- 10 Dec, 2025 *
Inspired by a previous Bearblog carnival where I wrote about my early web memories, I wanted to do something similar about my early memories of home computing. Please note that "home computing" should be read in a tone that suggests something exotic and a little transgressive. Like a 1970s newsreader would say it.
This is all pre-early-1995, which I can accurately date because we moved house then, so these are Old House memories. Back when you had to load Windows via DOS. Hilarious.
Because my dad was interested in family history and both he and my mum were teachers, and nerds, there were computers in the house from the late 70s, which was before I was in the house. I’ve got one of the Sinclair Spectrums i…
- 10 Dec, 2025 *
Inspired by a previous Bearblog carnival where I wrote about my early web memories, I wanted to do something similar about my early memories of home computing. Please note that "home computing" should be read in a tone that suggests something exotic and a little transgressive. Like a 1970s newsreader would say it.
This is all pre-early-1995, which I can accurately date because we moved house then, so these are Old House memories. Back when you had to load Windows via DOS. Hilarious.
Because my dad was interested in family history and both he and my mum were teachers, and nerds, there were computers in the house from the late 70s, which was before I was in the house. I’ve got one of the Sinclair Spectrums in my spare room and a bunch of huge old floppies, manuals, and stuff.
Now, I’m not #notallboomers but we do need to stop assuming "older people" can’t do tech. Who invented and championed and adopted and used this technology if not people who are now older? The condescension my mother receives is staggering. But at the same time we need to do more to support people of all ages who are excluded in so many different ways.
All the computers had a weird side effect that we skipped earlier generations of consoles, because we had computers. Some notable games of my youth...
I’m not exaggerating, SimCity (1989-91) came on seventeen floppy disks that had to be laboriously loaded one by one to install. There was an anti-piracy thing where you had to input a code from a booklet printed in blue ink on purple paper. Anti-photocopying, I assume. It was a fun time, I made liberal use of the cheat codes, and lived out my eight-year-old socialist dreams.
I don’t think I was supposed to play Oregon Trail on account of all the dying. I did.
A moon lander game called Lander. Various Lunar Lander games are detailed here, this is the 1990 one.
There was a golf game also. It’s not that I liked or cared about golf, but it was a game.
Commander Keen (1990-1) was a pretty standard side-scroller that I can’t imagine I was very good at. But there was a pogo stick! That was fun.
Also, Secret Agent. The art is very cool and you had to push stuff around. I’m not a fan of puzzle stuff now - maybe it was Secret Agent’s fault.
Other than games I owe a debt to the following formative influences...
One cannot underestimate the power of Paint where we used to make tiny pixel-by-pixel maps.
Encarta came out in 1993, a digital encyclopedia. How futuristic. Encarta ate the print encyclopedias, then Wikipedia ate Encarta. But it was fun and it really tried to make the most of its interactivity with pictures and videos and the game MindMaze where you answered trivia questions to move through rooms.
Now onto half of the whole point for this post... Creative Writer.
The Creative Suite of Creative Writer (plus Fine Artist) with the blue avatar Angus McZee came out in 1993. It was a word processor for kids, basically. I loved it. It left an imprint on me that it feels like I’ve been chasing ever since in terms not only of what software can do but how it can feel. How it made everything possible rather than being frustrating and enshittified like it is now.
It had a random prompt generator, you could add sounds, and secret codes. It taught me how to lay out a page before school did.
Banners, posters, cards, printing in different sizes on different amounts of paper... Try getting a word processor and printer to do that now, and keeping all your hair. We used to make and print posters campaigning to be allowed a pet and put them up around the house. Like Wanted posters for a hamster or guinea pig, because we wanted a hamster or a guinea pig.
Also, look at this menu. Look how fun this is. Look at something not trying to be the blandest, flattest version of itself. To access the different functions you got in a lift to go to their floor.
Try getting any software to do this now without weeping.
- Highly recommend the National Museum of Computing at Bletchley Park
- Screenshot from WinWorld. There’s also a lovely write-up at How To Geek