Memory almost full
I’vebeen trying to think of a time before computer games entered my life. I’m 48 and a third, and it seems like they’ve always been there. There were key moments when they seemed to be more present, if that makes any sense – dad bringing home a Dragon 32 or us all traipsing to Rumbelows in Maidenhead to buy a BBC – but I think they must have been a part of me forever.
Let me try and make sense of these foggy memories and try and put them in order. The first thing I can dimly recall is the Binatone TV Master Mk 8. It lived in a battered cardboard box, and we kept it either under the sofa or in the airing cupboard. (I’m aware that not only the word ‘Binatone’ is meaningless to most people under 35, but so is the phrase ‘airing cupboard’!) This orange and metallic box had a dial and several buttons on the front. It also had detachable joysticks. It’s odd, considering my later love for gaming, but I don’t remember being that bothered about the Binatone. Maybe because it was black and white, or the rather annoying sound, but something about it just made it boring to me.