My very first computer ever was in fact an Atari 600XL , It was a Christmas gift around Christmas of 84. I remember my first tentative steps into computing. It was Sunday morning , I had this machine just sitting there waiting for me to do something. So I clearly remember typing in ‘HELLO’. The remark I received confused me as it did not make any sense,It said:
ERROR- HELLO#
After a while I typed my own name in only to discover that it too was an error.I was disappointed that there was no interaction , that it did not reply to my questions. So reluctantly I started to read the manuals! , It was then I typed in my first basic programs ,a long and laborious task , But the final rewards were amazing .I could change the colours , make ‘bleeps’ , write my name a million times on the screen. I went to a local computer store and typed in these immortal lines:
| 10 | PRINT "Ejber Ozkan Woz Ere" |
|---|---|
| 20 | GOTO 10 |
I felt I was the best programmer ever and stood in the shop smugly grinning to myself as every computer in the floor shouted my name out (The staff didn’t know how to stop it).
But surely there was something more to these machines than programs , And it was then that I noticed the games section in the shop.At first I didn’t know what to do ,Sure I went through the tape tutorials that I got with the machine but it wasn’t the same as playing I quote ‘arcade quality games’.Which was what was written on many of the tape boxes.I felt like I was in a sweet shop and went over and brought the first game that looked like having some sort of action , at a low cost (small budget for an 11 year old).It was a title called:
I went home and turned on the machine and ran the tape. After a long wait it was there a screen where music was playing , where graphics were moving , I was ecstatic. I pressed start and that’s when I discovered I needed a joystick to play the game!
I went straight back to the shop and asked them to give me a good joystick (I didn’t know what a joystick was) ,I went home with a classic suncom joystick all plush and one big button on it with a great big red ‘ball’ top. I played this game until I was blue in the face. I couldn’t wait to save up my money and buy another (It took a long time to save in those days!).