ProcTech SOL & Trek80 - yo, Bob Wood!

From: Doug Yowza <yowza_at_yowza.com>
Date: Sun Aug 16 16:32:14 1998

On Sun, 16 Aug 1998, Bob Wood wrote:

> I am curious about one thing. Is the Trek 80 among the
> very earliest examples of game software for microcomputers?

If you're really asking if you can sell it to Alex for $100 (or $10 to
anybody else), then the answer is probably yes. But as far as "very
earliest" for microcomputers, I'd have to guess: no way.

Games are still typically the first program that anybody writes for a new
machine. I suspect Trek was a port of the much earlier minicomputer game,
but what you're asking is basically "in the time since the first
microcomputer was built in 1971, were there no games until 1976?". No way.

One of the earlier better-known microcomputers was the Scelbi-8H (1973).
Scelbi stopped making hardware in 1974, and supposedly went into the
software and book-writing biz. I know he wrote a book on games for the
8008, but I don't know the year.

Well before the Sol (or even the Altair) came out, there were already
several microcomputer newsletters and magazines such as Creative Computing
(1974), The Computer Hobbyist (1974), and Micro-8 (1974). I'm sure you
can find a bunch of references to games in these.

BTW, I don't have any machines based on the Intel 4004 (first commercial
MPU), but I do have a machine and games for a TI TMS1000-based system
(second commercial MPU). Interestingly, TI *still* makes versions of the
TMS1000!

(This message brought to you by the Destroy The Altair Myth campaign :-)

-- Doug
Received on Sun Aug 16 1998 - 16:32:14 BST