Saturday, September 19, 2009

"High-Resolution Graphics": Try not to laugh.

A little story for those of you who can remember back far enough.

It was determined one Christmas that my parents were getting me a Commodore 64 for my big gift that year. Whether they told me early or I just weaseled it out of them I can't recall. At any rate, I convinced them to take me on a trip to the Orange Park Mall before Christmas so I could get my first game to play on the Commodore. So off we went to the "Electronics Boutique" (what an awesome store) for me to do some shopping.

What I ended up getting was "Adventureland: Saga #1"!



Now here's the thing. This post isn't so much a fond remembrance of my Commodore 64 in general or this game in particular (I remember a lot of my games fondly, but this one barely registers). No, this post is to demonstrate how much of a computer-ignorant dumbass I was.

When we got back to the car, I sat in the back seat and opened the thin plastic package holding the manual and the 5 1/4 floppy disk. Having not even gotten my hands on an actual computer yet, I didn't know how disks worked. Seeing the black plastic covering for the actual disk, I thought the purpose was to remove the covering to get at the disk. I recall being in that back seat at night with my parents driving home up Blanding boulevard and using my fingernails to pry at the tiny flaps and rivets that held the plastic case together.

Fortunately, I eventually discovered the true nature of floppy disks before I succeeded.

Ah, memories. Anyway, in case you're interested, there's a Javascript version you can play online (minus the graphics). The simulation is pretty good and downright fool proof... even for this fool.

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