Video Game Flashbacks - Know Your Roots

In order to do well at something, you must know its roots. If you are going into public office, it would be good to have an idea of the people who went before you, and the reasons they created what they did. If you are going into used car sales, a solid understanding of past and present selling points, will be of the utmost importance. If you are a video gamer, knowing your roots is essential, as well.

I got to see the first video games come out in stores as I was growing up. I remember it like it was yesterday; I was not even tall enough to see the screen. My mother had to get a chair for me to stand on. But it was 1978 and Space Invaders had just come to the local pizza shop... and just like rock and roll, pinball was dead.

PacMan came out shortly after that and then, arcades started sprouting up all throughout the American landscape. My first arcade experience was in El Cajon, California. The place had fluorescent lights and neon paint all over the walls and looked like the inside of Space Mountain. Centipede and Tempest were the two hottest games out at the time. I guess you could say I was hooked.

The Atari 2600 game system came out for home use in 1975 but didn't really start growing in popularity until 1980. It was $200 for that state of the art piece of gaming that looked more like a piece of furniture than technology. By 1984, the price of a 2600 system had dropped to under $50. At a swap meet, I recently came across one still in the original box, with all of the original equipment and documentation. The man wanted $200 for it, and said that prices are going way higher than that, for classic gaming systems.

Growing up with these games gives you an understanding of how games work and why things like pixels and resolution are important. A new generation of kids is growing up without playing the classic games and they seem to have less of an understanding of how and why games work. They do not understand what pixels are. They do not understand what the difference between a 16 bit, 32 bit, and 64 bit system is. But most of all, they have no appreciation for the amount of advancement that has taken place.