Quote from: Kellri;365114Expat Clevelander here reporting for duty. How many of us can say we were playing D&D when the Cuyahoga was burning?

no kidding?  Which time?  I kid.  I think the last big one was 69, no?  I wasn't around yet.  Nevertheless, glad to meet another here.

Quote from: Joethelawyer;365033You must have had the expanded memory card for the VIC-20.  I ran out of memory (a whopping 5k, only 3k free to use) when trying to make a program to keep track of paper route money.

The 16k memory expansion was very useful back then, especially if one was writing video games on a vic-20 in those days.

Quote from: ggroy;365123The 16k memory expansion was very useful back then, especially if one was writing video games on a vic-20 in those days.

Heartbreak was trying to write a D&D computer game and having so many IF..THEN statements that you ran out of (the available 1.9kb) RAM

Quote from: thedungeondelver;365124Heartbreak was trying to write a D&D computer game and having so many IF..THEN statements that you ran out of (the available 1.9kb) RAM

I would buy game magazines which were essentially pages and pages of code that you would type into the VIC to get it to run.  Buy 1 magazine, get tons of games.  (Cheaper than buying the game cartridges, especially when you're 13 and only have paper route money to spend.)

But often they weren't right to begin with. I remember catching errors in the code of the game as typed in the magazine, after spending hours trying to figure out why the game didn't work after comparing my code line by line to the code in the magazine.

As for storage, remember that shitty tapedrive?  

You know, I still have the VIC in my mother's attic I think.  Now I'm tempted to get it out to see if it works.

The most I ever used my vic-20 for D&D purposes, was writing a program to do table lookups, such as combining the weapons AC adjustment and combat to-hit tables.

Quote from: Joethelawyer;365143You know, I still have the VIC in my mother's attic I think.  Now I'm tempted to get it out to see if it works.

I wouldn't bother.  I know there are at least a couple of VIC-20/C64/C128 emulators out there.

My grandfather was the first person in my family that purchased a computer.  He purchased a Kaypro.  In all honesty, I'm not entirely sure on the model.  I think it was probably the Kaypro PC.  The keyboard attached to the box and you could carry it like a suitcase or piece of luggage.  It used the 5.25 floppy disk.  The first role-playing related things I did on a computer were on that Kaypro and a dot-matrix printer.

The first computer I used was my brother's which was a Radio Shack Model I. I remember being all excited about my brother buying the 16k expansion box which meant expanded memory and 8 inch floppy disk drives and a printer.

The first thing I did with that printer is type in the village generator that was in Dragon #41 and ran off several dozen for a campaign I was working on at the time. This was around 1981. And I still have the print out.

Quote from: Joethelawyer;365143As for storage, remember that shitty tapedrive?

I do.  It meant I had to pretend to like the guy who owned it for half an hour while the game loaded.

TRS-80 for me, but I'll be fucked if I remember what the hell I used it for.

RPGPundit

I remember using a Trash-80 (as we called them) in computer lab in Junior High to try to write a Zork-like adventure based on "Dream Park".

My first computer at home was my beloved C-64. Even with the computing power and hardware of today, I doubt I ever have as much fun as I did with that old thing. I also like that it was easier to fix when something went wrong. I remember when my floppy drive stopped reading discs, I figure thus: "Well, if it is broken, I'll need to get a new one anyway, so let's try this." and promptly picked it up and slammed it on the edge of the desk. It worked fine from that point forward. Try that with modern technology!

Our first family computer was an IMSAI 8080, with no mointor, no keyboard, no hard drive, in 1975.  At first, just switches and lights.  Later, a printer.  

I remember playing Hunt the Wumpus on it, which was the first D&D-ish game I ever played.



My own first computer was a Commodore 64.

Quote from: RPGPundit;365444TRS-80 for me, but I'll be fucked if I remember what the hell I used it for.

Dungeons of Daggorath.

Quote from: thedungeondelver;364461Rule changes by and large suck.  I've only ever seen a tiny, miniscule handful of games where rule changes were serious upgrades.  It is mind-boggling to me that I read post after post or have been in one conversation after the next where people say "Oh, well, my group has dropped 3e and is going to 4e" (obviously in reference to D&D), and the like.

Why?

A wonderful question, Delver, and I think we all know the answer to it. Nobody makes you switch. Heck, my basic style hasn't changed much from the 1970's.

I buy new rulebooks becasue I like to think about gaming and I like to tinker. And by now it's become more of a habit to buy new stuff rather than a need. I'm probably a gaming addict, buying games because I'm hooked on them.

Almost any style of campaign can be run with my 1974 OD&D set plus a little imagination. I've run Star Wars, Gamma World/Metamorphosis Alpha, Lord of the Rings, and many other settings and it's not that hard. I really didn't buy much new stuff (other than Dragon and some Judges Guild products) for years and was able to use the old rulebooks without much conversion at all.