I was hooked on PCs around 1986 but because they opened various opportunities for me, not gaming. Programming, stats/OR analysis, economic/simulation models, cellula automata, Byte magazine and the computing column that used to be in Scientific American. All of which is still where my heart is in many ways.

I came to computer gaming (other than an amstrad cpc I learnt to program on that had Oh Mummy and a load of other stuff that was crap, and a 386 from work that had Oh No More Lemmings) thanks mainly to the quake 1 demo and a few other games that came on cover discs back in the day (along with a raw, early release of a new thing called linux which I faffed around with and which in many ways is why I always end up having a linux box somewhere), then buying a playstation thanks to my kids (we bought Crash Bandicoot, Tomb Raider, Metal Gear Solid that first day) and then a secondhand Mac 5200 that came with a pile of cover CDs (Mars Rising, Snood, Barrack became favourites). The children meanwhile started with Gameboys and Pokemon, and Fighting Fantasy (so dad had to join in, try stopping me). So it was very much a miasma of platforms and game types not really PC-centric at all. Warhammer became a thing in our household (the table top game, though most of the time was spent making the models...) and then that curiosity "Warcraft" hmm kinda similar but more fun less gore - and I always said to my kids "I dunno about all that dice-throwing and calculations, that's what computers are for".

I was hooked into pc gaming when I was a kid and saw the mighty 286 IBM PC/AT machine for the first time and discovered that it is full of games like Grand Prix Circuit, F-19, LHX, Dangerous Dave in the Haunted Mansion and so on.

But at the age of 15 or so I was "unhooked" because I've found the real life activities to be more interesting and attractive than computer games.

There was some comeback period when later I was playing some time with Microsoft Flight Simulator 2004, but it was mostly due to my desire to understand how air navigation thing really works. And when I learned the basics of air navigation that was it.

It was 1993. As an Amiga guy considering investing into an A1200 I was hooked on PC gaming when I saw Day of the Tentacle and Dark Side of Xeen running on the 486 of a friend of a friend.

I was more of ab Amiga and console player, and a very happy camper at that. But PC had voices in their games (if my brother felt like configuring the crappy PNP SB16 for me that was).

It was when I saw my uncle's PC (a pentium 100, around 1996) running Cyclemania. I know its not a very good game, but it was when I realized PC games were more advanced than the ones I used to play in my Mega Drive. That was also the first time I saw CDs being used for games instead of cartridges, I knew they existed, but never had seen one for real.
This wasn't the first time I saw a personal computer, though. My cousin had an old Apple II which honestly had almost no games and sucked compared to what we had in the Mega Drive, it was there mostly as decoration as no one knew how to use it.
The P100 was the one that made me want a PC for gaming.

gaffa2002 wrote on 2022-06-23, 19:48:

It was when I saw my uncle's PC (a pentium 100, around 1996) running Cyclemania. I know its not a very good game, but it was when I realized PC games were more advanced than the ones I used to play in my Mega Drive. That was also the first time I saw CDs being used for games instead of cartridges, I knew they existed, but never had seen one for real.
This wasn't the first time I saw a personal computer, though. My cousin had an old Apple II which honestly had almost no games and sucked compared to what we had in the Mega Drive, it was there mostly as decoration as no one knew how to use it.
The P100 was the one that made me want a PC for gaming.

Your first pc experience sounds magical.

The Apple II story reminds me of how it was in my household, with an illustrious Arnstad 1512 just standing there that no one knew how to operate.

Joakim wrote on 2022-06-24, 05:14:

gaffa2002 wrote on 2022-06-23, 19:48:

It was when I saw my uncle's PC (a pentium 100, around 1996) running Cyclemania. I know its not a very good game, but it was when I realized PC games were more advanced than the ones I used to play in my Mega Drive. That was also the first time I saw CDs being used for games instead of cartridges, I knew they existed, but never had seen one for real.
This wasn't the first time I saw a personal computer, though. My cousin had an old Apple II which honestly had almost no games and sucked compared to what we had in the Mega Drive, it was there mostly as decoration as no one knew how to use it.
The P100 was the one that made me want a PC for gaming.

Your first pc experience sounds magical.

The Apple II story reminds me of how it was in my household, with an illustrious Arnstad 1512 just standing there that no one knew how to operate.

Man, I can still remember the smell of that brand new PC. I was lucky enough to get the exact same PC some months after that day, this is where I started learning how to use Windows 95 and quite a bit of DOS memory management to run the more problematic titles.
Funny thing is that no one in my family besides me ever cared much about computers (only exception being one of my cousins) until much later when internet was mainstream. Nobody knew how to use their PCs, but nobody wanted me to touch theirs because mine was most of the time under repair (usually due to me deleting some important system file or messing around with drivers). In fact, the thing broke so many times that the company replaced it by a better model for free (a P133, probably as they didn't have parts for the older model anymore). This one came with something that made all the difference: A bootable CD for restoring the whole system which became standard on newer models (because of me, perhaps? 😁), this drastically reduced the visits to tech support, I must have used that CD at least once a week.
Of course the magic didn't last long as a couple of years later the once great PC didn't run anything decently anymore and then the upgrade anxiety began... Must say I love the fact that computers are evolving slower nowadays (at least gaming wise), as PCs which are 5 to 10 years old remain very usable.

gaffa2002 wrote on 2022-06-24, 16:51:

Man, I can still remember the smell of that brand new PC. I was lucky enough to get the exact same PC some months after that day […]
Show full quote

Joakim wrote on 2022-06-24, 05:14:

gaffa2002 wrote on 2022-06-23, 19:48:

It was when I saw my uncle's PC (a pentium 100, around 1996) running Cyclemania. I know its not a very good game, but it was when I realized PC games were more advanced than the ones I used to play in my Mega Drive. That was also the first time I saw CDs being used for games instead of cartridges, I knew they existed, but never had seen one for real.
This wasn't the first time I saw a personal computer, though. My cousin had an old Apple II which honestly had almost no games and sucked compared to what we had in the Mega Drive, it was there mostly as decoration as no one knew how to use it.
The P100 was the one that made me want a PC for gaming.

Your first pc experience sounds magical.

The Apple II story reminds me of how it was in my household, with an illustrious Arnstad 1512 just standing there that no one knew how to operate.

Man, I can still remember the smell of that brand new PC. I was lucky enough to get the exact same PC some months after that day, this is where I started learning how to use Windows 95 and quite a bit of DOS memory management to run the more problematic titles.
Funny thing is that no one in my family besides me ever cared much about computers (only exception being one of my cousins) until much later when internet was mainstream. Nobody knew how to use their PCs, but nobody wanted me to touch theirs because mine was most of the time under repair (usually due to me deleting some important system file or messing around with drivers). In fact, the thing broke so many times that the company replaced it by a better model for free (a P133, probably as they didn't have parts for the older model anymore). This one came with something that made all the difference: A bootable CD for restoring the whole system which became standard on newer models (because of me, perhaps? 😁), this drastically reduced the visits to tech support, I must have used that CD at least once a week.
Of course the magic didn't last long as a couple of years later the once great PC didn't run anything decently anymore and then the upgrade anxiety began... Must say I love the fact that computers are evolving slower nowadays (at least gaming wise), as PCs which are 5 to 10 years old remain very usable.

I totally get it, I messed up my family's computer a few times as well. Once I installed a bios in mandarin by mistake. I had to guess the settings and boot into windows, get the English version and flash it before my dad got home...

On home PCs at all, it was a defender clone on a ZX Spectrum back in 82 or a little earlier. Still trying to find that one, all I can remember is it had alternate city and mountain levels and was actually a type-in from a mag.

On IBM-PC as a platform, I dabbled a bit, Tetris was quite fun, Spectrum Holobyte version, but I only began to take interest in PCs as a serious gaming platform when Doom came along, not that I was super super into that type of game, just that it was technically impressive and showed PCs could do cool stuff instead of boring business stuff. Though my interst was piqued a little earlier than Doom, by the glowing reviews of Wing Commander (Which somehow I have still yet to play on a PC, had the Amiga version for A1200 though) but I was incomen't at the time that was fresh and PCs capable of running it well seemed really out of reach.

Joakim wrote on 2022-06-24, 18:33:

gaffa2002 wrote on 2022-06-24, 16:51:

Man, I can still remember the smell of that brand new PC. I was lucky enough to get the exact same PC some months after that day […]
Show full quote

Joakim wrote on 2022-06-24, 05:14:

Your first pc experience sounds magical.

The Apple II story reminds me of how it was in my household, with an illustrious Arnstad 1512 just standing there that no one knew how to operate.

Man, I can still remember the smell of that brand new PC. I was lucky enough to get the exact same PC some months after that day, this is where I started learning how to use Windows 95 and quite a bit of DOS memory management to run the more problematic titles.
Funny thing is that no one in my family besides me ever cared much about computers (only exception being one of my cousins) until much later when internet was mainstream. Nobody knew how to use their PCs, but nobody wanted me to touch theirs because mine was most of the time under repair (usually due to me deleting some important system file or messing around with drivers). In fact, the thing broke so many times that the company replaced it by a better model for free (a P133, probably as they didn't have parts for the older model anymore). This one came with something that made all the difference: A bootable CD for restoring the whole system which became standard on newer models (because of me, perhaps? 😁), this drastically reduced the visits to tech support, I must have used that CD at least once a week.
Of course the magic didn't last long as a couple of years later the once great PC didn't run anything decently anymore and then the upgrade anxiety began... Must say I love the fact that computers are evolving slower nowadays (at least gaming wise), as PCs which are 5 to 10 years old remain very usable.

I totally get it, I messed up my family's computer a few times as well. Once I installed a bios in mandarin by mistake. I had to guess the settings and boot into windows, get the English version and flash it before my dad got home...

Omg this is a hilarious story 🤣 🤣
I can imagine this must've felt like a real deadline for you back then 😜

Unreal castle flyby.
I was already using a PC as primary gaming by then, but the first time I launched that game is burned into memory.

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-06-24, 18:41:

On home PCs at all, it was a defender clone on a ZX Spectrum back in 82 or a little earlier. Still trying to find that one, all I can remember is it had alternate city and mountain levels and was actually a type-in from a mag.

Did I hear Defender? 😃
That was one of my favorite games on a Sharp MZ-700 computer.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZrNZ7-jV8p4

Originally, the game was likely written for an slower MZ-80K or MZ-80A in mind, but I didn't know that when I was little.
But it now explaines why the game ran so fast on my computer!

Joakim wrote on 2022-06-24, 18:33:

gaffa2002 wrote on 2022-06-24, 16:51:

Man, I can still remember the smell of that brand new PC. I was lucky enough to get the exact same PC some months after that day […]
Show full quote

Joakim wrote on 2022-06-24, 05:14:

Your first pc experience sounds magical.

The Apple II story reminds me of how it was in my household, with an illustrious Arnstad 1512 just standing there that no one knew how to operate.

Man, I can still remember the smell of that brand new PC. I was lucky enough to get the exact same PC some months after that day, this is where I started learning how to use Windows 95 and quite a bit of DOS memory management to run the more problematic titles.
Funny thing is that no one in my family besides me ever cared much about computers (only exception being one of my cousins) until much later when internet was mainstream. Nobody knew how to use their PCs, but nobody wanted me to touch theirs because mine was most of the time under repair (usually due to me deleting some important system file or messing around with drivers). In fact, the thing broke so many times that the company replaced it by a better model for free (a P133, probably as they didn't have parts for the older model anymore). This one came with something that made all the difference: A bootable CD for restoring the whole system which became standard on newer models (because of me, perhaps? 😁), this drastically reduced the visits to tech support, I must have used that CD at least once a week.
Of course the magic didn't last long as a couple of years later the once great PC didn't run anything decently anymore and then the upgrade anxiety began... Must say I love the fact that computers are evolving slower nowadays (at least gaming wise), as PCs which are 5 to 10 years old remain very usable.

Hey, updatin

I totally get it, I messed up my family's computer a few times as well. Once I installed a bios in mandarin by mistake. I had to guess the settings and boot into windows, get the English version and flash it before my dad got home...

Lol! This reminded me of the tech support guys which probably hated me as I called them every single day with all kinds of stupid questions (i.e. “how can I make a game?”, or “how can I make an animated cartoon?”). My grandfather had bought two P100 computers, one for him and another for my family, which had 3 years of tech support. But once they gave me the P133 model, they reduced the tech support period to just 90 days for that machine (my grandfather’s P100 still had the 3 year support).
Once the 90 days were over I kept calling them, but always told them I was using the P100 model, one of the main differences between models was that the bios on the P133 one could be switched to Portuguese. The tech support guys asked me to go to the bios and change the language to Portuguese and once I said it worked they caught me.
Of course this only worked once 😁 from that day on I left my bios in english on purpose and once the tech support guy asked me to change, I just said that it remained in English.
Feel bad for those guys…wish I could let them know how grateful I am for their patience. One time I saw some error trying to run a DOS program which said it required 550kb of conventional memory. As I had no idea what that meant, I deleted the Windows folder in order to try freeing some memory. Of course it went badly…

gaffa2002 wrote on 2022-06-26, 23:40:

One time I saw some error trying to run a DOS program which said it required 550kb of conventional memory. As I had no idea what that meant, I deleted the Windows folder in order to try freeing some memory. Of course it went badly…

No offense, but how old were you back then?

Heh does it really matter, I still come across a worrying large amount of grown adults that can't tell you the difference between memory and storage.

DOOM. Nuff said.

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-06-27, 05:04:

Heh does it really matter, I still come across a worrying large amount of grown adults that can't tell you the difference between memory and storage.

Every time I've tried to teach my mother to do even the simplest things on her laptop she tends to react in ways that make it seem like she would rather try to leash an angry dog than have anything to do with copying files and other highly demanding tasks. She's in her mid 60's.

When I was around 14 or so I did something very similar and deleted something that killed windows, I needed space to install some game. I didn't understand anything about computers back then.

Sombrero wrote on 2022-06-27, 05:21:

BitWrangler wrote on 2022-06-27, 05:04:

Heh does it really matter, I still come across a worrying large amount of grown adults that can't tell you the difference between memory and storage.

Every time I've tried to teach my mother to do even the simplest things on her laptop she tends to react in ways that make it seem like she would rather try to leash an angry dog than have anything to do with copying files and other highly demanding tasks. She's in her mid 60's.

I know the feeling...

Oh gawd.

My mom is totally electronic device dyslexic. Not fun to help at all.

Her mom was actually better, she had no problem learning how to operate a dvd player when she got one in her late 70s..

dormcat wrote on 2022-06-27, 03:55:

gaffa2002 wrote on 2022-06-26, 23:40:

One time I saw some error trying to run a DOS program which said it required 550kb of conventional memory. As I had no idea what that meant, I deleted the Windows folder in order to try freeing some memory. Of course it went badly…

No offense, but how old were you back then?

Around 12 I guess. Keep in mind at that time very few people had access to PCs, and there was no one which I knew that had any idea about computers (another reason I kept pestering the tech support people, they were the ones that could teach me stuff). My conclusion came from reading the windows 95 user guide (I read the whole thing, mostly because I had nothing else to do as the PC spent half of the time being repaired) which explained about the My Computer icon and about drives. From there I learned that the C drive stored my programs, D was for the CD-ROM and A for the floppy, so I tried cleaning up my C drive. I just didn't have any idea that the operating system that makes everything work was also a program stored in C drive 🙁 (and of course no idea that conventional memory doesn't have anything to do with hard drive space)...
Another thing to consider is that in 1996 very few people really cared about computers compared to today. My relatives do use computers nowadays, not because they learned, but because computers became more accessible.
Hell, even today I can't spend more than one month with a Windows 95 PC without breaking it with some experiment and having to format again 😁