They look exactly what i would think programmers looked like

@pauldavis5665

Ай бұрын

In the 1980's computer programmers actually looked like the generic stereotypical computer programmer. These days programmers look like anyone else, they have assimilated and blended with the rest of human society. lol

Computer Chronicles is timeless. At a time when most computer industry types looked down their nose at game design as just as toys for kids it was nice to see Stuart and Gary give the topic the same depth of discussion and seriousness they do with other other topics.

@michaelcorcoran8768

8 ай бұрын

Yeah and it is also just a joy to see the prices and the hardware offerings for consumers at the time. It was just wild watching the laptop episode where they were talking about only having 90 minutes of battery life

@JohnMichaelson

8 ай бұрын

@@michaelcorcoran8768 I know, right? They talk about dropping $2,000-3,000+ in 1984 dollars on this stuff like it was nothing!

@xandror

7 ай бұрын

Cutting edge technology has always been very expensive. An Alta X drone will run you about $20,000 in 2023. How much do you think a drone with comparable abilities will cost in twenty years?

@cesarchoya6961

2 ай бұрын

Gorgeous reply. Plenty of respect and thoughtfulness. Usually replies are just egolatric comments. It’s not fair make fun comments regarding tech that time versus now. We have to see things in perspective, the impact of things in that time, and the fact that we continue watching CC this days expose that the work they made was amazing. And we’re still learning watching in retrospective. Tech of the future sure will see very naive the current one. But somethings are become classic as Computer Chronicles and as you said; timeless.

@JohnMichaelson

2 ай бұрын

@@cesarchoya6961Thanks for the reply, Cesar. Gary K I think had a lot of respect for game designers and the innovation in the hobby. There were some of these gaming episodes (I think they did at least one each year) that he's really animated and into the discussion more than other episodes.

I don't think anyone 50 years from now will look back at 2020 and say "people used to be a lot more articulate"

@raven4k998

Жыл бұрын

ok it's all set three men and a monkey suit

@zeldaoot23

Жыл бұрын

Have you seen Idiocracy? It could be a lot worse…

@8BitNaptime

Жыл бұрын

@@zeldaoot23 why come?

@neilmiller6214

9 ай бұрын

These guys are very smart top level industry creators, this does not represent all of society, they are highly professional.

@solidstate0

8 ай бұрын

Articulate in code is well- 8KB for a functional space shuttle simulator - probably uses whatever memory is spare in on-baord RAM - about 128bytes if memory serves me correctly.

Creating a game in Assembly is mind-blowing, these guys are incredible programmers

@pierreo33

8 ай бұрын

Rollercoaster Tycoon was made in Assembly. By one guy. How amazing is that?!

@TomiTapio

7 ай бұрын

Instead of variable names, you just have 0xaf3c memory locations... It's all just if-thens and for loops (or repeat-until-goto) and API calls (position Sprite, play sawtooth sound)

Its crazy how ambitious the Activision guys were with their games

@BenJammin723

2 жыл бұрын

quite the contrast of the way they are now lol

@SpiDey1500

Жыл бұрын

@@unknownstranger6558 Those guys were heroes. Nowadays it's run by business guys who think from quarter to quarter. It's sad, same think happened with the Volkswagen diesel scandal and also with the 737 MAX. When business guys take over, quality goes down. Sometimes with deadly results.

Amazing these guys talking about getting immersed in a universe and now we have games like Witcher 3. If not for their hard work and vision, we wouldn't have many of the masterpieces we know and love today.

I wonder if Gary's kids who are now all grown up ever watch old videos of Gary to remember what their dad sounded like and looked like?

@raven4k998

Жыл бұрын

probably for that and nostalgia purposes

@curtismenzies428

Жыл бұрын

Such a loss for the world. Gary contributed so much

@raven4k998

Жыл бұрын

@@curtismenzies428 shame he tried to have his cake and eat it to and Bill Gates had to ruin that for him poor guy

@curtismenzies428

Жыл бұрын

@@raven4k998 yeah I heard a story about that story but I forget where. Would love a resource if you got it off hand

@javidThoman

Жыл бұрын

I'm sure they have or do from time to time. I know I would if my deceased Father was on television,for the visual memories.

I remember that Space Shuttle game. When me and my friend went to a game shop he bought it for his Atari VCS then we went back to his house to play it.

Space Shuttle on the 2600 - these were the days before Kerbal Space Program

@EmperorLjas

2 жыл бұрын

This is also the same year Geoff Crammond released Revs, the first racing sim. There's something really cool about these people fully committing themselves to making something realistic, and succeeding to some degree with processing power that compared to modern system basically rounds off to zero. Mad props to the code wizards of old.

@ian_b

11 ай бұрын

@@EmperorLjas Reminds me that I had Flight Simulator on my ZX81!

@walteralcaraz5898

10 ай бұрын

@@ian_b LOL. I remember that MicroSoft Flight Simulator was one of the "test" programs for PC clones back then. Many IBM PC clones of the 1980s had problems running the program properly, and would often crash. Only a true IBM PC or a near exact clone could run it well. That and Lotus 1-2-3 were unofficial compatibility test programs for clones. In the early 1980s, PC clones often were not 100% compatible like they are now, because IBM had copyrighted their BIOS and anyone who tried to copy it was taken to court for copyright infringement. It took Compaq Computer and the black box reverse engineering method to finally crack it, and then 100% PC clones were available to all.

back when EA didnt seem so evil.. aah the good ol' days.

@jesuszamora6949

4 жыл бұрын

EA's soul was Trip Hawkins.

@AcornElectron

3 жыл бұрын

Yeah Electronic Arts and EA are two very different companies.

@flutebasket4294

Жыл бұрын

Yeah, EA used to be a great little start-up with a bunch of innovation to its name.... and now...........

When I was in college, I majored in Zaxxon Yes!!

66K of Assembly code is pretty damn hardcore.

@kinggymsrepublic3540

7 жыл бұрын

yes but when you do it in modern computer language its pretty easy to make

@ian_b

4 жыл бұрын

Well, I think the difficulty of assembler is overstated, probably because most programming is in higher level languages these days so it's a bit of a "dark art". I like projects with microcontrollers, which I program in assembler (and back in the 80s I used to write Z80 Assembler). I was working on some code the other day, looking for a bug, and it occurred to me that in fact I don't mentally "decode" it into something else, I read it as a native. It's like musical notation, which is very slow to read if you have to consciously go "that note is a C quaver, that note is a F# crotchet" but once you're reading it native, it just flows.

@teknoguy2002

3 жыл бұрын

VERY LARGE!

@AcornElectron

3 жыл бұрын

He was a smarmy arsebiscuit, 66k.. wooo... even then 66k wasn’t really that huge. It’s only because he was writing it for the 800 that there was a constraint. The Amiga was on the scene within 12 months of this airing. Christ, even the bbc and 128 spectrum had more complex games than Excalibur. Obviously I’m talking in depth as well as complexity of programming.

@paulmichaelfreedman8334

3 жыл бұрын

Games like Centipede and Millipede were 12K and 16K, respectively. That included all graphics too. Not comparing but to show how much could be done with so little code. Millipede has an AI on board predicting every move you make, it's creepily good at it too.

Steward Cheifet is really iconic for more than two decades! It is a shame, but shows like this on a regular basis are hard to find. In Germany we had the computerclub with Wolfgang Back and Wolfgang Rudolph with a similar approach. Good old days 😅

I had the C64 version of that Space shuttle game. I played it quite a lot back then and got pretty good at it. But you really needed to read the manual cover to cover several times and follow the flight guide in it to get anywhere.

@raven4k998

Жыл бұрын

I love how stewart says the atari 2600 isn't a real computer when it is it just has extremely limited resources🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

I still have that shuttle game on the 2600. Looks s primitive now.

Pong is already vintage in 1984 😁 Ooh the tracking is strong with this footage. Construction kits and game editors... the grandfather of minecrafting

@raven4k998

Жыл бұрын

now it's classic vintage🤣🤣🤣🤣

@tedbell4416

9 ай бұрын

Pong is better than gta

Oh man the old day's of video gaming, thanks for uploadingthose exciting video's of the computer chronicles.

@raven4k998

Жыл бұрын

like playing pac man🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Trip was on point and his vision unfolded exactly as he stated, while cashing in big time. You also saw his passion just with playing the games, something important to note since many leaders at this time were stodgy old men who came from old-school mainframe computing that could not think out of the box.

@raven4k998

Жыл бұрын

they are playing pong well I'll be

I just looked up Bill Budge and found him on Wikipedia... "Budge does not enjoy playing video games, and described having to play pinball for months while developing Pinball Construction Set as "sheer torture." He more enjoyed writing fast graphics libraries for game programmers. Budge said "I wasn't that interested in playing or designing games. My real love was in writing fast graphics code. It occurred to me that creating tools for others to make games was a way for me to indulge my interest in programming without having to make games."

How I would love to hop into a time machine to 1984 and show these guys footage of Horizon:Forbidden West or other modern games. We’ve come such a long way.

@Mnaughten601

Жыл бұрын

Just show them Super Mario Bro’s and they would send you to the stake!

@zeldaoot23

Жыл бұрын

@@Mnaughten601 it’s amazing that Super Mario Bros was released the following year, and it looked so much more advanced. I guess there were impressive looking arcade games like Dragon’s Lair around already, but the NES really delivered a big leap in graphics for the home market.

I love these video's, such a nice look into history!

@raven4k998

Жыл бұрын

I love how lazer disc never took their own advice and shrank the lazer disc leaving it to someone else to do it for them

I have to admit, I’m saddened that Space Shuttle was one of the view game I could’ve bought, but never did. I seems a tremendous achievement.

Very amazing the amount of detail and heart these guys put into their work

A few days ago I went out and bought a copy of GTA 5 (oh yeah, that's how I roll). I was so mesmerized by the quality of the graphics that I spent the first six hours just standing on the sidewalk and watching the virtual world go by. Somebody said you can steal a jet and fly around the city, but I don't believe them. That's just crazy talk.

@raven4k998

Жыл бұрын

you need products that are HOT!!!!🤣😂🤣🤣🤣😂😂

Thanks Mitch Murder!

@janruudschutrups9382

6 жыл бұрын

PhillyCloud1234 Had this casually in the background checking some emails when I heard the spaceshuttle part and immediately recognized it 😎. I have listened to the 'Current Events' album for a long time but only now made the connection 😋. One of my favorite 80's synth artists!

holy crap, i had Dr. J v Larry Bird. Loved it

Love the theme intro music. Brings back fond memories when computers were actually exciting,

I had all those old "construction set" games. Pinball, Music, Adventure, and Racing Destruction Set. Adventure Construction Set was my favorite. Followed closely by Pinball.

@hazy33

6 ай бұрын

I had Racing Destruction Set on c64 cassette. That took sooo long to actually get into a race with all the loading.

The distinction they make between video game and computer game is kinda strange... but I guess it made sense at the time. Today game consoles are essentially x86 PCs with a custom OS, but up to the mid-90s they had way more specialized hardware and were significantly underpowered compared to mid-to-high-end desktop PCs.

@hazy33

6 ай бұрын

Yup plus console versions of PC games were mostly dumbed down version made simpler as it was thought the console gamer wasn't as sophisticated (to put it politely) as the PC gamer.

9:10 Loved those extra booklets you got back in the days when you bought games. Remember buying Indiana Jones and the last crusade and i got Henry Jones diary of the hunt for the Holy Grail.

Absolutely fascinating, love the piece about Space Shuttle, a marvellously ambitious game.

@raven4k998

8 ай бұрын

yeah shows what you can do when you forget what the machine does do and try making it do what you want it to do

To hear that man say that "if you fly enough, you just MAY get your wings," had me crying and then dying. So funny.

I used to create games in the 80s. There's no way I could have made a game like this with only 8K!

66k of object code? Chris, you went crazy there!

@wokecults

5 жыл бұрын

"all written in assembly language" :-)

@AcornElectron

3 жыл бұрын

He’s a dick, he started by saying 90% of dev time was concept and getting the feel right and then he bangs out the code in ten minutes 😂 then goes on to brag about writing in assembly language and it being 66kb which is too big for the shitty 800 he’s making it for. 🤨🤨

@tr1p1ea

11 ай бұрын

The machine only had 48K of RAM which is why it's highlighted.

@Kyntteri

11 ай бұрын

@@tr1p1ea Say it ain't so.

Kerbal Space Program looks so good

18:00 this guy should look back at his own speech here, he talks about 350kb like the sky is the limit, and here we are in 2020 when a average game is about 50 to 60GB XD

@paulmichaelfreedman8334

3 жыл бұрын

Ah! BUT....99% of that is GFX data. 1% is actual game code. Still a good half GIG tho :) But of that 350kB you can be sure 99% is assembly.

I LOVED pong! It was my favorite arcade game at my childhood local bowling alley. PRE home computer games at home.. at least for me. LOL

Bill Budge helped make early EA successful with Pinball Construction Set. Everyone I knew with a computer back then played PCS.

It’s fascinating to see the hosts question the future of video games, wondering if even computer games would last beyond being a fad. If the hosts are still around, I’m curious what they think of home computing circa 2024.

“It’s over 66k, all written in assembly language!” “…. OK, well..” 😅

Criminy, they were playing a Magnavox Odyssey 1. We had one of those (and an Odyssey 2). The Odyssey 1 was still in a closet when we sold the house. I think it still worked. I wish I had taken that. Coulda sold it for decent bucks to a collector.

@AcornElectron

3 жыл бұрын

An Odyssey 1 is just an Odyssey 😉. Fun fact, the Odyssey 2 was called the Philips G7000 in Europe and the UK.

@Wizardofgosz

3 жыл бұрын

@@AcornElectron ya think?

@AcornElectron

3 жыл бұрын

@@Wizardofgosz probably sarcasm but yeah ☺️😂😂

@AcornElectron

3 жыл бұрын

@@Wizardofgosz also, I’m a fan of the quick reply on your year old comment 🙂

@Wizardofgosz

3 жыл бұрын

@@AcornElectron blame google and fast updates. Acorn Electron??? Do you know you got a big shout out in the movie Blinded by the Light??

Is that aqua v-neck made from velour? And if so, what on Earth was his back-up outfit?

The personality of the player...yeah right 🤣... but it was still fun for the moment.

Interesting note from the Random Access portion: IBM struck a production license agreement with Intel for 8088 and 286 CPUs. Later on, Intel changed their tune and chose not to license out production of the 386 when it came out. Consequently, IBM stuck making 286 machines and delayed their launch of a 386 PC. Compaq then beat Big Blue to the punch. Henceforth came the decline of IBM as the king of the very architecture they invented.

In 1984 people ate healthier and were not obese.

@Game_Hero

8 ай бұрын

in 1984, people ate just as much fast food, but they had to physically move more, so that checked out.

@Elbas_Tardo

7 ай бұрын

@@Game_Hero I born in 1970 At least in my case we ate products from local farmers, who did not process the food, now this is much more expensive and we have to buy worse insane products. It is a fact that today there is a much higher percentage of obese people and cancer than then.

“Are computer games here to stay or are they a fad?” 👏👏👏👏👏

@antoinecarter5812

2 жыл бұрын

I think that they peaked in 1984

@u.v.s.5583

11 ай бұрын

People in 2023 are slowly coming in grips with the entire depth of the original Super Mario game. I suppose that around 2050 people will start looking for new challenges and computer games will start developing again.

@TheMahayanist

10 ай бұрын

​@@antoinecarter5812lol you're funny

The "simple, hot, and deep" line complete with reaction is meme gold.

Amazing, 66k was big once. Now the average game is a 30 gig download.

@jesuszamora6949

4 жыл бұрын

Just imagine how huge they'll be in 30 more years.

@0raffie0

4 жыл бұрын

I wonder how much of that is actual code though.

@PhoenixNL72-DEGA-

4 жыл бұрын

@@0raffie0 I'd be surprised if the code would reach 1 % of that. Most data of a game is graphics (texture maps etc) followed by audio.

@jusufagung

Жыл бұрын

66k. It needs a box of floppy disks.

So much for pre-release names for pc's being cool. IBM AT was called "popcorn"

At this time my parents bought me the Vic 20. The brother of Commodore 64. I really used it to play donkey kong. We did not have a lot of money.

@AcornElectron

3 жыл бұрын

More like the father of the C64 considering how short generations were back then 😉 Edited to say, I mean, if you had a home computer in the 80s then you were better off than most of the 3rd world’s population in 2020 ☺️

@lanceobe6801

2 жыл бұрын

The vic 20 was actually faster than the c64,. My buddy and I played a lot of text Adventures on the vic

16:19 He's got 2 balls .

The space shuttle game and the basketball game look fun as shit.

@rodmunch69

6 жыл бұрын

I had the Space Shuttle game as a kid and I never had an idea of what was going on - was wayyy too difficult. In retrospect I'm thinking I just got the cart without any instructions because I don't remember there being a cheat sheet or using the Atari's switches.

@ryanwiseman9141

6 жыл бұрын

I had the one on one for 7800, it was awesome!

@SWRadioConcepts

5 жыл бұрын

We had one-on-one in the mid 80's running on an IBM PCjr. Very fun game.

@BigEightiesNewWave

3 жыл бұрын

I flush shit , not play with it.

Trip is such a damn legend.

20:43 ...the definitive moment humans became irreversibly distracted by machines 🙃

@17:20 "At the Arcade level we hear that games kinda peaked and people aren't quite as interested. Are computer games here to stay or is it a fad? " Lol

@oldtwinsna8347

3 жыл бұрын

Relevant question at the time as gaming was unheard of on the PC platform that was steadily growing in marketshare. The money was convincingly in business application software that had fat huge margins so it was questionable what kind of real business opportunities were available for software companies geared towards general purpose gaming programs.

@PhoenixNL72-DEGA-

3 жыл бұрын

@@oldtwinsna8347 Maybe in America. In Europe computer games were bigger then ever on the 8bit home computers like the ZX Spectrum, C64, Atari 800,Amstrad CPC and MSX

Simple, hot and deep 😂😂😂

Pacman back then was a relatively new game, but instead of pong, most people consider it a grand daddy of video games these days. Back then, pong was the grand daddy.

@floydjohnson7888

3 жыл бұрын

Heh..the first few moments of this epsiode amounts to "funny old men playing 'Pong'"-probably to be expected in an episode like this in 1984

Incredibly interesting seeing just how ambitious Chris Crawford and Steve Kitchen were for their time. I mean, good lord, that Space Shuttle game was waaaaaay too ambitious compared to what an Atari 2600 was capable of. But damn, you've got to admire the man for trying. That had to be frustrating though.

Before EA and Activision became evil corporations

Felt like that weird nerdy guy almost started crying when Gary and Stewart kept giggling over his little 8k Space Shuttle video game.

that basketball game is actually not bad for 84 on atari

Someone needs to adjust the tracking at the 5 minute mark

1:32 interesting an original 1972 Magnavox Odyssey on the desk. Some other Pong clone being shown on the TV screen (definitely NOT the Odyssey - it had square bats!)

Nobody even imagine the possibility of a game like For Honor or GTA

Learn 6502 Assembly language in those time was a bit complex..

VICARIOUSLY

"Computer games are better than consoles" says the future founder of 3DO :D

definitely a couple of serial killers there at the beginning.

In the movie of Bill Budge's life, he will be played by a young John Doe.

Computer programmer by day, The Cars frontman at night!

We are out of time, leitmotiv of this computer show.

these nerd times... need to get back please...

Steve "If you can't stand the heat, get out of the" Kitchen

Trip, before the 3DO, before EA was ‘EA’.... he was definitely a visionary. Shame really.

Written in assembly language... @SteveGibson would love that. :)

I always like looking up the guests of the shows to see what they are doing now. Seems like Steve Kitchen (brother of Garry Kitchen) now goes by the name of Jessica Stevens. If that's true, then she's the fifth transsexual woman in the gaming industry that I know of. Dan Bunten -> Danielle Bunten Berry, Jay Fenton -> Jamie Fenton, William Salvador Heineman -> Rebecca Heineman, William Mataga -> Cathryn Mataga. Amazing.

At 5:00, I can only assume the vcr tape was paused there by someone fascinated by the designer. Pretty creepy.

@0raffie0

4 жыл бұрын

Open reel, not vcr lol.

@oldtwinsna8347

3 жыл бұрын

Why creepy? It was stored in analog format and the producers made this available online by mass converting them over. The fact they transferred hundreds of episodes over is something really awesome.

When popcorn was predicted to outpace the macintosh

I miss old video games they use to be complex with books, training, and not just button smashing. Microsoft Space Simulator really made you learn how to run a spaceship.

@raven4k998

Жыл бұрын

are computer games here to stay or just a fad I love that one he thought it could be a fad back then didn't think it would take off like it has as time has gone on

@tr1p1ea

11 ай бұрын

@@raven4k998 the videogame console market crashed at that time putting many companies out of business, that's why they asked.

@raven4k998

11 ай бұрын

@@tr1p1ea meh that was a blip in history nothing more cause consoles even came back with a vengeance

@Game_Hero

8 ай бұрын

Kerbal Space Simulator?

@hazy33

6 ай бұрын

@@tr1p1eathat only happened in the USA, the rest of the world went on playing video games as per normal.

✨You know the details of the space shuttle game does not show the details as the creator was explaining what is happening. So, as a kid and even now, I wouldn't know that the flashing color lights was gas until the creator explained it as your playing it. So really, you would need him there, because I would get board in a min. You know? Lol I used to have One on One on the C64. Played it for hrs!!!😃✨

Chris Crawford and Steve Kitchen are wonderful and if you disagree you're a bad person.

No way .. they got bitmap colour graphics!! wow .. amazing! LOL :)

Imagine if they would have invinted John Romero onto the Computer Chronicles back in the day. That dude would have walked in and kicked that fucken table over as he demonstrated Doom off of a PC running on the floor.

@dog942

8 жыл бұрын

+TheHabitman in 1984? Before he even started on cavern crusader?

@realtrisk

8 жыл бұрын

+DOG The show was still running in 1993.

That EA game talking so much about "the educational value of the game". I doubt if EA is asking themselves about the educational value of lets say CS:GO these days. XD

That’s definitely accurate lol

Still waiting for the bartending robots

esta gente son unos putos genios

the chris guy has seen the shining waaay too many times

Computer games used to mean Gorillas and Nibbles in qbasic

@JohnMichaelson

3 жыл бұрын

I'm not ashamed of how much time I spent playing those two. Especially Gorillas. Then I found Scorched Earth.

'Modern' arcade games. Everything in past was modern once.

@0raffie0

4 жыл бұрын

That blew your mind huh.

This is priceless. Interesting how seriously the topic was treated back then. Same for UK shows

@hazy33

6 ай бұрын

Well Micro Live really looked down on mere computer games iirc

I am Sinistar!

No wonder EA turned to the dark side, its President is Kylo Ren.

Trip Hawkins & Bill Budge ~13:04~

Trip Hawkins not getting top billing - 😂

Even though games were basic back them they were enjoyable.

Listening to this while I play Minecraft, ha.

I have a number of computer games for my Atari 800XL and my Windows PC. In 1984 I had first watched this particular episode of The Computer Chronicles knowing that the Great North American Home Video Game Market Crash was approaching its end. While the Atari 2600 VCS was still both a common home video game console and that actual computer systems made game programming available for the masses.

3DO was born on this show.

The space shuttle segment has to be the longest Stewart let anyone talk.

@doomsday9973

Жыл бұрын

i was thinking the exact same thing. I was waiting for the typical rude cut off....