25-04-2026, 05:08 PM
I'm not the most eloquent bloke out there, so I'll keep it short.
Family bought the Microbee 32k with tape drive way back in the 80's when I was a pre-teen boy with the inability to sit still at school. I have 3 very clear memories that I have held onto and think about often in the last 40 years:
1. I scored 912 in Dodgem, and no-one else saw me do it.
2. I learned what a factorial was when I played Escape from Colditz, and never finished the game because I was too young to figure out the other questions.
3. I did my first programming ever in Basic and it got me hooked on computers for life.
I will be honest, I have been thinking about the first 2 memories disturbingly often over the last 40 years or so. One of the younger guys here at work, as we were discussing old computers, said to me "Why don't you ask Grok how to find the games?". I sort of looked at him disdainfully, thinking that I don't need some silly AI thing to find something on the internet, and by the time I finished rolling my eyes and telling him that, he'd already put the question to his phone and it spat out the Microbee Technology website.
So here I am, now I am going to do whatever is required in order to finally solve Escape from Colditz. The Dodgem score is not something I will ever attempt to beat, that memory is a strong anchor that holds me to earth during some crazy times.
Thank you all for keeping these things alive, guys.
Cheers,
Gommy
Family bought the Microbee 32k with tape drive way back in the 80's when I was a pre-teen boy with the inability to sit still at school. I have 3 very clear memories that I have held onto and think about often in the last 40 years:
1. I scored 912 in Dodgem, and no-one else saw me do it.
2. I learned what a factorial was when I played Escape from Colditz, and never finished the game because I was too young to figure out the other questions.
3. I did my first programming ever in Basic and it got me hooked on computers for life.
I will be honest, I have been thinking about the first 2 memories disturbingly often over the last 40 years or so. One of the younger guys here at work, as we were discussing old computers, said to me "Why don't you ask Grok how to find the games?". I sort of looked at him disdainfully, thinking that I don't need some silly AI thing to find something on the internet, and by the time I finished rolling my eyes and telling him that, he'd already put the question to his phone and it spat out the Microbee Technology website.
So here I am, now I am going to do whatever is required in order to finally solve Escape from Colditz. The Dodgem score is not something I will ever attempt to beat, that memory is a strong anchor that holds me to earth during some crazy times.
Thank you all for keeping these things alive, guys.
Cheers,
Gommy
