A Look at Home Micro Computer Games the UK Retro lifestyle.

Victor Mildew wrote:Yes a CPC 6128. Lots of happy times playing that, going to the newsagents with my pocket money and buying some random 4 games in one tape for £3.99 off the rotating display they had by the door. Those were the days

Here's the box of amstrad stuff just after I'd rescued it from dad's place. I'd decided to leave it when we'd finished clearing his house, and then I just had this "what the strawberry float am I doing?!" Moment sat at home, and realised I had to go back and get it. Something like a 4 hour round trip but it was worth it.

Jenuall wrote:

Victor Mildew wrote:Yes a CPC 6128. Lots of happy times playing that, going to the newsagents with my pocket money and buying some random 4 games in one tape for £3.99 off the rotating display they had by the door. Those were the days

Here's the box of amstrad stuff just after I'd rescued it from dad's place. I'd decided to leave it when we'd finished clearing his house, and then I just had this "what the strawberry float am I doing?!" Moment sat at home, and realised I had to go back and get it. Something like a 4 hour round trip but it was worth it.

One was always broken as my dad and his mate got pissed at a barbecue and decided to play Daley Thompson on it, then broke the stick. He would never get rid of it or try to fix it, which I suppose an indication of the hoarding that would appear later on.

Downloading games over the radio/TV? I've never heard of that before, but it sounds amazing.

Best thing about this thread is it makes me feel young and old at the same time.

Young because I don't have the same memories or attachment to the 8-bit scene. I was born in 83, so by the time I was old enough to get into games (87) the console scene in the UK was beginning to become more visible and the micro's were beginning to be replaced by their 16-bit counterparts.

Old because I DID still engage with that 8-bit scene. First computer was a BBC Micro Model B which was a beast of a system, even if it didn't have the expansive library of the other machines. I remember being insanely jealous I couldn't play Dizzy on my Beeb. But it made up for it with some fantastic, impressive arcade clones and ports. Plus, you know, Elite.

There were also very few BBC games on shop shelves compared to the C64 and Speccy so I never got to experience getting tapes or anything like that.

Most of my 8-bit memories beyond that are from my cousins and one of my school friends. Cousin had a C64 and I remember playing that whenever I went over. Top Cat, Commando and Pac-Land are the games that really stick in my mind from then. My other cousin is where I first played stuff like Yie Ar Kung-Fu. Great memories.

It's weird to wish I had one of the "weaker" systems, but I think a C64 or even a CPC would have been great at the time. If only for the vastly bigger library. I think I would have far more attachment to that era than I do. Late 8-Bit/Early 16-bit is where I cut my teeth and while computers were part of it, I was so much more into my GameBoy and later SNES.

All I know about this era of gaming is my Dad's at the time drawerfull of C64 casettes. He had so many of them and a good number of them were clearly recorded and not official.

Mum never allowed Dad to set it up because of how big it was, but he still has it (at least I hope he does). My first game system was his AmigaCD 32 which I guess was kind of the evolution of Commandore.

Cheeky Devlin wrote:...Old because I DID still engage with that 8-bit scene. First computer was a BBC Micro Model B which was a beast of a system, even if it didn't have the expansive library of the other machines. I remember being insanely jealous I couldn't play Dizzy on my Beeb. But it made up for it with some fantastic, impressive arcade clones and ports. Plus, you know, Elite.

There were also very few BBC games on shop shelves compared to the C64 and Speccy so I never got to experience getting tapes or anything like that.

Most of my 8-bit memories beyond that are from my cousins and one of my school friends. Cousin had a C64 and I remember playing that whenever I went over. Top Cat, Commando and Pac-Land are the games that really stick in my mind from then. My other cousin is where I first played stuff like Yie Ar Kung-Fu. Great memories.

It's weird to wish I had one of the "weaker" systems, but I think a C64 or even a CPC would have been great at the time. If only for the vastly bigger library. I think I would have far more attachment to that era than I do. Late 8-Bit/Early 16-bit is where I cut my teeth and while computers were part of it, I was so much more into my GameBoy and later SNES.

I'm very fond of the Beeb despite never owning one (they were a wealthy family's computer! :lol: ). My primary school never had a computer and so when I started secondary school in 1982 that was my first experience of using one; the BBC B was - generally - the standard in schools then. About half the school was in "the huts" - wooden, cheap buildings outside of the central building - and the computer room was located in one of them. It was a small room with about eight BBC B micros. Man, I loved it! I remember learning my first BASIC program:

10 PRINT "JAWA"
20 GOTO 10

I then got really good at coding and inserted a "5 CLS" line in to clear the screen first 8-) .

And then games arrived. I can recall Yellow River Kingdom and Killer Gorilla (an excellent Donkey Kong clone by the legendary Superior Software).

In the period 1983 through to around 1987, gaming shops - and newsagents! - often had games for many formats; Spectrum (16k and 48k), Vic-20, C64, C16/Plus 4, Oric, BBC B, Electron, Dragon 32/64, MSX, Atari 400/600/800 and Amstrad CPC. By the time we got round to 1988, things had usually been narrowed down to Spectrum, C64 and Amstrad; plus we then had the 16-bit systems like ST and Amiga, alongside the (re)arrival of consoles with the NES and MS.

The BBC B had super build quality and excellent (expensive!) peripherals. It's version of BASIC was superb, with a far greate range of commands than the BASIC used on Commodore systems. Technically it had a fairly slow processor but it could display colour very sharply; graphics wise it was often the best at vector graphics whilst the C64 excelled at scrolling and music.

The BBC B was fantastic :-).

I think everyone of a certain age in the UK used a BBC at school. I can remember at secondary school when they upgraded them to Nimbus computers.

I was a C64 kid at home though.

Moggy wrote:I think everyone of a certain age in the UK used a BBC at school...

Yeah, I believe that they were in most secondary schools by 1981, with primary schools getting some soon after, too. When I started college in 1987 the BBC B was still one of the main computers used, alongside...

Moggy wrote:...I can remember at secondary school when they upgraded them to Nimbus computers. ...

...yes, the RM Nimbus! This was a "PC-like" system that was popular in educational places for a few years. I used these in my first year at college and then we got PCs in the form of the Amstrad 1512 and 1640 systems!

Moggy wrote:...I was a C64 kid at home though.

\o.

Moggy wrote:I think everyone of a certain age in the UK used a BBC at school. I can remember at secondary school when they upgraded them to Nimbus computers.

I was a C64 kid at home though.

Yeah it was fun having a BBC at home and also having access to the School machines as well. My mum was a teacher so I managed to get copies of most of the educational stuff as well as games. So Grannys Garden, Through the Dragons Eye, Geordie Racer. All the Look and Read games.

jawa_ wrote:And then games arrived. I can recall Yellow River Kingdom and Killer Gorilla (an excellent Donkey Kong clone by the legendary Superior Software).

Don't think I ever played Yellow River Kingdom, but I did have Killer Gorilla. Also had great ports of loads of other arcade games. Battlezone, Asteroids, Centipede, Mr Do!, Space Invaders. I spent hours playing all of these.

I also had Chuckie Egg which I think is potentially the best game on the BBC.

jawa_ wrote:

Moggy wrote:I think everyone of a certain age in the UK used a BBC at school...

Yeah, I believe that they were in most secondary schools by 1981, with primary schools getting some soon after, too. When I started college in 1987 the BBC B was still one of the main computers used, alongside...

Moggy wrote:...I can remember at secondary school when they upgraded them to Nimbus computers. ...

...yes, the RM Nimbus! This was a "PC-like" system that was popular in educational places for a few years. I used these in my first year at college and then we got PCs in the form of the Amstrad 1512 and 1640 systems!

Moggy wrote:...I was a C64 kid at home though.

\o.

I remember being in the computer room at school and we saw the IT guy go into his office with what looked (to us!) like a giant CD. We never ever saw it again and it was a few years later that I found out what a laserdisc was.

Cheeky Devlin wrote:Grannys Garden

Cheeky Devlin wrote:Don't think I ever played Yellow River Kingdom, but I did have Killer Gorilla. Also had great ports of loads of other arcade games. Battlezone, Asteroids, Centipede, Mr Do!, Space Invaders. I spent hours playing all of these.

I also had Chuckie Egg which I think is potentially the best game on the BBC.

Yeah, the Beeb had lots of excellent games "inspired" (ripped-off!) from arcade titles. Plenty of more original greats, too, like Thrust, Repton, Revs, Exile and - of course! - Elite.

I used to enjoy text adventures back in the 8-bit days, too. They were a (quite popular) niche sector OG gaming, but by the late 80s they had been replaced by graphic adventures - and even that genre is pretty rare nowdays. Level 9 (UK) and Infocom (US) were perhaps the biggest two adventure game publishers of the 80s.

Cheeky Devlin wrote:Grannys Garden

Moggy wrote:I remember being in the computer room at school and we saw the IT guy go into his office with what looked (to us!) like a giant CD. We never ever saw it again and it was a few years later that I found out what a laserdisc was.

LaserDisc! I've never actually seen a disc IRL bar sealed packages in the old Virgin Megastore and HMV in central London. They look beautiful in photos; 12" vinyl-sized CDs! I recall that the Dragon's Lair arcade game ran from LaserDisc; it looked fantastic for the era but played bloomin' terribly.

Cheeky Devlin wrote:I also had Chuckie Egg which I think is potentially the best game on the BBC.

One I always went back to on Spectrum. Excellent game.

I strongly recommend Donut Dodo to anyone who loved Chuckie Egg. I've got it on Evercade but it's available on other systems too (£4 on Switch, £6 on Steam). Really captures the same spirit, and looks retro spectacular, while having immensely compelling gameplay (collecting the donuts in flashing sequence for maximum combo hugely increases the challenge).

rinks wrote:

Cheeky Devlin wrote:I also had Chuckie Egg which I think is potentially the best game on the BBC.

One I always went back to on Spectrum. Excellent game.

I strongly recommend Donut Dodo to anyone who loved Chuckie Egg. I've got it on Evercade but it's available on other systems too (£4 on Switch, £6 on Steam). Really captures the same spirit, and looks retro spectacular, while having immensely compelling gameplay (collecting the donuts in flashing sequence for maximum combo hugely increases the challenge).

Oh wow this looks great, this is going on my steam wishlist!

I played the BBC at school as well, lots of grannys Garden.
Played a fair bit of C64 as my best friend had one.

This is the first game I ever ever played as a little kid

This is the best thread on this forum for many years

We bought a BBC Micro as an upgrade from our Speccy. That’s where I played Chuckie Egg, Donkey Kong JR, Scramble and Elite for the first time.

I just remembered that one magazine had the cheats for Samantha Fox Strip Poker (Speccy version), I had no clue what tits were back then, but I’d often find the cassette in the machine and the magazine next to it when I got to play the following the day. My dad was maybe a bit of perv.

Christopher wrote:This is the best thread on this forum for many years

We bought a BBC Micro as an upgrade from our Speccy. That’s where I played Chuckie Egg, Donkey Kong JR, Scramble and Elite for the first time.

I just remembered that one magazine had the cheats for Samantha Fox Strip Poker (Speccy version), I had no clue what tits were back then, but I’d often find the cassette in the machine and the magazine next to it when I got to play the following the day. My dad was maybe a bit of perv.

They had BBC micros at junior school, and in my last year our classroom got an Acorn Archimedes The demo of Zarch, called lander, was on a disk, and I used to do whatever I could to play it. Even went to one parents evening and asked the teacher if I could play on it while he told my parents what a little twat I was

Secondary school had a dedicated IT room with about 15 Archimedes in there, so a few of us would go in at lunch times and try to play games. One rich kid had an Archimedes at home, so I managed to get him to copy some games to a disk for me, and I was the only person with these games, making me DA MAN with the fellow dorks, thus ensuring I was always invited to lunch time gaming time. The science room still had a BBC micro, which I think we used for LOGO, where we learned to plot a circle.

A mate had an Atari ST and it used to really impress me how good the graphics were compared to my Amstrad. I remember him playing midwinter 2 and just thinking things could never get better than that.

A new Video, a look at another of my Home Micro Games Kick Start 2 for the Spectrum