We’re back with our “Let’s Talk About…” series! Check out the previous chats here.
Let’s Talk About… games for the Macintosh computer
Yeah, I had to do a double-take with that one. Like, Macintosh Macintosh?
Did this thing even have games? The only thing I remember playing on this computer (I think this was the one we had) was this weird game where you could put in your height and weight and then the computer would spit out what you’d weigh and how tall you would be on the different planets in the solar system.
Thrillsville, I know.
Later, in school, we had games like Lemonade Stand and, of course, Oregon Trail, teaching a generation of children to mispronounce the word “Oregon” as “ORA-gone.”
Or then there was this beautiful thing. Another addition to the computer family at my house, compliments of my dad:
And then we’re off to the races. Carmen Sandiago, Bill Nye the Science Guy, Sim City… this thing had the games on it haha. Of course, you can tell from the titles that I was as much of a nerd then as I am now. But little nerdlette me loved the colorful stories that sprang to life on the screen (as well as Claris Works, the word processor, and Encore, which was a music music scoring software. Yup. Nerd.).
It was the last Macintosh we had before we switched over to IBM (which also turned into a fun means of entertainment for me), but… good times, man. Good times.
What’s your favorite Macintosh gaming memory (if you have one)? Does anyone here game on an Apple computer? Let me know in the comments!
Thanks for stopping by, and I’ll see you soon!
~ Athena
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My dad was all about PCs and had all the cool games while my mom always bought Apples. Maybe that’s why they really broke up!
She had an Apple IIc. No hard drive and everything was colored green. I remember Ikari Warriors 2 Victory Road was the only non-educational game I ever had on there, and it was pretty awful. Even half the educational games were barely functional since most of them assumed you had a color monitor by now.
Later she got a Mac and I had a single game on that too, Marathon. That was about the only decent Mac game you could get back then that wasn’t on PC already.
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Oh and I did have Lemonade Stand too. DOO DOO DOO, DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOO DOOOOO!
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YES!
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Mac vs. PC, huh? Always causing problems, I suppose…
The Mac e had actually did have a surprising amount of games on it, but once we switched over to PCs it did seem like there were some more options!
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My favourite Mac gaming memory was going to buy a MacBook when I had just started the job I still do to this day. I asked about 3rd party mouse support and was asked why I’d want one when it had the trackpad. I said I might want to play games on it, which was quickly met with snorts of derision. Obviously I have a PC now.
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Nice. We’ve had PCs for years and years now, and when I bought a computer for school it was a PC. Macs are nice for the music and art end of things, but… *shrugs* Sounds like you’re not missing too much with a PC! Sorry to hear the clerks were so boggled by 3rd party mouse support! That’s one of the things I’ve never had luck left; Macs and iDevices just never seem to play well with others…..
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It was more the response of “You mean you’re not using your MacBook for video editing whilst you sit in Starbucks?!” that annoyed me. Hey ho, PCs are more versatile anyway!
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Ugh.
Yes, they really are…
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I used to really like the Carmen Sandiego games. For the most part, I’ve only ever owned PCs. I did briefly own a mac that looked remarkably like the one in the pic though, right down to the green.
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It was a great game, right?
Yeah, I’m definitely a PC at this point, although I do sometimes have to use Macs for work (or especially when I was in school). They’re certainly different animals!
I miss the brightly-colored computers a bit, though 🙂
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Edutainment at its best!
The macs always seemed to age better PCs I’m my experience. They certainly seemed to run fine for longer anyway.
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They do last a bit longer, it seems. Although if that’s because they’re better, or because they aren’t as versatile as a PC (in my experience), I’m not sure. But they’re definitely solid machines, either way.
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No one I knew as a child had a Mac computer, there wasn’t one at home either. The very first Apple product I own is my Ipad Air that I bought three years ago, other than that it was only what you could try at friends’ house or school when I got older.
That is not to say the machine didn’t interest me, but because I come from a small town, the only type of news that existed about this was in the newspaper or television. Growing up, the games I could play that was on a similar machine was on the PC, albeit an old machine but damn some good memories that came from it 🙂
Stay Cozy and thanks for the enjoyable article!
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I think a lot of people had their first exposure to computers (Macs or otherwise) at school. Mac or PC, the important thing in my mind was what games they could play! haha Did you have a favorite!
Thanks for stopping by!
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My favorite PC game of all time was and still is Outlaws by LucasArts. Such a fantastic game with the setting, story, characters and feeling that came from the Wild West era. If possible, then I could talk about this game for days but it really is something to be experienced.
While it might not hold up in todays standard of how a game should be, it’s a gem not many have played.
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Oo I don’t think I’ve played that one either, I’m afraid. But LucasArts had some reall solid games so I’m sure it was great – especially as a Wild West type of game! I’ll have to see if I can find a let’s play of it at the very least…
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If my Lemonade stand monopoly ever happens, I know who to hire! 🙂 I can’t believe how far technology has come in such a short timeframe.
I’ve been mostly a Windows woman. There’s a Mac at work I have to use sometimes… my coworkers get free entertainment when they watch me get frustrated with the OS, haha. I also remember playing Carmen Sandiago on the Macs they had in my middle school, way back in the day.
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Fantastic! Depending on how intensive the business is, I’ll let you know what my pencil-per-hour rate is.
Right? Those games were great, though. And for some reason I think they’d hold up now (I think of the Tycoon games floating around now).
We did eventually switch over to IBM, mostly because that’s what they put in the school my mother taught at, so we had one at home so she could do her work on it. That Mac hung around, though, and eventually just became a sort of “game” machine. Lucky me! haha
Carmen Sandiago was amazing. I was so bad at it, but it was so much fun!
I hear you. I had to use a Mac at my old job and in grad school and…. UGH is all I can say to that. That’s when I learned that threatening to unplug/run over with my car is an effective means of getting the programs to work.
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I’ve always had a theory that threatening technology does indeed make it work better! I should publish my findings in a paper or something… 🤔
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Yeah! Carmen Sandiego took up a lot of my free study school hours.
My high school offered programming classes, which I took thinking at the time I wanted to grow up to make video games. Of course, we were so underfunded that until we got to the advanced level class we had to program on old 1980’s-era macs. I’ve got a lot of fond memories making really bad games for the old macintosh in archaic programming languages. None of them shall ever see the light of day, being condemned to living their lives on a hard diskette somewhere in my parent’s house. Good times.
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Such a great game!!
That’s cool that you had programming classes, even if your masterpieces are sitting on diskettes somewhere… That’s one thing I miss, I’m not going to lie – I have all sorts of things saved on disks and until I actually sit myself down and find a drive, all that info is locked away, assuming today’s programs can even handle some of the old file types.
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Never owned an Apple, but my elementary school computer lab was full of them. I would play Oregon Trail all of the time, and everyone would die of scurvy. Good times.
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Still love Oregon Trail…
Scurvy? That’s delightfully unfamiliar. My poor companions died of dysentery like it was their job…
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Heck I’d play some Carmen San Diego right about now! All hail Brøderbund. I think they’ve either revived or rereleased Oregon Trail for new generations to die of dysentery 😋
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