Greetings Cyber Travellers!
If you are here, you better like DOS Games, because this all you are going to see. ;)
I've been gaming since... well, as far as I can remember. One of my earliest memories is learning basic math on a C64 with a nifty little program, where you had to direct a crocodile to the pond with the most fish :).
Ever since then, gaming has enthralled me. Although the climax of my gaming experience has to be the "DOS" era. Countless hours spent in front of 8086 XT, 286 or my glorious 386 SX-20. Now, those were the days.
My love for gaming was developed even though, the kids on my street were all sports fanatics. They only wanted to play, soccer, baseball, "makeshift" Olympics and what not. I was always lured back to my C64, which didn't please my parents. Perhaps my brother, a full blown PC freak at the time, had a part to play in my imersion with computers. (Luckily around my second year of Elementary school, I met my oldest friend with whom shared the same intense love for PC's. I had finally met someone who was passionate about computers.)
Back to the story; although I played my C64, my brother had his 8086XT pc in the basement. I remember at evenings, he had friends over to play these mysterious games. One of which was Leisure Suit Larry 1. Hold on there, before you start thinking I was in it for the adult side of that game, well think again, I hadn't even seen anything remotely suggestive at that time. No, what amazed me was that it looked like they were playing the role of a person in a virtual world, where they could do whatever they wanted.
Take in mind that at the time, I was mostly playing C64 games like platformers, arcade etc... Adventures games were still a little obscure to me.
Anyways, moving on. So after I summed enough courage, I started bugging my brother to use his PC. And well, he wasn't so enthused at the idea. He was rather resistent. He reminded me of the insane collection of games he had got me for the C64. Well yes, I had 3 filing cabinet drawers, with 2 rows of 5 1/4 inch disk. All of the drawers were almost jam packed. I can't even come up with a number, but I had A LOT of games. All conveniently cataloged in a booklet he had made for me.
But, being the curious nerd I was, I decided to explore this "PC". When my brother was out, and my parents busy. I sneaked downstairs to see the machine. I had seen him power it on, so that wasn't the issue. But when I did so, it wasn't happy. Something about needing a disk or something. I was puzzled. I had not idea that the computer required the D.O.S. disk be inserted before being able to operate it. So I was confused. I tried puting a game disk inside, and well that didn't work.
Until I noticed something about the disks for my brother's PC. Some of them had a little RED dot on next to the title. I decided to pop it in, just to see. And... *cue GLORIOUS TRUMPETS* it worked!? I was so happy, it was like discovery the holy grail or something. Ok, i couldn't play all the games, but after a few tests, I realized I could play all these games with a "red dot".
What is was, is that my brother had games that would "auto-boot", and he had marked them with a red dot sticker, or pen. So I would sneak in and get some glimpse at quite nice games. And take in mind, that although my C64 had colors, and the 8086 we had was just beige monochrome scale. I was still attracted to it. I was willing to give up colors to explore these virtual worlds.
Anyways, soon my brother caught me red handed. (haha, ironic "re" :P) And to my amazement he wasn't angry. He was rather astonished and asked me "How did you figure it out?" and I explained to him that I didn't know how most the games worked, but that the ones with the red dots booted fine. He was impressed, and he sat down and showed me how DOS worked.
Ahh, it was quite a victorious moment in my life. I still remember it to this day, and why I share it with you now.
After having accomplished 30 revolutions around the sun, I decided to commence a series of videos, all dedicated to my love of DOS gaming. I had toyed with the idea a long time ago, but because of my limited knowledge in video recording software, I was quite limited. Adobe premiere and such are most cryptic to my aging mind ;).
And so, I have started to publish videos via my YouTube Channel. Please go and have a look, only a few videos are now available, but I submit at least 1 per week. So if you've had, like me, great memories with DOS Games, or if you don't know what they are, well... come then! Feast with me in what I consider the one of the most creative era's in gaming history!
Safe travels,
The Medieval Nerd
Check out my videos:
