Viewing blogs tagged Commodore 64

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Tappy tap tap taparoo

# Posted by Joel Dixon at 31/01/2009 13:44:44

We had a Commodore 64 as youngsters, and one of my many favourites was a very simple game called Tapper (which, as I've just found out, has a pretty extensive Wikipedia article). Basically, you are a bartender and you need to serve drinks to patrons and collect the empty mugs.

Tapper. If you collect a "tip" from a patron, the dancing girls entertain your demanding customers and make them forget about drinking for a short while

The other day we were passing the arcade game section outside of the local movie cinemas, and amongst the many and only slightly varied driving and shooting cabinets there was an "old school arcade" collection. Of course, one of the games was "Root Beer Tapper".

Root Beer Tapper same game different beverage

What fun it was reliving such a classic. While a little rusty, I pushed through and easily topped the high score table:

First of one is still first!

After reading the Wikipedia article, I learned that an XBOX Live Arcade version of this game is available. It's since been added to my download queue!

# Posted in the Gaming section and tagged as: Commodore 64, Xbox 360

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Sunday, December 09, 2007

My Video Gaming History - Part I: The Commodore 64

# Posted by Joel Dixon at 09/12/2007 14:39:54
Updated by Joel Dixon at 20/12/2007 13:57:25

Quote:
Are you keeping up with the Commodore? Because the Commodore is keeping up with you!

Video games have played a big part of my life. NHL 94 encouraged a love for the sport of Ice Hockey. Samantha Fox's Strip Poker and others have introduced me to digital bewbies during my important formative years. And Distruptor for the PlayStation was an important game for me, as it was the first time that my older brother beat me to the end of the game (crushing). I've decided to do a little retrospective of my video game history, and hope that some of you will enjoy the walk down memory lane.

LOAD "*",8,1

This actually looks a lot like our system. Getting the disk drive was a huge time saver!

Excluding some generic "Game and watch" clones, the Commodore 64 was my first real introduction to video gaming - and I liked it! The Commodore was released in January of 1982 as a system designed to offer advanced hardware at a cheap(ish) price. I really took to the system (as did the rest of my family) and was sitting in front of it whenever it was "my turn". Turns got to be a bit of a problem whenever a cool game was acquired, with lots of fights between the family for play time. I can vividly remember my eldest brother waking up at 5 or 6 am before school to get a few extra hours playing California Games. I also remember feeling cheated because I was unable to wake up earlier than him!

You may have noted that I used the word "acquired" in the above paragraph - not many of our games were actually store bought. Pirating was rife - my eldest brother had a friend, who had a "contact", someone that provided us with as many copied Commodore 64 games that we could play. Those that know me now know that I am against piracy of any kind (except for amusing pirate jokes), but back in the day I didn't know any better. FastHackem fueled our piracy, allowing a game disk to be copied in 3 minutes instead of around 20.

That Commodore 64 was also life changing as it introduced me to the pastime of Basic programming. Basic in more than a name, my first program was probably something like this:

Basic Code:

> 10 PRINT "JOEL IS RAD!"

> 20 GOTO 10

> RUN

I also loved reading through the Basic books that were provided with the 64, and typing out the hundred line example programs. Armed with this extra programming knowledge, my coding skills were greatly expanded:

Basic Code:

10> FOR I = 1 TO 10

20> NEXT I

30> INPUT "ENTER YOUR NAME: ", N$

40> PRINT N$; ", DID YOU KNOW THAT JOEL IS RAD?"

50> GOTO 40

RUN

(the first two lines is now an obvious loop. I had no idea what it did, but included it in my own programs because it looked cool)

For me, the Commodore 64 was the golden age of video gaming, and it kept me entertained even after we received more modern systems (such as consoles). A pictures is worth 1,000 words, so this video of 100 Commodore games should be worth a fair bit. Go to the YouTube page to see the list of games displayed.

100 Commodore games in 10 minutes

# Posted in the Gaming section and tagged as: Commodore 64
This is the 1st in the My Video Gaming History series
Part I - My Video Gaming History - Part I: The Commodore 64Part II - My Video Gaming History - Part II: The Sega Master System

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Viewing blogs tagged Commodore 64

Saturday, January 31, 2009

Tappy tap tap taparoo

Sunday, December 09, 2007

My Video Gaming History - Part I: The Commodore 64