Modern game systems load games almost instantaneously, it seems. In general, most mobile games are at your fingertips with minimal loading time, while larger PC and console games may take 30 seconds to load their data into memory. Our expectations, as modern gamers, are that we shouldn’t have to wait more than a minute to get into our favorite title. Anything longer, and we put on our computer engineer’s hat and start trying to figure out what’s gone wrong. Consoles are arguably worse because there is an assumption that the game will “just work”, or at least that it will after a hefty day-one update download. If the game isn’t there when we press the “X” button, then it’s time to start looking at upgrading to the next generation of PlayStation.
C64 Tape Loading Screen
At the risk of sounding like an old man sitting on the front porch, back in my day, we were happy if the game loaded in 5-10 minutes, if at all. While console gamers of the time were getting instant gratification on their Atari and Nintendo consoles, those of us on 8-bit micros were dealing with loading games from diskette, or worse, cassette tape. Diskettes were faster than cassettes, but if you weren’t using a fast-loader cartridge, you were still likely waiting upwards of 2-3 minutes to start a commercial game. Cassettes, especially early releases that didn’t use modern loading routines, could take twice as long to load a game into memory. The cassette version of Ghosts ‘n Goblins is famous (or infamous) for taking nearly 10 minutes to load the entire game from tape. I’m sure modern gamers can’t imagine waiting that long to play their favorite game. Those of us who grew up in the cassette game era were forced to find ways to pass the time.
What if you want to load Ghosts ‘n Goblins from a cassette today? What can you do to pass the time and distract you from wanting to chuck the whole system out the window?
- Boil two eggs to a soft-medium consistency
- Vacuum the stairs (and realize you missed half of them)
- Let Windows install “just a small update”
- Sort your loose change into “spend,” “save,” and “why do I still have Canadian quarters?” piles
Commodore Datassette
- Let a Roomba patrol your living room with the confidence of a small tank
- Draw a duck from memory, and try to remember whether or not ducks have necks
- Turn a random desk item into a tiny still-life photoshoot
- Come up with a unique name for your wifi router that isn’t “FBI Surveillance Van”
- Water your plants, apologizing to the ones you forgot for two weeks
- Clean one mechanical keyboard switch until you regret every life choice
- Google “why does my cat lick me so much”
- Wait for your coffee to cool to “not-lava” temperature
- Write a PowerShell one-liner and then break it into eight lines for clarity
- Turn a USB-A plug over and over, trying to find the right way to insert it
- Organize the pens on your desk into “writes well,” “meh,” and “should’ve been thrown out in 2012”
- Spend the time choosing a video to watch on YouTube instead
- Rearrange your snack cupboard by “vibe” instead of food category
- Write a four-line poem about your stapler
- Naming the dust bunnies under your couch after characters from The Legend of Zelda
- Rearrange your Funko Pops into a dramatic battle scene
- Identify the “personality” of each notification chime your phone makes
And the best thing you can do while waiting for Ghosts ‘n Goblins to load from cassette tape on your Commodore 64? Search eBay to see if the game was ever released on a cartridge (it wasn’t). Just think about that the next time you have to wait an extra 30 seconds for Call of Duty to load.
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