In 1980, the Apple II series of computers was the most popular microcomputer of its day. One company that sought to take advantage of this was a company named Broderbund. Broderbund was founded in 1980 and they were involved in many aspects of software created for the Apple. Broderbund created games such as Choplifter, Apple Panic, and Lode Runner. They created utilities such as Print Shop to be used with the first dot-matrix printers in creating banners and signs. They also created educational software such as Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing, the Living Books series, and the Reader Rabbit titles. Another one of these games was Where in the
World is Carmen Sandiego?
In 1983, Sierra was doing a booming business with its graphical adventure games such as Mystery House and The Wizard and the Princess. These games were inspired by earlier text adventure games such as The Colossal Cave Adventure and Zork. Dane Bigham had played these earlier text adventures and…
Read the rest of this article on page 16 by clicking here!
Be sure to sign up to get Old School Gamer Magazine for free by clicking here!
Since he played on the first Magnanvox Odyssey in 1973, Kevin was bitten by the video game bug. It didn't matter what the games looked like, they were just fun. When Space Invaders was released in the United States in the late 1970's, he spent a ton of quarters in his local Aladdins Castle trying (unsuccessfully) to master the game. He continued to play on various console and arcade games (even learning to program the Apple II+) until he joined the navy in 1983. Joined the navy in 1983 and became a Hospital Corpsman in 1984. While in the navy, Kevin was able continue his hobby of programming PC's and playing videogames. In the early to mid 1990's, Kevin learned to program the Atari ST and worked for Majicsoft for a couple of years. Before retiring from the navy in 2004, Kevin started to write FAQ's for GameFAQ's. His forte was arcade FAQ's since that was his real passion still. His FAQ's have appeared in many places that seek to preserve the arcade game history. This is especially true for the MAME project where his guides are a part of the documentation. After retiring from the navy, Kevin has been more involved in computer repair, networking, and computer security but he still is involved in the arcade history arena. He currently lives in Neosho MO with his wife and one son who is also a video game hobbyist.
