CROSSPOST FROM https://stories.retro-exo.com/story/65/
I must have been in seventh or eighth grade.
We had an IBM PCjr at home.
I know it was bought for me.
There was a kid sister in the house… a parent or two. I was the one who was interested in these things.
I started out playing games on an Atari 2600 and then on a Commodore 64. My childhood friend got a free 64 with a carpet installation at his parents’ house. We were all so excited. Now we had a keyboard.
The PCjr must have been the next evolution. I remember wanting an IBM or an IBM clone around that time. I remember the software that came with it and the bookshelf binders for the software. I mastered the few games that came free on cartridge. I remember going to the game store in the mall and asking for more.
Why did I land on text adventures?
Was it The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy?
Was that the gateway drug?
I loved those Infocom games!
I have so many fond, but blurry-with-age, memories.
I remember one thing very clearly! My buddies and I would map out the games on graph paper.
North, North, North, East, North.
The next day at school, we would share our progress one square at a time.
Way before water-cooler gossip. This is what we did. Sadly, this was the era when the sports guys were the cool kids. Way before Stranger Things and modern pop-geek culture. We were the ones hiding in the corner, sharing our progress and the things we uncovered. The tips. The Easter eggs.
The simple joy!
Decades later.
I’m at a bar, talking ’80s culture with strangers. We talk about old games and land on old text adventures.
My bar mate mentions graph-paper maps.
I laugh!
We share that.
Long before the internet.
Years before even walkthroughs were published in gaming magazines, we were doing it.
A very small subset of the population.
Sharing our progress in the corners at school.
Simple times, for sure. You could only walk in four cardinal directions and type things out in eight characters or less.