Grandsons and Commodore Gaming By Dick Estel One day in 1988 my three-year old grandson and I headed for Sears, lured by an ad for a Commodore computer. We returned home with a C64 and a Blue Chip drive (the latter did not work right and they gave me a 1541 in exchange at the same price). While my interests were in word processing and data organization, Johnny became a proficient game player, racking up high scores in Frogger, Pac-Man and Rock Crash. In the 1990s it came time for me to move on to a Windows based PC, and Johnny’s game interests turned toward Doom and NHL Hockey. I still kept my Commodore set up, but used it mainly to research questions from Commodore users. Meanwhile, Johnny’s little brother Mikie came along in 1997, and in due time developed an interest in games on the PC. About three years ago, I put away all my Commodore equipment except a 128 keyboard and 1084 monitor. I plugged a Pac-Man cartridge into the 128, essentially creating an arcade game machine. Then one day when Mikie was visiting, I fired the C128 up and introduced him to Pac-Man. Today, although he enjoys a number of games on the PC, he also usually plays Pac-Man a while when he visits. I recently set up a complete Commodore system again, and he added Frogger and Rock Crash to his repertoire (although we need to have Johnny come over and show us how to get past the very difficult level one in this program). Mikie’s Commodore experience was broadened one day when he went with me to a meeting of the Fresno Commodore User Group at the Pizza Pit. After using up all his quarters playing some of the arcade games there, he wandered over to the meeting area, and was introduced to the DTV, the joystick that contains the hardware and software to play a number of classic Commodore games on any compatible monitor. He especially enjoyed Jump Man and Dig Dug. A DTV may be under his Christmas tree this year. As for Johnny, at age 21 he’s packing around a state-of-the-art laptop. With 20 units at Cal State Fresno, his computer time is pretty much limited to homework. (January 2006)