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I’m not sure how I got here actually ……….. I am a 38 year old IS Director for an international company. I haven’t played a computer game in years. For some reason, over the last few days, I have become somewhat “nostalgic”. Maybe I’m just getting old, I don’t know. But, I started to think of all the defining moments in my life with computers which ultimately led me to my choice of career and hobby as well.
I grew up in a crappy neighborhood in Newark, NJ so computers during my formative years were not exactly in the family budget. By I have fond memories of hanging around at the local Radio Shack playing on their display unit of an early TRS-80 until closing time. I was fortunate to have an older brother in college, who occasionally bought home an old dial-up terminal that dialed back to this campus’ DEC-10 and there I played some early text-based adventure games like Haunted House, Adventure, etc. He then started bringing home an Apple II, and that’s when I became hooked.
To make a long story short, I guess this brings me to the PC era and the ONE true defining moment for me in technology. It goes like this:
It’s winter, circa 1983, I am a high-school senior. Still did not have a PC but frequented the early PC shows and flea markets which back then were few and far between. I didn’t have a car so I tagged along with an older friend and his trusty ‘bird-crap-yellow’ 1977 Buick Regal. We drove to a show/flea market at an old VFW hall all the way in Willow Grove, PA. I remember it being winter because we froze our #*$&% off waiting 45 mins in line to get in. I actually came to the show to hunt for parts to build my first PC, but there, on one of the vendor tables, was a game playing on a demo PC. Yep, it was King’s Quest, and at that moment, I decided that in one way or another, these little machines would be the focus of my future.
Even though I didn’t have a PC at home, I took all the money I had in my pockets and purchased the little gray box of Kings Quest I and headed home. There was no ‘I’ designation back then, just King’s Quest. I ran to my older sisters house because her husband worked for Bell Labs at the time and he had an actual IBM PC XT, a real hot rod with not one, but two full-height, 5 ¼” 360 KB floppy drives and a CGA display !!! Anyway, I ripped open the package, my hands trembled with excitement as I flipped open the heavy spring-loaded drive door and slid the single floppy into the drive and flipped the switch !! Kings Quest came on a single bootable floppy back then. The rest, as we say, is history.
Ken & Roberta, thanks !! From reading some of the messages, it sounds like things perhaps did not work out the way you hoped, but you guys should never have any regrets or second thoughts ! You defined an entire industry and inspired an entire generation of gamers and developers and it is because of that, regardless of what ultimately happens to Sierra the physical corporate entity, you have ultimately succeeded in creating “something that my grandkids can enjoy”.
PS Don’t worry about the grandkids either, today people get married much later, they will come.
Thanks all for listening to me ramble, …………… I now know why I’m here.
Oleh
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