SWISSDIGITIZATION.CH

One of the first digital gadgets I got was a digital wristwatch. I wanted one for my first communion. In the past, it was customary to get a wristwatch for your first communion, which you then wore for the rest of your life. But as a child I didn't want to understand analog watches for a long time. I was one of the last of my age who could not read the clock. It irritated me that the small hand came to lie often between the numbers. Ex. between 6 and between 7. What is meant now? 6 or 7? I didn't want to understand how "half past six" or what "quarter to seven" or "quarter past eight" would show on the analog clock. (Not that I couldn't have grasped it in terms of intelligence, I probably didn't want to, it was too weird for me and I was just lazy). My father's video recorder, on the other hand, already had a digital display. I understood this time representation immediately and because I could calculate well for my age, it was also clear to me that 14:00 meant two o'clock in the afternoon. One had to subtract only 12 hours. And it was also clear to me that at 18:45 there were still 15 minutes missing to become seven o'clock (19:00) in the afternoon. There everything is logical. So I wanted this concept for my first wristwatch, too. And I was given an Oris digital wristwatch as a gift. It had similar functions to the widely used Casio wristwatches in the 1980s. But one difference was that it was made in Switzerland. 

I enjoyed the watch for a long time. But when the Swatch came along, and I found these funny watches great, I also wanted to wear such watches. And when I wore the first Swatch, I very quickly found the analog time representation no longer difficult. I still wore the Oris from time to time, but it fell apart at some point. Probably when I was 13 or 14 years old. I then stayed mostly with analog wristwatches.

I came into contact with two systems when I was a child. I'm no longer sure which was the first, but they were both when I was in kindergarten (1980/1981).

Nintendo Game & Watch: A colleague in kindergarten had Fire (RC-04). I first played it on a visit when she was home with measles. I later got my own Game & Watch game as a birthday present from my godmother in 1983 and it was Snoopy Tennis (SP-30). I also got another LCD game (not Game & Watch) Frogger, which my mother bought me when I was sick and desperate to play outside with the other kids. I then promised her that I would then stay inside. My neighbor's boy had the double-screen Donkey Kong (DK-42) and my sister had Donkey Kong II (JR-55). You could buy them in toy stores, such as Franz Carl Weber. That's why they were so easy to get for the adults for birthday or as holiday gifts. I played a lot of these Game & Watch in my childhood for instance in the public bath during summer and in school camps. Many kids owned any of these Game & Watch games at that time. The most annoying thing about that time was that you couldn't turn off the beeping. Game & Watch were synonymous with kids and beeping.

Philips Videopac G7000: The second system I came in contact with as a 6 year old was the Philips Videopac G7000. This was also the first device with a microprocessor in our household. My mother bought this console system. To treat us children equally, I was only allowed to play with it when my older sister came home from school, so we both spent the same amount of time with it. My mother played more often with us kids. My father played rather less often, but it happened. And it was rather extraordinary, because he practically never played anything. Our first game was 01 "Race / Spin-Out / Cryptogram". Later we added some new ones. My favorite games were 06 "Tenpin Bowling / Basketball", 22 "Space Monster" (which is a clone of Space Invaders), 16 "Depth Charge / Marksman" (sink ships), 32 "A Labyrinth Game / Supermind", 33 "Jumping Acrobats", 37 "Monkeyshines!" *), 38 "Munchkin" (which is a clone of Pac-Man), 40 "4 in 1 Row". I got the 4 in 1 Row game as a gift from my mother because I especially wanted it. Actually, the cover appealed to me the most. But I played with it very often. Namely, there were already three difficulty levels of the built-in AI available. Playing frequently with the AI, was like training. This led to me winning first prize in the 1st elementary class in an in-class competition on 4 in 1 Row.

*) Monkeyshines! was a very unusual game. The screen had some monkeys and the players' figures and some platforms. The monkeys approached the figures and then attached themselves to the players. It was a matter of flinging them away now, whereupon they got angry for a while (you could tell by the color). And for each monkey flung away, one point was awarded. But if the player came into contact with an angry monkey, the player was killed. You had to avoid them this time until they calmed down. It was a lot of fun, especially when played with two players. We knew a trick (probably a glitch) to get as many points as possible. Someone had to collect all four monkeys on his body and then hurl them close to the wall. You got a lot of points this way, but the player never survived this action.

My mother worked a few hours a week for the church and had to maintain a membership file there. She also looked after the membership file of her gymnastics club there (SVKT Women's Sports Association) on that computer. I guess it was a Commodore of the VIC-1001 series, but it was already equipped with a floppy drive. I saw the computer once, but was not allowed to do anything with it. I still remember her story that it took her half an hour to copy a floppy disk. And for that she had to change the floppy disks umpteen times. 

The two years older neighbor boy got a Commodore C64 and so his computer was my first active contact with a home computer. At first, the neighbor boy just had data cassettes that were the same format as music cassettes. Later, either at Christmas or his birthday, he was given a 5 1/4 inch floppy. I was often at his house and played some games there or watched him playing. We played World Games on his computer a few times, which had the advantage of including multiplayer. I may also remember that he had an Asterix game (Asterix and the magic cauldron), which fascinated me a lot. You had to fight Romans and hunt wild boars in the game.

I also got my first taste of the Lucasfilm adventure game Maniac Mansion there. However, I could never play it with him. But he showed it to me. I still remember the scene when the mummy appears in the bathroom behind the shower curtain and the existence of a green and a purple tentacle in the game. One of them is supposed to be friendly, but I found them both creepy and peculiar. At first, I didn't even understand what a tentacle actually was. (The concept of an adventure game fascinated me a lot, but I had to be patient until I had an Atari Mega ST 1 before I could play an adventure game myself.)

Because of my experience with his computer, it was clear that I also wanted a computer.

Anfang der 90er kaufte ich einen second Hand SNES und später auch noch ein Mega Drive. Spiele kaufte ich neu im Inter Discount für meist über Fr. 100 - unglaublich viel Geld damals und wesentlich mehr, als Spiele heute kosten. Die Spiele verkaufte ich später wieder über Kleininserate.

Mein erster Mac kostete um Fr. 5'000 Mitte der 90er, wesentlich mehr als ein Monatslohn.

Ein Schulkollege am Gymnasium betrieb Anfang der 90er in der Freizeit einen Versandhandel für Mofa-Tuning. Damit machte er so viel Geld, dass er sich ein Handy leisten konnte. Es dauerte Jahre, bis eine weitere Person aus meinem Umfeld eines hatte. Dazwischen gab es eine kurze Periode, in welcher einige Pager bei sich hatten. Meist war der Hintergrund irgend ein Piket-Dienst, wie z.B. bei meiner kurzen Studie-Stelle bei Diax. Ziemlich umständliche Technologie: Pager piepst und man sucht eine Telefonkabine, wenn man unterwegs ist.

When I was young we used to go to Naxos every summer break.

There was a restaurant at the harbour where we would eat often.

in the backyard they had an arcade with many of the classics. I loved arkanoid and frogger.

After dinner I got some Drachme coins and went to chase another score.

the player placed their coins on the lower edge of the screen to show ho's next in line.

when I could enter a new highscore it was an overwhelming feeling. It gave me so much joy to enter "DEE" Zoday I have no clue why I chose thise letters, but they remained the same.

Not quite a toy, but we used the TI-57 in class. Mine is from 1978 and still runs. The booklet on programming is from 1978 too. And the Blitzrechnen booklet with programming examples from 1974.