Without Games Computer are Boring

Imagine if nobody ever think off coming out with an idea on designing computer games for our personal computer. How boring it is when using your computer just for doing your chores. Nothing else.

We're all lucky back in 1972 a local man named Nolan Bushnell invent a game called Pong that appeared in a bar in Sunnyvale, California for the first time.

The game was kind of an electronic version of table tennis, with simple graphics on a black-and-white screen. A central line represented the net , and the ball was a small blob. A short line at each end of the screen represented the two players' bats. Simple controllers allowed the players to move the bats, the object being to hit the ball past their opponent.

The Pong machine was a simple computer, permanently programmed to play that game. By modern standards, the graphics were extremely crude. But it was completely new and an instant success. From there on more and more game came out to the mass market, mostly on the arcade machine.

In 1978, that's five years after the first computer game machine then the Space Invaders came to the United States from Japan. This is the beginning of Japanese invasion in arcade game domination in amusement arcades and their gaming industries flourished until now.

Those day one of the most popular kinds of computer game is the Adventure. There is so many kind of adventure games, part of the fun of these games is that it's often takes many weeks to complete it. Usually this kind of game doesn't involved much with graphics, so it's kinda easy to be developed. All it's take is story telling , logic and puzzle. Today is very hard to sell this kind of game. User are more on fantastic graphics less typing instruction to move or given instructions in their game.

The arcade machine is really a blessing indisguised for home computer. Soon the version of the particularly all famous arcade machine converted into home computer version.

When Computer Plays Games

Back in 80's we usually think of computer games being played in amusement arcades or on cheap home computers. But the first computer games were played on powerful mainframe computers in the late 1950s.

These computers were designed for serious tasks, such as data processing. But the technicians running them enjoyed the challenge of trying to make them do something more entertaining. The most notable of the early computer games was developed by Martin Graetz and others at the MIT, in the USA. The year was 1962, and the name of the game was Spacewar. Playing Spacewar quickly became a craze among the students, and people who wanted to do work on the computers often complained that they had been taken over by the games players.

In those days, computers were too expensive to be sold just for playing games, and it was not until the 1970s that computer games went on sale in shops and stores.

Computer SIG Club

Do you want to be a different from the mass?. Well, nowadays you won't got a lot of choices like before. Today, all this is not a relevant anymore. Even the most guarded turf now seem broken. Apple with it's Motorola chips have to given a away for Intel domination. All computers nowadays are able to communicate with each other, even between a two different Operating System.

Try this at the old days. There is a dozen brands of computer in the market. Each with their own Oses that incompatible and usually own BASIC Languages that some times impossible to run one BASIC program on a different brand of computer without any alteration at all.

But all this short fall didn't stop people flocking to computer shop and bought their favorite computer. Soon the user forming a community of special interest group or SIG club so that member can communicate, ask the 'guru' for any problem and exchange idea or interest on either the hardware, peripheral or software program. Every computer brand surely got their own community or follower and they forming a user SIG in every part of the country around the world.

No users shouldn't let them self left out from the community!(remember there is no internet those day). Only if you're lucky there's might be a Bulletin Board Service (something like internet) in that country that you can subscribe on and that's depend whether you can get a modem and the BBS that support your computer. Computer magazine is also played a very big part by listing a computer SIG around the world in their magazine, some time you can become a member of other country SIG!.

I'd longing for those days, I'll still remember how I joined my first SIG club (when I bought my Commodore C-64) and we meet once a month and received monthly newsletter. Sometimes we having an exhibition of our club to extract new member.

Today it's very hard to find any computer SIG club. Since Windows running computer is very easy to used and its pretty okay to be on your own.. The internet is here already, any problem can be solved through internet. Unless you'll using Apple computer or running other than Windows OS like Linux or others, then maybe there is a users forming a users SIG somewhere!.

Programming with BASIC is FUN!

(After Boot: Screen of Commodore C-64 Screen with BASIC command ready for input)

I'll think if you're a computer veteran. Have used home computer before, I'll think surely you're remember this fun and popular programing language, BASIC (Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code). BASIC was originally developed at Dartmouth College by John Kemeny and Thomas Kurtz in the mid-1960s. Because of its simplicity, it was quickly adopted by several commercial timesharing services, which caused it to receive a broad exposure among thousands of computer users. Each of the major computer manufacturers, wishing to remain competitive, soon offered a version of BASIC for its own line of computers. Thus, BASIC rapidly became the most widely used timesharing languages in the United States and Canada.

Another reason BASIC programming language is so popular because of its widespread availability. The language is available on practically every large computer, and it is supported by virtually all commercial timesharing services. As time goes by BASIC has become the standard language for most microcomputer applications. Hence the language can be used on both large and small computers, in all types of different programming environments.

Those day, of the many programming languages that are common in use, none is easier to learn or to use than BASIC. Yet this remarkably simple language contains enough power and versatility to be used by people in many different occupations for a wide variety of application.

BASIC programming courses have become common in many high school and junior high schools as well as most colleges and universities. Even those day elementary schools offer introductory BASIC courses to select groups of students!.

I'll don't know perhaps it's already been forgotten by today young children because I never heard nowadays BASIC been teach at school level or probably BASIC is already obsolete programming language. You'll won't find any BASIC interpreter included with, let says Microsoft Windows XP Operating System.

Yeah, BASIC programming language popularity is dead for good!.Although you'll might find a
company still selling BASIC interpreter but the atmosphere, the feeling, the urged to learn and the fun of it are gone now and will never be the same anymore. All this sense can't be revived forever, Good Bye BASIC, rest in peace.