Brett's Blog Easy and Fast? Innovative! Jul 02, 2009 | 8:38 pm I recently acquired a copy of Enforcers from ebay. It's an old school supers RPG from 1987. It's billed as being "the easiest, fastest, most flexible super-powered role-playing game," but it doesn't seem that way to me. It's got power factors, huge numbers for experience levels, and lots of multiplication and division. It's not my cup of tea. In fact, I don't particularly like it. One element really stands out though. It includes a program that you can enter into Lotus 1-2-3 to manage characters and print character sheets. For all the youngsters reading this, Lotus 1-2-3 is an old spreadsheet program, very popular in its day. This was truly innovative, as I have not seen any other RPG that has offered such a useful thing. Nowadays, similar utilities are either online or downloadable as excel spreadsheets or full applications. This was 1987, however, and it shows. Like all the old computer magazines that used to include program code that had to be hand-entered, this Lotus code was simply provided on 5 pages in the book. Apparently, it worked with any program that was Lotus-compatible -- the provided code was actually written and used on an Atari 1040ST using VIP Professional. I always wanted one of those Atari models, but I stuck with the Atari 600XL and 800XL. I eventually migrated to a Macintosh SE which was mandatory for Drexel University. That's how long I've been using Macintosh computers. I'm not sure how I got on this topic, but my first computer was actually a Timex Sinclair 1000. How many of you have ever heard of that one? 4 Comments | Add Comment | Permanent Link | Return to Overview djlittle Commented: Jul 02, 2009 | 9:18 pm I've heard of it! How about the old TRS 80, or VIC 20, C64, cassette tape drives, etc.. :lol: An old fact: The Apollo 11 mission landed on the moon using a combined computing power of a C64. Back in the days when computers filled buildings and cost millions... :? Brett Commented: Jul 02, 2009 | 9:19 pm I never owned them, but I have used the TSR80, Commodore 64, and Amiga. I had a tape drive for the Atari 600 and 800. I used a regular tape recorder for the Timex Sinclair. bustapc Commented: Jul 03, 2009 | 12:31 am The Atari 800XL was my first computer! I remember spending hours typing in games from magazines only to lose them when I shut down. I remember thinking when I got the tape drive that it was the best thing ever! Brett Commented: Jul 03, 2009 | 2:13 am I loved the 800XL. It was a great computer for the era. Not only did I have a tape drive, but I also got a floppy drive and letter-quality printer. I used to type in those same programs. I also had a pretty good word processing program (Atari Writer, I think) that I used for school, along with the printer. Add Comment