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The History of the Pinball Construction Set: Launching Millions of Creative Possibilities
- _phred 18y agoThis reminds me of a beloved tool from my youth, Maxis' (of SimCity fame) Klik n' Play. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klik_&_Play http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Klik_&_Play There was something very empowering about being handed a tool for instructing the computer to do what I was most interested in it doing: creating new games. My friends and I created dozens of half-baked ideas, and I even went so far as prototyping a real time strategy game. There's something about the immediate reward for completing a task -- "hey, I made this character move!" -- that kept me coming back, and led eventually to programming games in C, C++, and the continuation of my lifelong infatuation with computer programming. Now that I have children of my own, I seriously consider setting up an emulator so they can learn from the systems that I used, like the C64, DOS, and others -- back when computers were hard, but not insurmountable, and we cut our eyeteeth on the command line. In the modern world of immersive 3D simulations and slick GUIs, I wonder what children are learning about computers, and what will draw aspiring programmers to further explore.
- dasil003 18y agoView source my friend. View source. Seriously, the old stuff will not interest kids today. For us it's just nostalgia. I guarantee you, if I was a kid today A) I would still be a huge computer geek, and B) I would still figure out how it works (maybe not at as low a level).
- joshwa 18y agoThat diagonal pointing hand from Pinball Construction Set is permanently burned into my memory (as is its aggravating inconsistent clicking behavior).
- zandorg 18y agoAlso, the Marble Madness construction set. And most ridiculously, Boulderdash IV had a constructor. Me and a friend made levels so complex, we forgot how to complete them. It was all to do with timing (!).