Regrettably your story has some similarities to some experiences I had as a kid. I didn’t own a computer at the time and a kid in my street had a fully loaded Commodore 64 with disk drive and countless games. Ironically, it took a number of invites from this kid to come in and try his computer before I accepted and went in. But once I played Donkey Kong, I was hooked.
I would show up most days and hope to get some computer time. I was smart enough to not always dive straight into asking to play it. I’d usually ask to go for a bike ride first or play with action figures or whatnot. But after a bit, I’d inevitably ask to play the Commodore.
Unfortunately after a few months of this, the game was up. My friend passed on his mother’s message that I couldn’t come over any more and the good times playing with that amazing collection of games was regulated to memory.
I can remember being a bit older and thinking about this again and really feeling the shame that only comes with age. Still, I can't bring myself to say I regret what I did. Maybe I should have just dialed it down a bit.
Yes dialling it down was the answer. Case in point, I made a new friend at school a year later when I overheard him telling another kid that he just got Double Dragon for the Commodore. I somehow managed to get an invite to his house to play it. But this time I was a little older and wiser. I made sure that not only would I not obsess over the computer but that I would also have catch-ups where we didn’t play it at all. And you want to know how happy that story ended up? We’re best mates to this day (he was the best man at my wedding) and a year ago he gifted me that very same Commodore 64 that was in his parents attic all these years! That computer is double the nostalgia for me - it’s a working C64 (well now that I fixed it), but it’s also THE C64 I remember.
Regrettably your story has some similarities to some experiences I had as a kid. I didn’t own a computer at the time and a kid in my street had a fully loaded Commodore 64 with disk drive and countless games. Ironically, it took a number of invites from this kid to come in and try his computer before I accepted and went in. But once I played Donkey Kong, I was hooked.
I would show up most days and hope to get some computer time. I was smart enough to not always dive straight into asking to play it. I’d usually ask to go for a bike ride first or play with action figures or whatnot. But after a bit, I’d inevitably ask to play the Commodore.
Unfortunately after a few months of this, the game was up. My friend passed on his mother’s message that I couldn’t come over any more and the good times playing with that amazing collection of games was regulated to memory.
I can remember being a bit older and thinking about this again and really feeling the shame that only comes with age. Still, I can't bring myself to say I regret what I did. Maybe I should have just dialed it down a bit.
Yes dialling it down was the answer. Case in point, I made a new friend at school a year later when I overheard him telling another kid that he just got Double Dragon for the Commodore. I somehow managed to get an invite to his house to play it. But this time I was a little older and wiser. I made sure that not only would I not obsess over the computer but that I would also have catch-ups where we didn’t play it at all. And you want to know how happy that story ended up? We’re best mates to this day (he was the best man at my wedding) and a year ago he gifted me that very same Commodore 64 that was in his parents attic all these years! That computer is double the nostalgia for me - it’s a working C64 (well now that I fixed it), but it’s also THE C64 I remember.
How perfect, I LOVE this story!