these type of games, seem to be moving more and more towards internet play and away from hot seat play).

I also had games, whose names I've completely forgotten (but only the names), that were on disks with hand-written labels. Your instinct now might be that these were pirated copies. As a child, this meant nothing to me, but now as I've come to understand things, I realize that these must have been what were called "Type-in" games.

That is to say, they were games that came free in magazines. However, unlike today where games come on CDs or DVDs, these games literally came IN the magazines. Printed pages (and pages and pages I'm sure) of binary code. It must have been binary, because I recall finding cassette tapes of my dad reciting endless 1s and 0s in a flat monotone, like some magic incantation; recited properly somehow conjures a game from the mysterious depths of The Computer.

Looking back, this seems like a completely insane process. Could you imagine trying to debug this? you'd be pretty much forced to start over from the scratch should you mistype. The fact that my dad went to these extreme lengths just for a simple game for me and my brother really impresses and surprises me. Surprises because, in the end, my father never developed much love for video games even while he was doing so much to help fuel the obsession in me and my brother. Still, pretty damn cool thing to do nonetheless.

I could go on, but I'm sure you don't want to hear it. If you've gotten this far, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed the story!

(p.s. - I'm a PC & Wii man now).