[ Retro Scan of the Week ] Datalife Holiday Pack
December 27th, 2010 by Benj Edwards
It’s the Datalife Holiday Pack!
It’s Christmas morning, 1983. You eagerly run downstairs to the fireplace and notice a stocking stuffed to the brim with goodies. You dump it out and find ten boxes of Datalife 5.25″ floppy diskettes.
Choose your own Adventure:
a) You are happy because disks are expensive for a kid and you use a personal computer.
b) You’d rather have candy.
Discussion Topic of the Week: What did you get for Christmas this year? Any gadgets, games, or computer stuff?
December 27th, 2010 at 3:20 pm
I’ve got only geeky calendar from my bro, who studies on engineering university. 🙂 AFAIR I have never got any computer/geeky/gadget stuff for Christmas.
December 27th, 2010 at 4:51 pm
I got a $25 gift card to a big box retailer. Browsing the aisles a few hours ago, I saw nothing I really wanted. So I just settled on putting the gift card toward a large-capacity, external hard drive. I can’t have enough storage capacity.
So, basically, I got the modern equivalent of the subject of today’s retro-scan. 🙂
December 27th, 2010 at 5:45 pm
I didn’t get very much… cash, luggage, and candies. At least now I can make my move, and not use duffel bags.
Of course, this still begs to ask how the heck I move my kitchen cutlery and collection of sharp, pointy things.
December 27th, 2010 at 7:15 pm
Corks, SirPaul. Lots and lots of corks.
December 27th, 2010 at 11:34 pm
My mother bought me a copy of “Operation: Inner Space.” Yes, its extremely old and doesn’t work well on modern computers, but I really loved the game as a child (I couldn’t afford the full version, so I only had the shareware version). Definitely my favorite present this year (though the Thinking Putty is a close second).
http://www.sdispace.com/inspace.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation:_Inner_Space
December 28th, 2010 at 1:56 am
That could work, but I’m not sure if some of the items (namely the axe and the spiked club) are legal to be shipped.
December 28th, 2010 at 2:23 am
The lone geeky gift I got was a set of funny stickers featuring the anonymous caution-symbol guy, called “Stickman In Officeland” — ah, I just found them here:
http://planetstickman.com/11780.html
Also, though it’s from Bookmooch rather than a gift: Sheri Graner Ray’s “Gender Inclusive Game Design” (SGR worked on several of the Ultima games, among other things). It’s a lot more interesting than it sounds!
December 28th, 2010 at 2:33 am
SirPaul, I once relocated a large number of breakables around my house using thick foam (not bubble) wrap, many layers of newspaper, packing tape to hold said padding in place, and boxes… If the cost of boxes is an issue, many merchants will let you take what you need from behind their store (and if you plan on shipping things, USPS will deliver their free boxes without charge).
December 28th, 2010 at 4:19 am
Thanks for the advice, guys. 🙂 And sorry I kinda derailed the thread… I’m pretty set, money-wise, and I was going to ship my necessities (computer, movie/music/game collection, Discworld series) using large boxes, and shipping the other stuff incrementally. I still have the box to my desktop, so that’s not an issue. My monitor’s going to be a whole other can of worms.
December 28th, 2010 at 9:02 am
idisjunction,
Operation: Inner Space is actually one of my favorite PC games of all time. I’ve been meaning to put together a post on it since the beginning of VC&G. I actually registered it the first time a few years ago, even though I’ve been playing it since it came out. Glad to see someone else likes it!
December 28th, 2010 at 1:45 pm
I actually bought a box of floppy disks at a thrift store several months ago. 5.25. It was still in the shrinkwrap. Wonder if they would still work on my TI-99/4A.
December 29th, 2010 at 11:42 am
I’d definitely pick A. Could never have enough blank floppies for my C64!
January 10th, 2011 at 12:20 pm
I got a Dell D600, a Logitech Momo, a Dell monitor, and $100 towards an upgrade to my main computer!
February 8th, 2011 at 2:24 am
I didn’t get anything for Xmas last year (2010), which was really disappointing 🙁 But my girlfriend is poor, and we’d only recently met, so there’s not much I could complain about it.
I’m really hoping she hits it up a notch this year though (2011)!