Gaming, Past and Present

"You've come a long way baby"...
For me, it started with both PC and Console games.
I had text-only games for my PC (Zenith "portable" with a 8086 Intel processor and 640KB of RAM) like "Adventure" and platformers like "jump man"
For the Atari 2600, I had Joust and "Combat" which supposedly had over 20 modes of play LOL
I also had the obligatory Pac-Man among others. Friends of mine had this new system called the Nintendo. I didn't quite understand how advanced it was compared to my monochrome games. My cousin also had a ColecoVision with Buck Rodgers and Miner 2049er. Did tennis paddles rock or what?
In any case, I was first exposed to the Nintendo with Mario and Zelda, and I guess being a little 8 year old, I didn't really know how to explain to my parents that I wanted it BADLY!!!
Come 5th grade (10 years old) I finally got my thoughts collected & I was able to bargain with my dad to give me one if I got ALL A's in class. Sure enough, I did and got into a bunch of trouble for playing Duck Hunt after I was supposed to be sleeping. It was that damn zapper...too fiendishly loud.
With my Nintendo (as many others did) I got the Mario/DuckHunt pack in a single cart. For my birthday, I was awarded (among other things) $50 cash. The gears were turning...I had seen the movie (a horrible flop, and shameless game plug) The Wizard, with Fred Savage rockin' the NES controller. My fate was sealed, with the $20 from my grandparents, and $30 from my parents...I would buy SUPER MARIO BROTHERS THREE! It was a historic day when I plugged in my cart and played for hours and hours. Some NES failures include the horrible reticle based Zapper that was voice activated. Sure, you looked cool, but you felt silly playing Duck Hunt with a helmet. Also, another terrible peripheral was the NES Power Pad, just like the modern day Dance Dance Revolution pads, it had sensors that you stepped on to make your Track 'n Field guy run and jump. For long jump, you could of course cheat by stepping off the pad. LOL, I guess the Power Pad was amusing after all.
Flash forward to middle school, when I got my first 16-bit console. The Sega Genesis. I was absolutely obsessed with Sega, since one of my neighbors had the Master System and the Genesis. Evil bastard...had Altered Beast and all the cool titles.
I'll continue the epic with 16 to 32 bit consoles in the next episode of CONSOLE LAMER!
Tony.