What are your favorite non-BE activities?
Zorlond smiled. "Oh that is -so- easy. GAMES! Entertainment systems, computers, even some hand-helds. If it bloops, bleeps, or kablooeys, I've probably played something like it."
I suspect I've opened a can of worms here...
Zorlond laughed. "You might have. I got into electronic games, oh... Back in 1984. My family'd just bought our very first computer, an IBM PC." Zorlond's voice changed to a crotchety warble. "Back in those days we didn't have no numbers for our processors, didn't know or care how fast it run, didn't have no hard drives, CD-ROMS, or even 3.5" floppies! Memory came in individual chips you had to load into the boards by hand, DOS 2.0 was the wave of the future, and monitors were two-color! It was lit up, or it wasn't!" Chuckling again, his voice returned to normal. "Back then the games were oh-so-primitive. 'Graphical wizardry' was Crush, Crumble, and Chomp, and BASIC was pretty much the only language around. In fact, since BASIC was all there was, for a while I subscribed to several magazines, and typed in several games -by-hand- from the listings they gave. And in the process, I effectively taught myself how to program in BASIC."
But that was just BASIC...
"I was TEN. And putting programs together better than my parents could..."
Okay, got me there. Is programming another of your hobbies, then?
Zorlond's face went sad. "Unfortunately, no. I picked up Pascal easily enough, but I just couldn't quite make the jump from there to C. Took a few wasted years in college to figure out I wasn't cut out to be a real computer programmer."
Sore topic?
"Quite. Mind if I go back to games?"
As you wish.
"Of course, games eventually progressed. The Atari system came out, and we got one. If I wasn't on the computer demolishing cities, I was on that defending the world from Space Invaders. From there the next significant step was The Bard's Tale, which had a profound impact on me. I still love RPGs above all other types, especially those that aim for more 'role-play' and less 'dungeon-crawl'. Then Master of Orion and the Genesis came out, games exploded from that point, and the rest is history."
Sounds like you were in the electronic games since the beginning.
"Well, not quite the -beginning-. I've never played Pong."
Do you happen to collect games?
"Not delibrately, no, they just kind of pile up until the stacks are taller than I am... I've got 8 CD carrying cases, each of them holds 48 CDs and they've been full to the brim for at least a year now. I've got another 3-4 dozen games still in their jewel cases collecting dust... And that's not even considering the diskettes..."
So, any other activities you'd like to share besides gaming?
Zorlond's face started falling again. "How about we just pass on that question and keep this light-hearted, 'kay? Next question."
Go back - Go to the parent episode.
Mon Oct 1 01:45:56 2001
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