Nostalgia

[whabang]

A pirate-version of the NES. It had 20 games built-in, and I guess I had around 15 original games for it.

[Dan]

An secondhand A500 just when the A1200 was launched. :-P

[X-ray]

Well, for me it all started with those fold-out hand-held games: anybody remember Donkey Kong? This is what I had:

http://www.ggdb.com/GGDB/DetailsZoom.asp?Cat=All.Handheld.GameWatch&VID=5764&PID=1388&NID=3&TID=Game

Edit: I forgot about Phaser Strike. I loved it:

http://www.handheldmuseum.com/MB/MVPhaser.htm

And after that I got Epoch man (a pacman clone):

http://www.handheldmuseum.com/Epoch/EpochMan.htm

This brings back memories, I can hear the little beeps and imagine the texture of the jump button on the Donkey Kong. At school breaks we had regular get-togethers, looking to see who had recently got a new game, and then we'd swap for half an hour and play them. I remember one guy had a triple-screen game and we were all in awe of it.

Then I got an Atari 2600. That gave me a lot of joy, especially with games like Demon Attack, Planet Patrol, Berserk and Yar's Revenge.

It's funny that nothing gives you the same feeling as that Atari 2600. Then I went through a typical computer evolution:

C64 (our school was polarised, Speccy vs C64, and I chose the right team)  :-P
A500 (1991)
A600 (1993)
B2000 (1993) (after ditching the A600 after 2 weeks)
A1200 (1995)
another A500 second hand (had sold the first one in '93 and got the second one in '95 because I wanted the monitor that came with it. The guy wouldn't sell it separately.)
A4000T (1996)

I still have the A500 and the A4000T.

Then I got a PS2 in late 2001, and I only finally 'defected' to PC in late 2002 because of my research. I actually felt sick paying for it. I would have preferred a Mac but I had been doing unpaid research for a year and money was tight, so I got a £400 PC. It has been surprisingly well-behaved.

I've often thought of selling this A4000T because I don't actually need it for anything, but it has sentimental value and I just can't let the old girl go. At some stage I might take it out of the original case and have a custom case made for it, a lot smaller, and with better access to the inside, kind of like an A4000D, but not that cramped, and way better looking.

[PMC]

@X-ray

During my very brief school career in Cape Town (circa 1987-88) I recall our school had several Spectrum 48K machines, some of which were modded with Saga keyboards.

I was dismayed one afternoon to discover several PCs being installed in our computer room.  I was quite amused when Mr De Jager (our IT teacher) explained that the large metal  box was mostly empty and the PCB was little bigger than that in our beloved Spectrums...