Whilst conducting *Research* you find all sorts of interesting things.
When I talk about *Research* I mean I was procrastinating reading through the BBC website. I find them a great source of interesting information and not remotely wasting valuable writing time. Okay, maybe a little.
Anyway, my school years saw the birth of the Space Invader. Kids today, with their XBox One or PS4 don’t realise the lack of gaming available in the seventies and eighties.
Google images
I spent much of my teenage years in and around arcades and/or a café or shop with a good arcade game. I know, misspent youth, but happy times and great memories.
I also had an old Atari computer, one of those with a slot for a game cartridge.
Plug and play.
Great way to play Donkey Kong or the like. A way to create the thrill of the arcade in your own living room!
Back to the purpose of the post. The Beeb had a link to a site where you can play vintage arcade games like Track and Field or Gravatar for Free.
They are basic. They don’t have sound yet, but they do let you revisit your youth!
The link is here: https://archive.org/details/software
Did you embrace the arcade game? Any favourites?
Happy retro-gaming and thanks for reading.
Pete Denton 
And in your revisited youth are you finding your scores the same or better? I’d have thought any play on modern games would have increased your action times a lot. Perhaps you should hold an online tournament for retro gamers just as you would have done in your mis-spent youth.
Have fun Pete, not often you can look back and recreate what you have to describe to the new generation.
I like the idea or a tournament 🙂
The games look so basic, but I guess they were. Nice to revisit though 🙂
I haven’t see space invaders in donkey kong years. I use to wait for my mother to finish work at a hotel and sit in the staff caff where there was a space invaders machine. Every now and then one of the chefs would invite me to play.
A great time waster – I mean meditation before writing.
Wherever you could find a good game was the place to be!
Definitely a place-holder whilst you finalise your writing plans 😉
We had an Atari and I remember Pac Man, Frogger, Space Invader, Donkey Kong — all of those classic games. We have now dated ourselves, Pete. 😉
I was not very good at them, and I only liked to play with other people. It wasn’t something I enjoyed by myself. I was more of a reader, not a gamer. But I Iike your perspective — meditation before writing. 😉
I never thought about it dating my youth!
All good games you mention. I even have PacMan app on my phone!
We had the Atari and also Commodore 64 (which was certainly not a matter of “plugging and playing”…). Pac Man, Donkey Kong, Boulder Dash… I sure spent come good hours on these little gems as a kid. Thanks for a great post and a lovely walk down memory lane! 🙂
Happy to help 🙂
Uh oh! Another distraction. It would make a great stress reliever at the office. Hmmm. Can we download the ‘Boss key’?
The boss key would certainly come in handy!
I found a site where you could download the original ‘Rogue’. It’s a 2-d maze game, a precursor to most D&D games. I’ve always thought it was the best. Never did get to the lowest level. I daren’t load it onto this pc 🙂
Sorry, I feel like I’m opening Pandora’s box 🙂
There is always Hope!
My best friend had an Atari and we would play the Star Wars games and Donkey Kong and Space Invaders. All the usual stuff.
Great memories 🙂
I love how you Brits say “whilst.”
There is a bar in Boise, Idaho called Spacebar. It is filled with real retro arcade games . . . Pac Mac, Pong, Space Invader, pin ball machines, etc. It was a blast. The place was packed with young people and old fogies like me!
I love the word *whilst* 🙂
I refuse to believe you are part of the old fogies brigade!
Ahh retro arcades. There should be more of them 🙂
Wow, what a blast from the past. 🙂 I even remember the old text-based games like Adventure, which found it’s way into an episode of “The Big Bang Theory.” Such fun, but I daren’t try to find any of them if I want to ever finish my novels!
I remember text-based games as well and loved it when they made their way onto Big Bang. I agree about steering clear if you need to do any actual work!
Thanks for the link Pete! I’ll check it out when I get a chance (although when I have a chance I’ll probably have forgotten about it…sigh). I loved those old games. I remember when we used to have a hand held games console and it only played one game – what would kids today make of that?! Not much! I had two of those – Puc Monster, which was basically Pac Man, and Caveman, which if I remember rightly involved trying to steal dinosaur eggs from a cave, while trying to duck the clubs that the caveman was throwing you…or maybe we were the ones throwing clubs, can’t remember now, but there was definitely some club throwing going on! I also really liked another game on the computer that was I think called Centipede, which was a bit like space invaders, with the centipede made up of sections that you had to shoot out before it zig-zagged its way to the bottom, and there were spiders dropping down as well that you had to avoid. Ah joy! And I still say you can’t beat the original Tetris.
I remember Puc Monster or at least I think I do. Centipede was ace (does that word age me or what!) I have an atari app on my phone and play centipede. Excellent description by the way 🙂
Caveman sounds good. I would have looked to have been in that concept meeting.
“yeah and he’ll throw clubs at you to prevent you nicking the dinosaur eggs.”
“I’m sold.”
I used to have the mini arcade game you could play in your lap for Frogger and Donkey Kong back in the 80s. Loved them!
Frogger was good and they did another version called Swimmer which was fantastic. Everyone seems to be liking the reference to Donkey Kong. What a classic.
I’ve just remembered that I even had a couple of wrist watches in the 80s that had space invader type games. This post keeps on giving me great memories 🙂
I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve play an arcade or video game – no joke! I’m in my mid-40s and arcades were a hot pastime in my teen years (1980s), but gaming has never interested me, then or now. My husband can play Wii or XBox with the kids for what seems like hours. It’s just never done it for me. The graphic does bring back memories, though.
Happy New Year, Pete!
Thanks, Gwen. It’s easy to lose track of time when on the Xbox. What seems (because it probably has been) hours to you will flash by in a few minutes for those playing 🙂
Have a great 2014
I’m also from the Atari / Space Invaders era, although–being a girl–I didn’t really obsess on that the way I later did on Mario. I’m not much of a gamer now–it’s a whole different ballgame, isn’t it?–but I do get hooked on stuff every now and then. Which is why I’m carefully considering whether or not to click on that link 😀
I think the link might keep you entertained for a few minutes rather than hours like Mario might 🙂
It is a different ballgame now though. Who knew back then how things would turn out. 🙂