MEMOIRS OF A SCREENAGER

This is a journey into the past. Are you sitting comfortably? (If you are, it can’t be any bloody good for your back)
It all started when I was 5, and for Christmas, my parents decided that they would buy me a computer.
" Yeah, " I said, " a ‘mpootah"
Nevertheless, December 24th came and I was packed off to bed at My grannies house at about five to six (We were at my grannies house because my aunty was due to get married in the spring, {funny, I thought it was in a church} so this was to be her last Christmas at home.)

I swear I heard the GLINGLINGLINGLE of sleighbells that night, but it may just have been the parakeet with its mirror. I awoke at the traditional ungodly hour required for a small child at Christmas. I think it was about 6am.
When I was sure I was awake, I jumped up out of bed, and raced into the next room, where my parents were sleeping.
" Mammy, Daddy, " I yelled, " Can I get up yet? "
(yes, I know I was already up, but I was only 5 years old, remember?)
Then, without waiting for a reply, I ran into the other Bedrooms, waking everyone else up. Once I had everyone else awake, we proceded en masse into the living room, where, lo and behold, Santa had left a huge array of presents.
taking pride of place in the centre of the room, was a large box-like object, covered in gaudy wrapping paper. I made a bee-line for this, as every child knows that the bigger the box, the better the present.

In a flurry of action, there it was, sitting proud amongst Transformers, a Sinclair Spectrum 48k, and in the box next to it, a tape recorder, so I could actually use it.
After about an hour of heated discussion and blatant ignoring of the instruction manual, my Dad and Grandad had the beautiful little black box, with those kinky rubber keys, all set up and ready to go. I can't remeber the exact software {soft ? It was limp!}
that came with it, but I think that it was:

Survival, a turn based game where you have to try not to Die.
Scrabble, a turn based word game, " Just like the board game, but with one exception - you now have a top level oponent, your SINCLAIR SPECTRUM computer. "
Horace goes Skiing, a graphical game where you had to ski down a mountain.
Formula One, a car racing game.
Horizons, a set of Educational " games. "

All was wonderful until about teatime on Boxing Day, when it suddenly dawned upon virtually everyone present, that the games supplied, with the exception of Thru The Wall (a breakout clone), were terminally crap.
There were no graphics to speak of, the sound went " Bingeley Bongeley Beep " A la Pratchett's Disorganiser and there was no gameplay. This revelation caused a trip to LIVE~WIRE (complete with the twiddles), where I spent all of my money from the less imaginative relatives on games. Back in the dark mists of time, there were no screenshots on packages, or if there was, then they were " representive of screenplay ", and probably not even from the right machine.
My purchases included Dizzy {a true Classic}, Penetrator {a side on shoot-em-up}, and ATV simulator {a side-on quad bike simulator}, and New Cylon Attack (In Isometric Perspective [3-D]), {an attempt at a 3-D wireframe shoot-em-up}.
These games were above the standard of the free games, with Dizzy and Penetrator being my favourites for several years.

With the help of a series of computer publications called Input {which catered for the Vic20, BBC micro, Spectrum and Dragon Machines. Where Are they now?}I began to attempt to program the wretched little machine to do all sorts of pointless tasks, such as pretend it was a piano, and play the Eastenders theme tune.

After Several Years in the wilderness, I returned to the fold, with the purchase of a second hand Commodore Amiga 600.
To this day, the Amiga gets used for games, especially Sensible World Of Soccer 96/97, which in my opinion is THE greatest football game created {except of course the real Thing.} I attempted some programming and music writing using My amiga, but without much success.
Whilst at college, doing my A-levels, I had the opportunity to buy a PC, so I did. I now program in Pascal, Delphi (Object Oriented Pascal) and C++(YUK)
I have several Games for my PC, though they are not exceedingly good, as it is a bit slow and old fashioned. {It still has a handle on the side to wind it up, just next to the 5 1/4" Floppy drive < ;-) } and I plan to buy a new fangled, whizbang Nintendo 64, and play all the wonderful games available for it.

Have I been influenced by Computers?

Have Computers Influenced my generation as a whole?