A Different Kind Of Childhood Toy

[Jackiewope]

So I know everyone here has fond memories of the toys they used to play with as a child. We all do! And tonight I found one of my favorite childhood toys: a CD-ROM! Of course the disc itself isn't the toy, it's what's on the disc, sillies!

I know that a fair amount of the users here are much older than me, and didn't grow up with pcs as children, so you guys probably don't have the same experience. But one of my favorite childhood memories was getting on our slow-ass Millenium Edition (boo) Compaq PC and playing Jump Start 1st Grade. Even though it had been years since I'd played it my memories of it have always been pretty clear.

I fired up the disc tonight, surprised that it still worked with all the scratches, and had a lot of fun! It was kind of funny how small the game screen was (screen resolution changes), and the graphics look like they were drawn in MS Paint. Old game is old, haha. Of course, the games and puzzles come to me much easier than they do back then, but there are a whole mess of prizes to win. I don't think I ever beat the game 100%, so it'll be fun to try it this time around!

Now, if I can just get my hands on a copy of both Reader Rabbit 1st Grade and Mission T.H.I.N.K I'll be set. ;] Is anyone else here young enough to remember playing educational computer games as a child?

[sarah_ab]

hahah i played reader rabbit on an Apple II GS, with the 6inch floppy disc..

[Repaid1]

hahah i played reader rabbit on an Apple II GS, with the 6inch floppy disc..

That's actually a 5.25" floppy..let's keep the history correct in our lives!

[Mischa]

I played that JumpStart game too!

and my dad still had his Apple IIe and I played Rescue Raiders like mad!

[willnotwill]

I didn't see an 8" floppy disk until high school. The Apple II's came out while I was in college.

I did have a regular phonograph and an antique TV (but even VCRs didn't come out until I was really until I was in high school).

[curiositykilledthecat]

I played doom and Aliens of Gold as a kid? I used to love the math game on foursqaured though.

[Darkfinn]

I spent lots of time in the late 80's playing old-school video games on my grandpa's Commodore 64. Good old 5.25" floppy and no GUI.

[DailyDi]

Oregon Trail on a floppy in school.

[Jabez]

I remember playing the Jumpstart learning games like crazy as a kid. I had grades K-5 and spent more time than I could even guess at playing them.

I played Oregon Trail in school and that was a favorite.. of course that was in elementary school since that game was more or less considered obsolete by the time I made it to middle school. And then there was also the Munchers games.. Super Munchers specifically that I loved playing. Well actually that last one I still play from time to time.

[tris]

Yup --Oregon Trail and Number Munchers on the Apple IIe and the GS's, which I believe were the color ones with GUI and single-button mouse! Oh, the days. .

[wishing for diapers]

Floppies? You people had floppies? I had a cassette drive for my old Vic-20 and I had to flip the cassette manually when needed! Besides Turtle BASIC and Frogger I couldn't tell you what I did with it.

God I feel old now

[PArms]

I spent lots of time in the late 80's playing old-school video games on my grandpa's Commodore 64. Good old 5.25" floppy and no GUI.

I had a program on the C64 called GEOS. It was a GUI that looked similar to Mac's.

[heartwood]

Dino Park tycoon, Howies Great Toon Adventure, Treasure Mountain.... just to name a few.

In the fourth grade, the computer lab had many computers. Only one of them had a cd-rom! (yes, it was a public school... duh) I have found memory's racing to that computer. Only one could play dino park, the rest of the class had to play math blasters... boo.

[BBB]

I played a lot of learning games in school, and a flight simulator at home called F16 Falcon....

Odd enough, the only time I wet my pants was in Grade 6 computer class. I had to walk home as both my parents were at work. It wasn't far, maybe about 1/2 mile... Next day at school was "deny, deny, deny".

[Yvhuce]

We didn't know that computers actually existed outside of movies and TV until the 5th grade... Around that time, we had to get a computer, because the school stopped accepting typewriter-written assignments (stupid effing Helvetica)... Of course, around that time, the hot game was Oregon Trail. That and Rogue. Our computer couldn't handle Oregon Trail. But it had a badass word processor program called "Leading Edge Word Processor". Unfortunatly, I was never able to get it copied over to a smaller disk before that computer died. And, ironically, a relative died and left me a copy of it on the 5" disk, but that was after no one was using them anymore. So, that's a sad loss... But that's really more along the lines of later childhood/early teen years...

My unconventional early childhood toys were broken swather/combine sickle blades and blade guards, and the occasional chain left in the yard, down at my grandparents' house. Yay for growing up on the farm. They'd also put old truck/tractor batteries out by the scrap heap and I'd use them for target practice with aforementioned broken blades and blade guards. The blades were too flimsy to do any good, but a well-thrown blade guard could impale the battery.

Much more common, was just finding a big stick and using it like a pretend gun or sword with my friends.

[babymaggie]

I had the jumpstart preschool edition but I must not have brought it to Florida when I married Honu and moved form Montana. Oh well now I play the prescool online games.

[diaperpt]

Oregon Trail on a floppy in school.

...sigh...I have lived almost all my life on the East Coast, but am old enough to have played Oregon Trail on the real original trail (almost, at least)... games were played out doors or out of a box.

[DailyDi]

Commodore 128 was first PC I had a home, then an Apple Mac II SE. Middle school introduced me to SimCity and the IBM-based PC and the rest is... well you know!

[AutieAB]

Ooh, I'm going misty eyed and nostalgic. Pass the rose-tint glasses!

The first computer I got to play with was an RM Nimbus at primary school (elementary to our American friends) and a BBC B. There were two computers in the whole school at that time. After a few weeks, whichever computer the class had got wheeled off to another room, not to be seen again that school year. If the class was the best behaved in the school at the end of the year, we got a smiley face sign posted on the door and got to have the BBC B for a whole fortnight... Times have changed

My first computer at home was a Spectrum 48K. The one with rubber keys. I learned to program it. I was about 4. I could make the computer draw patterns on the screen before I could write and do my own buttons - a geek was born Beyond that, I had an Spectrum +2 (tape) Amstrad CPC (464 with tapes and latterly a 6128 with a 3" disc drive (not 3.5"!)) an Amiga 500+ and then a proper PC - a 286, then a 486 then proper modern stuff that kids today would recognise, leading up to today's dual-core, multi-gigahertz, multi-gigabyte computer with terabytes of storage. Worlds and worlds and worlds away from where I started back in 1987-ish. I can and did write software for every computer I ever owned.

On the subject of CD-ROMs, one name jumps out - The Magic Schoolbus

[edit] it was this specific one.

[DailyDi]

But did you ever learn to do your buttons?

[AutieAB]

But did you ever learn to do your buttons?

Yes! <proud> Like so many motor-skills things in my life (tying laces, buttons, writing, even cycling), I just suddenly decided I was bloody well going to do it and then just did. I remember clearly the moment - where I was, what I interrupted my mother watching to show her, everything... Photographic memory FTW

[DiaperBoyKR]

Oh man, played so many educational video games wasn't even funny. Oregon Trail, and Treasure Mountain of course, but my favorites were the "Where in ______ is Carmen Sandiego?" games. Wasted waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay to much time with those. I also had a game that was like an early RTS set in the Roman Empire (had to build the Empire up from just Italy).There was another one I used to like to play....a detective game set at a school...had to take pictures of various robots to figure out whodunit.

<sigh> nostalgia.

[lilannie]

your oxen have died!

[grayfile]

I played Oregon Trail on the Apple IIe it was fun, but my favoirte game was Number Munchers. I would stay after school just to play it.

[Jackiewope]

It's cool to see how many of you guys played computer games as kids, too! I've never even seen an Apple IIe in real life, haha. And I'll have to check out this Oregon Trail of which you speak, it sounds interesting.