Computing, Zombies and Gardening: My history of computing

I could talk for hours and hours about computers, it's such a huge topic and there is so many interesting areas, but I'll try and keep it brief and stick to the specific areas I consider to be milestones as I grew up with them.

The first computer I really remember having is the Sinclair ZX Spectrum, the 128K version with build in tape deck. It was brilliant!

The ZX Specturm with built in tape deck

I was pretty young when I got it, maybe around 6 or 7 and I still remember sitting on a toy box with my uncles after they had set it up for me and my mum giving them into trouble for not giving me a shot cause they were so amazed by it as well (they were about 30 at the time). There were some great games on it, my favourites being Dynamite Dan, Fast Food (which my mum rocked at!) and Robin Hood which was really long but had great controls and just felt really smooth to play.

Dynamite Dan
For years all I could remember about the game was the giant cheese in the bath

Fast Food
My mum was so good at this she got onto the upside down levels

Robin Hood
This game was HUGE great fun though

I never really got into programming on the Specturm which had a BASIC compiler built into it but my friend did and I remember seeing a 'hello world' game he had programmed and not being very impressed.

I think it was after that that I got my Atari. No huge memories of that other than Outlaw which I loved.

Outlaw

Then came the Sega Master System and afterwards the Mega Drive. The Master System was ok but it was really the Mega Drive I fell in love with.

Blast Processing! The Sega Mega Drive, computer of the gods

Without a doubt my favourite game was Toejam and Earl. It was just huge! Great fun as well and a brilliant co-op game, to this day one of the best I've ever played. It was colourful and humorous and the randomized levels meant you could play it repeatedly without getting fed up. The only real problem it had was no save points so quite often I'd play for an hour or so and then get fed up and have to restart all over again on the next play through, often getting to the same point and then getting bored again.

Toejam and Earl
One of the best co-op games ever

Other greats from my childhood include Golden Axe, Sonic 2, Wiz and Liz, Skitchin, Road Rash, Rock 'n' Roll Racing, Worms... I'll leave it at that.

I enjoyed the Mega Drive so much that a once I got a job and started earning some proper money I took up collecting the games again. To date I've got about 230 games and splashed out recently on a flash cart to allow me to play homebrew and ROM hacks on the original console. I'm not one of those purists (read snob) that thinks emulators are for lamers but there is something more enjoyable about playing games on the original hardware that you just don't get from them. Still they are great to play hard-to-get games on and for development (and cheating!)

I even got into ROM hacking for a while I still do it here and there when I have the time. You can check out my site www.mybrillgamesite.com to see some of the stuff I've done.

After the Mega Drive came the usual: Playstation, N64, Dreamcast, Playstation 2, DS, XBox 360 and that's where it ends. Nothing to say about them really other than GTA 3 blew me away and was the reason I bought a PS2.

GTA 3
The game changer in video games

I think I got my first PC when I was about 12, maybe a little younger. It cost my mum over a grand and she was paying it off forever! That's my mum for you though, she'd never see me go without even if it meant sacrificing the stuff she wanted.

It ran Windows 95 which my mum's friend tried to downgrade to 3.1 because he thought it would be too complicated for me. This resulted in him breaking it (it wasn't 3.1 compatible) and us having to return it to the shop! Thankfully they fixed it (I can't remember if we had to pay or no) and I got a working computer again. My only real memories of it are it having this weird program called 'BASE' which was a picture of a lounge (living room) which came on at start up and you could click on things to open programs, like the TV would open Windows Media Player, the briefcase would open My Briefcase and so on. It sucked and was soon removed.

I also took my copy of Warcraft into school on the last day of term (we could take toys in to play with then) and the teacher didn't let me install it on the computer cause she said it wouldn't work (she was right as it was an Acorn computer) and when I got home I found it had slipped out of its paper case and got scratched, breaking it. What a waste, I was gutted.

Warcraft

Then it was what I think is the usual progression for a kid interested in computers - taking things apart, learning about upgrades, falling in love with the internet (my friend had it before me so I used to always go to his to use it, even tried once when he wasn't in but his dad said no) (I also got banned from AOL 3 times within 6 months!), getting bored during computer class cause you knew everything already or could fire through the work in 10 minutes.

Fast forward a few years and a degree in Artificial Intelligence later and here we are.

Just now I've got a real interest in computer vision and reasoning upon what the computer can 'see'. In my sister blog workingwithcomputervision.blogspot.co.uk I talk specifically about this topic and am working on a game player that works using computer vision, it's interesting and you should check it out if you are into that sort of thing.

I'm also fascinated by Infinite Mario and Automated Driving (i.e. Darpa Grand Challange) although I haven't looked into them although that much. Still great concepts though.