{"id":988,"date":"2008-11-01T07:05:00","date_gmt":"2008-11-01T07:05:00","guid":{"rendered":"\/blogs\/paul\/post\/8-bit-nostalgia-time.aspx"},"modified":"2017-04-13T09:54:13","modified_gmt":"2017-04-13T16:54:13","slug":"8-bit-nostalgia-time","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sqlskills.com\/blogs\/paul\/8-bit-nostalgia-time\/","title":{"rendered":"8-bit nostalgia time"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 150px; height: 200px\" src=\"https:\/\/www.clive.nl\/files\/imagecache\/large\/files\/images\/23987.jpg\" alt=\"\" hspace=\"2\" width=\"150\" height=\"200\" align=\"left\" \/> <\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\"><\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\"><\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\"><\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\"><\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\"><\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font face=\"verdana,geneva\" size=\"2\">If anyone reading the blog was watching SQLServerCentral back in 2006, you&#39;d have seen an <a href=\"http:\/\/myweb.tiscali.co.uk\/themicrouser\/\">email interview<\/a> I did with Steve Jones while I was still at MS. In there I talk about how I got into computers and taught myself 6502 assembly-language programming on an Acorn Electron (little brother to the BBC Micro) which I bought myself back in 1988 &#8211; none of this Java nonsense they teach in colleges these days! Those days served me well when I moved up to writing assembly code for multi-issue Alpha chips while at DEC ten years laters (see that story <a href=\"http:\/\/myweb.tiscali.co.uk\/themicrouser\/\">here<\/a>).<\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font size=\"2\">Well, after a solid week of teaching here in Vienna we decided to have a relaxing day in the hotel &#8211; which turned out to be the right choice as its been raining all day. I had great intentions of working but then decided to download some games and abandon the day to mindless game-playing. After poking around I found a BBC emulator &#8211;&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/myweb.tiscali.co.uk\/themicrouser\/\">BeebEm<\/a> &#8211; and a bunch of my old favorite games that are now free &#8211; Citadel, Palace of Magic, Elite, Arkanoid, Repton, and Ravenskull. Although I&#39;ve still got my Acorn Electron, I never get around to setting it up and playing with it &#8211; one day I&#39;ll do that to show the kids how computers used to be when Daddy was a kid.<\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n&nbsp;\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<img decoding=\"async\" style=\"width: 162px; height: 130px\" src=\"http:\/\/www.acornelectron.co.uk\/ills\/superior\/n-pomb.gif\" alt=\"\" hspace=\"2\" width=\"162\" height=\"130\" align=\"left\" \/>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font size=\"2\"><\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font size=\"2\"><\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font size=\"2\">Six hours later, plus a walkthrough guide and a game map (which I remember seeing when I used to subscribe to <a href=\"http:\/\/myweb.tiscali.co.uk\/themicrouser\/\">Micro User<\/a> magazine and Electron User magazine &#8211; these guys scanned in every page of all 82 issues in color &#8211; wow!), I&#39;d finished Palace of Magic. I must have spent weeks playing through the game when it first came out. One thing I&#39;d forgotten was how annoying the old 8-bit sound could be &#8211; Kimberly&#39;s been sitting here with headphones on all day while she&#39;s been working.<\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n<font size=\"2\">Oh well, on to Arkanoid before dinner <\/font>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>If anyone reading the blog was watching SQLServerCentral back in 2006, you&#39;d have seen an email interview I did with Steve Jones while I was still at MS. In there I talk about how I got into computers and taught myself 6502 assembly-language programming on an Acorn Electron (little brother to the BBC Micro) which [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-988","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-personal"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.5 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>8-bit nostalgia time - Paul S. 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