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Thread: My Retro Reboot

  1. #1
    Going Retro!!! Ferral's Avatar
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    My Retro Reboot

    I don’t quite remember how it all came about in all honesty, February this year seems so long gone now, I do however remember a phone call to or from my mother, that’s how things like this usually start!

    I’m pretty sure she was emptying out her loft as she is planning on getting it converted; additionally the loft has to be emptied as she is getting insulation and cavity walls done.

    How talk of the C64 came about I just don’t know, probably mentioned that I use an emulator to still play the Commodore 64 games to this day, my mum is quite clued up considering she is hitting 60 next year (damn, I am feeling old) and understood what I was saying about old games running on a dedicated piece of software on new machines.

    My mum did inform me she still had my childhood Commodore 64 and a few boxes of the games, with no thought it was a case of bring it over, I want it back, my wife cast me the evil eye when I told her but she said it was ok as long as I don’t make a mess!

    A few days later my mum visited, bringing along the old, now-stained box that was available for Christmas around 1984, bundled in it the Music Maker keyboard and Secret Diary of Adrian Mole. Alongside this were two huge boxes full of games, all mixed up and not packaged particularly well.

    I feverishly unpacked the C64 to make sure it was all there, Joystick (Konix Speedking)…check, Mills tape deck…check, disk drive…check, all leads…check. Looking good so far and finally my Action Replay Mark IV (things were always numbered with Roman numerals back in the ‘80s). Within minutes I had everything hooked up to my 51in Plasma, thankfully the TV was bought before the analogue turn off so I managed to power-up and tune the TV in. The familiar blue screen with flashing cursor filled the big screen. I dug out my backed-up-to-disk copy of Rick Dangerous by Firebird, I took a grab of the game after the tape had loaded with it being a single load using my Action Replay around 25 years prior!








    Time to fire up the disk drive, damn…nothing, it’s dead. OK, what would I do if it was a modern PC, don’t panic yet! Check all leads are plugged into ports correctly, yep, no problems there. Hang on a second, maybe it’s the fuse in the plug, as is always the case I know I have fuses in the house somewhere, but when I need them they go hide! Right, what to do, I’m losing my will to live, ah…it’s a standard kettle lead so why didn’t I check that first. The old plug is Bakelite so it’s best to change it regardless, now I know I have a spare in one of my spare-bits drawers. So after the mad dig through the drawers I find said lead, plug it into back of the old Vic 1541 and flick the switch, in a sheer Frankenstein moment I cried out “It’s Alive” which gave the kids, my wife and mum a chuckle!

    LOAD”$”,8
    LIST
    LOAD”R*”,8,1
    RUN

    A few seconds later it all came flooding back like a tidal wave, the familiar SID tune and the title screen. Time to play, I now have an audience, kids watching in fascination, wife horrified by all the wires and my mum smiling quietly, possibly seeing me as a 14-year-old boy again.





    After a few goes I decide to relinquish the joystick to my son (12) and then daughter (14), they got about as far as I did, these games were tough. I don’t know how I ever managed to get through them back in the day.

    So while the kids were playing on my old breadbin I had to go digging, as long as one particular game is there I am happy. So the coffee table in the hallway became a shrine, taking out the small tape games first and laying them out so I can see the spine and the title. Now it’s time to start unpacking the large cardboard box games…I hope it’s there.

    By this time my wife and mum had retreated to the kitchen downstairs!

    It has to be there, the holy grail of my collection, my all-time favourite game ever, the game I played through hundreds of times start to finish without using any POKES or cheats, the kids are now also heading downstairs to regale the other adults on how cool the old machine is.

    Found it, I am alone in the front room, holding the box as if it could dissolve if I breathed on it!

    Put the tape in

    SHIFT/RUN Stop
    PRESS PLAY ON TAPE

    Who am I to argue with what I am being told to do?!

    I turn up the TV volume, turn on the home cinema and select optical input and turn that up and head to the kitchen. I said to my mum “I found it, it’s there”, she almost knew without saying anything else what I was talking about.

    My wife and the kids asked what have you found…

    At this point the music started and my mum recognised it immediately and said “Last Ninja 2”








    You could hear it clear as day as I had the volume up pretty loud, it was time for a trip round Central Park.

  2. Received thanks from:

    Bunjiweb (13-09-2013),DR (10-09-2013),kalniel (10-09-2013)

  3. #2
    Laird Of The Glen jimborae's Avatar
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    Re: My Retro Reboot

    Argh I love a good trip down memory lane.... great story.

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    Re: My Retro Reboot

    Brings back some memories! And in case my brother's reading, I'm still the champ at IK+!

  5. #4
    HEXUS webmaster Steve's Avatar
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    Re: My Retro Reboot

    Do I have to get my Spectrum out now?
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    Re: My Retro Reboot

    Bubble Bobble on the C-64, me and my mate played for absolutely hours!
    Old puter - still good enuff till I save some pennies!

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  8. #6
    HEXUS webmaster Steve's Avatar
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    Re: My Retro Reboot

    Quote Originally Posted by 3dcandy View Post
    Bubble Bobble on the C-64, me and my mate played for absolutely hours!
    ^^^ THIS ^^^

    A thousand times this.
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    Not a good person scaryjim's Avatar
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    Re: My Retro Reboot

    Most gutting thing was trying the games my mate gave me with his old Atari 2600, getting to Battle, and finding it didn't work No tank-pong for Jim....

    Love the C64, but it was never my thing. I had to make do with the school's BBC Bs until my parents got a 286, and got me a Master System II. Got a lot of love for my old Atari 2600 though: I only ever had the one game for it first time round, and now we don't have a TV any more (per se) I haven't got round to rigging it up at the new house. Must try harder

  10. #8
    Going Retro!!! Ferral's Avatar
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    Re: My Retro Reboot

    Quote Originally Posted by Steve View Post
    Do I have to get my Spectrum out now?
    Er YES, yes you do!!!

    Speaking of Spectrum, that is just the start of my little tale!!!!

    10 PRINT"***************
    20 PRINT"* HEXUS ROCKS!!! *
    30 PRINT"***************
    40 GOTO10

    RUN


    Try that out on an emulator (WinVICE for C64 or ZXSpin for Spectrum) or even better on the real machines

  11. #9
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    Re: My Retro Reboot

    was just talking about Rick Dangerous yesterday lol, classic game
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    Re: My Retro Reboot

    I still have my C64, still play on it every now and then, but my main retro machine that I still love and use is my Amiga 1200 now fully expanded in an EZ Tower with a bolt load of upgrades like an ide adaptor, an Amiga accelerator which has a 50mhz cpu and 128 mb of ram on it as well, also it has a DVD-ROM drive, HDD with OS 3.9 on it and a load of WHDLoad games and I play on it every day.
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  13. #11
    bored out of my tiny mind malfunction's Avatar
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    Re: My Retro Reboot

    I haven't played any C64 games (emulated or otherwise) in ages but I do listen to various SID tunes on a fairly regular basis, including last ninja 2. In fact I'm pretty sure blasting out SID tunes killed my last set of speakers!

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    Re: My Retro Reboot

    Can't beat that feeling of dragging out a 20+ year old computer/console and firing it up with no problems. I've currently got my Amiga 500+, Atari 7800 with on-board Asteroids, C64 (and 2 Dreamcasts) in rotation. Happy days.

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