Like Fine Wine

I know that nostalgia's in no short supply on THE INTERNET, but antiquated technology is strangely beautiful when viewed en masse, ain't it?

My father used to have a Texas Instruments TI-99, which came equipped with a hulking ROM cartridge bay just right of the keyboard—a gaping maw that simply demanded data of the hardest sort. It was a beautiful machine, and the first computer I ever laid hands on.

It's no wonder, though, that so many kids my age flocked to the Atari, Sega Master System and NES when those consoles were released in their age. PC gaming definitely existed back then, even on our behemoth TI-99—but the usability curve was such that to gaze upon it was to realize your limitations as a barely-educated 7-year-old boy. It took me at least ten minutes to realize that BASIC wasn't a video game.

Holy shit—some swift Googling has shed some light on our wee TI-99 library. Alpiner! With its angry birds and fuck-off skunks, Alpiner taught me to fear nature, which probably explains why I work in IT.

Part of me always feels a bit jealous when I hear colleagues talking about how badass it was growing up on Odyssey and Commodore 64 and the MSX. But in retrospect, maybe I had the upper hand—after all, I had Bill goddamn Cosby on my side.