When I was about 11, (or as young as 9 if it was really 1981), I had one of those Casio CA-90 watches, and its major feature was having a twitch video game incorporated in it. (I mean it had a million features and just as many buttons, but the video game was kind of a big deal.)
It was this sort of "Space Invaders" game explained in the article - the invaders were numbers and the player's job was to quickly match them (with L-R movements from 0-9) and shoot them down.
The game was engrossing and active; it was consistently and relentlessly ramping up difficulty as each level was beaten.
My ridiculous family tried to take me on an outing to the San Diego Zoo. The first thing we did was to get into line for the Bus Tour. The line was very, very long, prompting me to immediately begin a game on my watch to occupy the time.
I wound up playing this game for the entire time we were in line (90+ minutes) and, I seem to recall, I finally lost just before we actually boarded the bus.
And I was absolutely losing my shit, because not only was it the longest game I ever played, but absolutely the highest-scoring I'd ever heard of, and it had all just occurred "in cyberspace" as large as the space on my wristwatch. So basically nobody else cared or thought twice about it, but it was the biggest thing that had happened to me all year. It was life-changing, it was transcendent. I have no idea what else happened on that Zoo expedition except my massive triumphant Casio video game. Congratulations Casio, on ruining every pleasure in life, beginning even before high school!
n1b0m•9mo ago
I remember someone in school had a Casio with the tv remote function. You can imagine the fun we had turning off the tv and driving the poor teachers mad :)
AStonesThrow•9mo ago
It was this sort of "Space Invaders" game explained in the article - the invaders were numbers and the player's job was to quickly match them (with L-R movements from 0-9) and shoot them down.
The game was engrossing and active; it was consistently and relentlessly ramping up difficulty as each level was beaten.
My ridiculous family tried to take me on an outing to the San Diego Zoo. The first thing we did was to get into line for the Bus Tour. The line was very, very long, prompting me to immediately begin a game on my watch to occupy the time.
I wound up playing this game for the entire time we were in line (90+ minutes) and, I seem to recall, I finally lost just before we actually boarded the bus.
And I was absolutely losing my shit, because not only was it the longest game I ever played, but absolutely the highest-scoring I'd ever heard of, and it had all just occurred "in cyberspace" as large as the space on my wristwatch. So basically nobody else cared or thought twice about it, but it was the biggest thing that had happened to me all year. It was life-changing, it was transcendent. I have no idea what else happened on that Zoo expedition except my massive triumphant Casio video game. Congratulations Casio, on ruining every pleasure in life, beginning even before high school!