Posted on 02/18/2019 7:43:54 AM PST by BenLurkin
Pfaff restored the saved game of Adventureland, a text command game released for microcomputers by Scott Adams in 1978.
“This is tricky, because three decades later I can’t quite remember where I left off this round of Adventureland.”
Pfaff found floppy disks with several different games of the time including; Millionware, Neuromancer and Olympic Decathlon.
Besides finding games on the floppy disks, Pfaff came across saved copies of his high school assignments and a note from his late father.
“Just found this letter my dad typed to me in 1986, when I was 11 and at summer camp,” he tweeted. “My dad passed away almost exactly a year ago. It’s amazing to come across something so ‘ordinary’ from him.”
Pfaff showed off the vintage system to his own children and their reaction is what you’d expect from a generation that has moved on to an iPhone X.
(Excerpt) Read more at ktla.com ...
"Achtung comrade!"
Isn’t that Wolfenstein?
Yes, i used to play it on an apple.
-PJ
Apple *ping*
My Dad passed about a year ago and I had his old franklin sitting in his garage ready for me to pick up. My brother in law tossed it in a dump run. Pretty pissed but oh well. I still have the floppies though.
I have that disk. Hic!
My neighbor had one of those. During one summer break we spent hours playing Wizardry and Castle Wolfenstein. I remember we had to draw out maps on paper of where all the rooms were.
I still have my Commodore 64, and it’s predecessor the Vic-20.
I have the Commodore disk drive and monitor, too.
However, they’re all out in a box in the barn, but still in their own original boxes.
SOMEDAY, I keep telling myself, I’m going to bring them in and start them up. I’ve been saying that since 1990.
Got a copy of Zork? My favorite!
Thanks BenLurkin. This isn't a four leaf clover of course -- there's a number of FB groups for retro computing, including at least two Apple II groups (II, and IIgs). There's also interesting hardware coming out from time to time, such as HDMI adapters, flash memory card adapters, other things to revive and/or keep them alive. About five million were built, including about one million IIgs's.
Heh... my first was in 1984, a IIe, with plain 80 column card (the extended 80 had an additional, whopping 64K), a single Disk ][ and controller card, and a Monitor ][ green screen. Hard drives were nearly a thousand bucks back then, so some people opted for no hard drive, or for using the computers at schools if they were hooked to a 5 meg networked Corvus system (and they had a lot of stuff to store).
Quark Engineering, which was later better known as a Mac software company (Quark Express was a publishing package, loved that on the SE/30) built a 10 meg DOS 3.3 hard drive, big, cube, which it cleared out when it dropped its Apple II lines. They also sold a 65802 pin-compatible CPU upgrade kit. The real hard drive revolution for the Apple II was the Sider, a 10 meg which retailed for $695, then 20 meg, which It think sold for the same price but a couple of years on.
This sounds hilarious now -- but it hasn't been that many years before the first terabyte drives arrived, and those retailed for around $500, but they're pretty much given away with a tank of gas now. I remember the ad for the first mass-market 1 gig driives -- ten grand. "Gosh, you could run an entire company on a gig drive," my friend and I mused. The same friend and I were in a Best Buy not that many years ago, and saw what passed fthen or the largest flat screen, also ten grand. One that size is probably $700 now.
That "vintage 1978" Apple II system that was a prop on "The Big Bang Theory" clearly wasn't from 1978, of course, you probably noticed that too. It was obviously from mid-1980s. :^)
I used that exact configuration to develop an automatic test stand for our inhouse battery test stations. Back in the late 70s.
Back when computers were fun and creative. Back when Apple sold breadboards to configure and plug into these machines. Back when Basic was where it was at.
Ah, memories!
Of possible interest...
-PJ
NewDOS80, Z80... wow, you win the topic! :^) So, a TRS-80? THe oldest thing I've used, and it was a while ago of course, was a S-100 bus Z-80 CP/M system that was floating around work. There was a terminal, attached to the CPU, which was a great big box holding the mobo and two eight inch floppy drives. There was also an Okidata dot matrix printer that used typewriter style open reel ink ribbons, and didn't print with true descenders. It was cool. :^) The only Z9-s around here are a bag of old T1000 Timex "doorstops" my dad picked up to see all about this computer thing. They were fun to tinker with, but the 16K external memory pack would wobble a little while I tried to type on that wafer keyboard, the contacts would lose track of the edge connector, and poof! All was gone. Solid state OS though, that was nice. :^)
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