It was December, 1982... Christmas morning.
I remember waking up as I usually would, earlier than everyone else.
I had made it a habit to somehow wake up some time between 4 or 5, long after Santa came down the chimney and long before my parents and sisters woke up.
Oh, who am I kidding, back then, Christmas Eve to Christmas morning was an eternity.
Why?
Because like every other kid I was so excited for the next day that I didn't sleep a wink.
Instead I started by watching the second hand on the clock and evolved to watching the digits flip on the manual but digital clock radio. Second by second, minute by grueling minute, I watched time tick by.
And then, during that magic hour, I quietly got up and left my room.
t usually started with the corner of the wrapping paper. I'd tear off just a little bit to see if I could figure out what was inside. If that didn't work, I'd carefully open the wrapping paper on the side of the box where everything came together. I learned early on that I could usually repair things to the point my snooping was undetectable.
We didn't have a lot of money.
Some years were simply clothes
A new pair of Toughskins jeans to replace the Toughskins I had received a few months earlier at the beginning of the school year. Ironically, those Toughskins jeans weren't very tough.
Other years, my very own transistor radio, a football, a clock radio, Electronic Football!, a Merlin handheld video game, a bike, and a ColecoVision.
Let me back up for a quick second.
For years I was fascinated with things that ran on batteries or that were plugged into the wall. I loved electronics. I remember being addicted to Pong. I played against my dad, my sisters and, when nobody was around, myself. I'd sit there for hours turning the dial and moving the blocker up and down the screen as the ball went back and forth.
Next was the handheld electronic football game that I had. I have vivid memories of playing that game at home, in the car, just about everywhere. And I played it until the buttons wore out.
My best friend Steve across the street had a Magnavox Odyssey 3000. I think it was the first "big boy" video game system that I had played with. I still remember playing tennis and Smash on it.
Then our Aunt and Uncle were the first I knew with an Atari 2600. They also had a pinball machine, but when they got that Atari system the pinball machine became lonely. Then a few other friends and neighbors also got the Atari 2600. I don't know how many sets of joysticks we wore out.
And then Mike down the street got an Intellivision. It was revolutionary and really created an advancement looping progression in the industry.
Lorenzo and Mirta had an Apple II.
We started with Pong and ended up with a ColecoVision.
Every kid was having fun figuring these things out while saving every penny to buy another game. And parents were getting some much needed relief from our constant needs, wants and desires, other than our wanting to head over to Toy's 'R' Us to see what new games were available.
So let's get back... Because then, it finally happened. For me it was the coup de grace!!!
I peeled the corner of the box that morning. My eyes were tired. I couldn't see what it was.
I then unwrapped the box end...
And then with excitement I immediately tore the rest of the wrapping paper off.
I opened the box. I pulled out the contents.
I unplugged the Coleco Vision connector and I plugged in my first "real computer"...
My very own Commodore 64.
By the time my parents woke up, I had it plugged in and turned on. Not only that, but I had flipped through the manual where there was a program. This may be the first and last time I RTFM.
The 5 or 6 line program caused the screen to flash in different colors.
I'm lucky that nobody in my family was epileptic because everyone bore witness to the flashing screen as I sat there with a level of pride that I can only compare to The Old Man Parker in the film, A Christmas Story, as he stood proudly in his front yard admired his Fragile Italian lamp through the window.
The Commodore 64 was powerful. It was capable of 200 kIPS. That's geek speek for 200,000 instructions per second. (By comparison, I believe a 2016 Mac Book Pro was capable of 20 Billion instructions per second, but don't quote me on that. The Commodore 64 could also display 16 colors!
All this got me excited. 😉
So unlike other previous years when I had quietly sneaked back into my room as quietly, that didn't happen this year.
I didn't go back to bed. And then, the inevitable happened.
My parents... They were now awake. And they walked into the family room to see that I had already opened my gift... I remember the look on my dad's face as well as I remember everything else from that morning.
I had some choices to make...
To be continued...
