Algorithmic learning and occasional trauma on old weird computers

Many Generation Xers from normal families were blessed with Ataris and Nintendo NESs, and maybe even Apple IIs or Commodore 64s if especially privileged, but a curious subset of us had none of these — and played knockoff arcade games on 5.25-in. floppy disks.

Very briefly, I want to say from 1987 to about 1988, I played such games with such a setup in my bedroom of all places. It was a massive hand-me-down Texas Instruments beast from my engineer uncle Rob that put the load capacity of its laminate-oak computer-station perch to the test. Most likely it was a TI-99/4A with a TI-99 Peripheral Expansion Box … complemented by an old TV for a monitor, a sickly-beige keyboard, and (of course) a black and red joystick ruggedized to withstand abusively aggressive steering from sweaty little hands. I can work to confirm hardware details with family members if any Design World readers care to know for certain.

That whole arrangement sounds almost comically primitive now, but at the time it was a perfectly legitimate little gaming command center, complete with enough cables, disks, boxes, and questionable hardware to make the bedroom feel like a miniature computer lab. The biggest concern probably wasn’t power protection so much as whether the machine would actually cooperate long enough to get a game running, although an unexpected outage could turn all that careful loading and setup into an immediate exercise in frustration.

A modern equivalent of that concern is the UPS, which keeps connected electronics running briefly when the main power drops and can help prevent an abrupt shutdown while also providing a buffer against certain power disturbances. For older or more sensitive computer equipment, having dependable battery backup makes particular sense when a system relies on disks, external peripherals, or other hardware that doesn’t take kindly to being switched off without warning.

Eventually, even a UPS battery reaches the point where it can no longer hold a useful charge, which is where something as mundane as an apc battery replacement becomes part of keeping the backup system functional rather than treating the entire unit as disposable. None of this would have occurred to my younger self while gripping that black-and-red joystick and trying desperately not to send another pixelated frog, spaceship, or whatever unfortunate creature was on screen into an early digital grave, but the basic idea remains the same: all that hardware is only useful when it has a reasonably dependable supply of power behind it.

Into the expansion box would go a 5.25-in. disk labeled DOS followed by another labeled Parsec or Munch Man or something else equally hilarious. I’ve only just learned that “DOS” may have been TI’s disk operating system called Disk Manager (integrated with TI BASIC and Extended BASIC) and definitely not IBM’s MS-DOS for PCs.

Far and away my favorite game was TI invaders — Texas Instruments’ version of Space Invaders. A close second was Home Bound, an off-brand Frogger-like adventure. My mom or somebody copied the code wrong, so if your frog died, it really died — and it was back to the tedium of reloading the Disk Manager and then reloading the game with a determined vow not to mess up again.

An informal survey of my cousins via text has revealed that some of us were especially traumatized by the TI game called Hunt the Wumpus. Blindly bumbling through a cave system, the player endured tense fear of being suddenly devoured by the lurking Wumpus. 8-bit-esque In the Hall of the Mountain King by Edvard Grieg accompanied the deadly jaws closing ‘round.

 Unlike more mainstream systems, these computers demanded patience during a slow boot sequence that felt like an eternity to a 10 year old. In hindsight, I also realize the user interface and startup menus were also quite weird: DO YOU NEED INSTRUCTIONS? CONTROLS: ARROW KEYS. USE S/D TO LICK BEE. FREE FROG EVERY 1000 POINTS. GOOD LUCK… PRESS ANY KEY.

For me, the kooky games on this inscrutable system were early lessons in algorithmic thinking while making programming feel at least approachable. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that several Gen-Xer cousins in my family who got to goof around with these old TIs are in engineering and other technical fields requiring a good deal of persistence and tolerance for muddling through.

— Lisa Eitel · linkedin.com/in/elisabetheitel