Comments on: Talk Like a Pirate Day

By: deannahoak

deannahoak — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 13:03:09 +0000

I know. I keep trying to pull up info on the Source, but the name is so common that Google doesn’t help me out at all. It was well before the Internet proper….

By: goatgruff

goatgruff — Tue, 27 Sep 2005 12:59:29 +0000

The SOURCE!
I had nearly forgotten about my earliest online exploits. I think I recall a 5oo dollar phone bill, and “hot chatting” online by telling guys I was a 20 year old woman with big boobs.

By: deannahoak

deannahoak — Sat, 24 Sep 2005 17:04:00 +0000

I actually played the Crystal Caverns game “online” with the Source back in the late 70s. :-) The Source was awesome, for the time. You could get e-mail, play games, and post to message boards that people ended up using like chat rooms. I posted to one called “Chatter” frequently and developed an alter ego for my twelve-year-old self based on Anne McCaffrey’s dragonrider books and my love of unicorns. :-)

By: merle_

merle_ — Sat, 24 Sep 2005 15:51:53 +0000

I must have grown up in the boonies, since I never saw any text adventure games for the TI. I would have loved them. My first introduction was the Zork trilogy on the Apple][… must have been ‘84 or so.

Ah, games used to be a lot more fun. I’m not big on the last decade’s slide into “click as fast as you can” games.

By: deannahoak

deannahoak — Sat, 24 Sep 2005 13:39:47 +0000

Yeah, by the time my family got rid of that TI, we had a huge line of add-ons to it–too many to hold on the desk. Silly thing. :-)

I love the old text adventures. I spent a lot of hours on the old Crystal Caverns one, too (if that’s its name–I’m not sure I even remember).

By: merle_

merle_ — Sat, 24 Sep 2005 12:05:32 +0000

Ah, I never had “Pirate Adventure”. Just Blasto, Alpine (something), Tombstone, TI Invaders, whatever their pacman clone was, and games like that.

And the Extended Basic cartridge, of course. I think my family really wondered why I needed dozens and dozens of cassette tapes.

Hmm, interesting game. No prepositions…

By: deannahoak

deannahoak — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 10:37:18 +0000

Heh. Bad John. I don’t need anything else to distract me before I get this revision done. :-)

Thank you for the offer, though!

By: jborneman

jborneman — Mon, 19 Sep 2005 20:04:47 +0000

My kids and I used to play these for hours as well. I remember being fascinated with the fact that my kids (and I as well) could get totally on the edge of our seats in anticipation and almost fear for what might come next. And the whole game was text. The power of “I’m in a flat in London. Obvious exits are: NONE” Wow.

By the way. I have many of these games that run on a PC. Let me know if you want them. Just email me.