hile Jeff is starting this blog by instantly working on a new game, I want to take a look back before going forward. There are tons of old games we have worked on, plus many work-in-progress projects, stories and other stuff that I want to archive. If not necessarily for others to read, than just for my own selfish purposes.

I just started reading the book Commodork by Rob O’Hara. The book is not comprehensive history of an era like The First Quarter, or gripping yarn like The Cuckoo's Egg , but instead,,  a very personal story in the vein of Extra Life.  It's is a nice collection of anecdotes and a solid look-back at the BBS days of the 80’s. O’Hara chronicles his love of computers as a kid in Oklahoma, growing up through the 90’s. I recommend it for anyone who is even remotely interested in the days of “Personal Computers” before the IBM compatible behemoth swallowed almost all but very few. Rob’s experiences mirror Jeff and mine pretty closely, except that Rob was a “Commode-Door” junkie and we were solid Atari fans from California.

s long as I can remember, Jeff and I have wanted to make games. I’m not exactly sure where to start this story, so for lack of a better place, I’ll pick the beginning. Jeff and I were born on January 24th, 1970, as 1 month pre-mature twins. I arrived 4 minutes after Jeff, and was a complete surprise. The doctors had no idea our mom was carrying twins With both of us coming in at just about the 4lb mark, we arrived a bit underdeveloped, before our time and underestimated: a few of attributes that we have not been able to shake for most of our lives. We grew up just like most suburban kids of the 70s; We rode our bikes, played guns and ditch ‘em at the school, stayed out all day to come home when the street lights came on.

aptism By Pixel

 

The back of the store

1977

Right of the housewares

 

Next to the fire door

Heavy Sixer with Combat!

Two wide-eyed kids

 

Thumbs on the buttons

CX-40s in our palms

Hands and eyes in-sync

n the fall of 1977 my mother surprised my 7-year old twin brother and I with some information that we had never bothered to learn beforehand: she told us we were Catholic. This came as quite a shock, as I had no idea we were religious. We had attended church on most Sundays, but my dad was not into it at all and I had figured it was just something we did to get us out of the house to waste time between the Ch. 5 Tom Hatten Popeye show in the morning, and Ch. 9 Horror film Festival in the afternoon (pre-"Elvira Mistress Of The Dark"). It never occurred to me that we were actually serious about it. However, the mere revelation that we were now religious was not the whole story, work was involved. Now that we were Catholics, we would have to attend CCD class, a weekly one-hour bible study/snack time that was designed to prepare us for the second most important Catholic Sacrament, First Communion. This in and of itself was not terrible news. However, it turned out we were starting CCD class a year late, which meant as Second Graders we would be stuck with a bunch of immature First Graders. Second graders mingling with lower classmen was a horrible situation to begin with, but then the other boot dropped: when would be carpooling with one of the aforementioned First Graders. Could it have gotten any worse?

reakout 2600

Hypnotic death notes
Each block wails an 8-bit tone
Blinks out then silence


Burrow A Hole Through
Your color-banded shield
Watch ball go ape-crap


Difficulty B
Paddle too tiny. Back to
Difficulty A


One last little block
Yes! I cleared level two
What? No Level Three?

y 1980, the Fulton household was wearing at the seams.  Almost over-night, our little happy family imploded.   First our aunt and cousin were killed by a drunk driver in car accident.  Then our grandfather contracted lung cancer from smoking a pipe for 50 years.   At the same time, our oldest sister was getting into the burgeoning local punk scene.  She was staying out later and later on week nights, and our parents were not happy about it.  All of this stuff combined to make our house a very uncomfortable place to be most of the time. Of course, being 10 years old, none of this really affected us the way one would expect.  We knew weird stuff was going on, but instead of thinking about it too much, Jeff I and dove further into our growing passion for video games.   We did not have access to anything at home, and the closest arcades were miles away.  However, we did have one outlet for our video game madness: the grocery store shopping center located roughly 1-mile from our house.

lectronic Games Magazine

Cover of first Electronic Games Magazine

Most Friday nights in  the very early 80’s, my twin brother and I would accompany my mom on the weekly shopping trip to Lucky’s supermarket.   In the late afternoon my dad would arrive home from work with his weekly paycheck cashed and ready for the weekend.  He would lay the crisp $20 bills on his bed, one by one, dividing up what my mom would get for the “house” , what he would “sock away” for whatever it was that he was socking-money-away for that month (Motocross bikes, Civil War memorabilia, whatever).   However, the most momentous portion of this ritual was the final act.  Dad kept four $5.00 bills separated from the rest.  If we had “earned” it that week (or rather, “not lost it” by being idiots), he would dole-out these bills as weekly allowance for each of his four kids.

n the fall of 1981, just after starting junior high school, my brother Jeff and I tried to convince our parents that we “needed” an Atari VCS for Christmas. Our parents had never been very electronics or modern convenience friendly, so it was quite a tough sell. Other than a color TV (Zenith console circa 1972), there was nothing in our house that would signify to, say a time traveler from the year 2181, that technology had progressed much since the end of World War II. My mom washed the dishes by hand, threw her food garbage in a compost trash can, opened cans with two hands, a tool, and a twisting motion, popped popcorn on the stove in covered pot, “processed” food with a knife and a cutting board, made coffee with a pan and a strainer on the stove, and heated all meals in a vintage O’Keefe And Merit built-in oven using gas only (never waves of any kind, micro, or otherwise). Likewise My dad mowed the lawn with a push mower, paid for all purchases with cash (never credit), listened to A.M. radio exclusively, and refused any kind of telephonic upgrade beyond the, a single, flesh colored, wired, rotary telephone in the living room. For our entertainment our house received channels (2-13 and 28) and had a stereo system that could play a phonograph records only (no supports for tapes of any kind). The very idea that a video game system could invade this environment was beyond unthinkable, it was ludicrous

steroids 2600

Looking for computers
I see you under the glass
Evil Asteroids

Your brown box taunts me
Sixty-Six variations
Well worth the money

Asteroids float up
Nothing like the arcade game
Asteroids float down

A wave of nausea
Thigh stings from the pain of a
Hole burnt in pocket

Yet, I still play it
Home is not like the arcade
But I can reset

The beat transcends all
Hypnotic flashing space rocks
I give into it

he Best Christmas Ever

Although we had no idea in early 1981, my brother and I were video game obsessed twins on a collision-course with the pinnacle of ultimate geekdom: computer ownership.    We loved arcade games and owned an Atari 2600 that we played constantly.  We spent all of our money on Electronic Games magazine, arcade tokens, and Atari cartridges.    In the course of our many adventures searching for good, cheap video game thrills, we stumbled across a store named HW Computers.   HW was part of a chain established among the first wave of computer stores.  The shop was a mish-mash of t-shirted techies,  cheap business-suited sales guys, IBM clones, Apple IIs, and walls of elaborately shaped boxes of software and games.   We were there looking for the 2600 versions of Asteroids™ and Space Invaders™, but instead we found something better.  In a glass case they were displaying one of the most beautiful creations we had ever witnessed: an Atari 800 computer...

’ve written a few articles here on 8bitrocket.com filled with histrionics about the “best” and “greatest” Christmas mornings from my childhood, but until now I have avoided the talking about the some of the worst. The Coleco Shooting Gallery, Atari Jaguar, Action Max stand out as some of the worst Christmas presents I've ever given or received.

ome Computer Wars: Alpha Mission is part 1 of a game that started as a series of lessons for Mochiland.com to help teach new Flash game programmers the structure of creating a game. The game is inspired by Coke exclusive game Pepsi Invaders for the Atari 2600. That game was a re-design of Space Invaders with the invaders changed into the letters P.E.P.S.I. For Home Computer Wars: Alpha Mission I decided to change the theme from “Cola Wars” to the personal computer was of the early 80’s.

hen Kenny Brown moved to Manhattan Beach in 1980 from Philadelphia PA and started 5th grade in my class with Ms. Nash, I did not like him at all. The Dodgers were playing to win the National League West that year, and Kenny could do nothing but root for the Phillies as they thwarted L.A. every chance they got. The Dodgers failed to win anything, while the Phillies advanced toward and ultimately won the World Series. I was a huge Dodger fan. I knew every name of every dodger player, their place in the line-up , their batting average, their ERA and everything in between. Seeing the Dodgers go down so hard was one thing, but having a guy in class who actively danced on their grave was quite another. For most of the Fall of 1980 I simply could not stand to be around Kenny Brown.

However, one day near the beginning of Winter break, Kenny brought a game to school and asked Mrs. Nash if he could play it with other kids in the class when we had free time. Since Mrs Nash just so happened to be the best teacher ever, she happily agreed, and Kenny went looking for players. Kenny came by my desk and asked if I would like to try the game. Even though I was not fond of Kenny Brown, there was no way I would pass-up playing a game in class. No teacher had ever let us play anything more than Scrabble Jr., and this game looked nothing like that at all. The cover of the box featured and elaborately designed scaly beast breathing fire at a warrior deflecting it with a shield. The title on the box read:

Dungeons And Dragons

A Fantasy Adventure Game

Most video game fans from the "golden age " (roughly 1978-1983) frequented an arcade that they felt was "their own". For many kids in the South Bay cities of Redondo, Hermosa and Manhattan Beach in Southern California, that arcade was Castle Park in Redondo Beach. Castle Park was built in the mid-1970's. It consisted of two 18-hole miniature golf courses separated by an Arthurian castle that housed the ticket booth, birthday party rooms, a snack bar, bathrooms, and a huge arcade. It was situated (unfortunately in some cases) a golf balls' throw from the 405 freeway in an industrial area right near a set of railroad tracks.