The Games We Used to Play

Dinner tonight was at Holland Village's TCC outlet, with people involved in YouthInk. Conversation was polite at first but really picked up when gaming was mentioned. I declared my distaste for the 3-D realism of today's offerings, and before I knew it, the five of us (girls and guys alike) were reminiscing about old-school computer games such as Sword of the Samurai, Karateka and Alley Cat.

We also spoke about old DOS-based programs such as Wordstar and WordPerfect, text adventure games, and how kids these days wouldn't be able to navigate through DOS to save their lives. Those were the days of CGA (4-colour) and EGA (16-colour) graphics, PC speaker sounds and filenames that HAD to be eight characters in length. 640KB of RAM, anyone?

Gamebooks--a sadly extinct game form--were also mentioned, with not a little gushing about the cult classic Be An Interplanetary Spy series. To round off the nostalgia, we tossed around a few 80's TV series names: Manimal, Magnum P.I., TJ Hooker, Miami Vice, Fall Guy and the A-Team.

It was a lovely little evening, especially since I'm recovering well from my cold. I meant to blog about the Buddhist sharing session I attended before dinner, but the feel-good vibes of tonight's gathering seem more compelling and immediate. I saw and had, for the first time in my life (though I pretended it wasn't), a cup of alcoholic coffee with flambéd sugar. I also got some tips about getting a job at Singapore Press Holdings. And of course, a desire to go straight home and download some of those good old games of yesteryear.

I leave you, dear reader, with this little souvenir. It'll be a treat if you're around my age, and a history lesson if you're younger. It's the real deal; remember, it can only be run from the MS-DOS prompt.