A customer of mine wanted to run a game...

KazeoHin

KazeoHin

[H]F Junkie
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So I build, repair and service PCs for my job, and occasionally I get a nice story to tell. I specialize in gaming and high-end machines, usually any questions about running games or what video card does what are forwarded onto me. This is the case here. A customer called up the shop in the morning asking if we could help him get his favorite game running: he just purchased a new PC from a big outlet (think best buy) and he finds that the game simply won't run, and throws up an error. My colleague tells him "don't worry, bring in the PC and the game and Paul, our gaming guy, will help you out.".

I only hear about this second-hand. "a customer will be coming in with his PC, he wants to get a game running on it." this is all I am told. A few hours later, an older gentleman (roundabout 55-65 years old) brings in his Acer something-or-other desktop and a cardboard box. He introduces himself and I find out that he is in fact the customer that I was told about. He says " my new PC can't run my favorite game! My old one ran it fine, what's the problem?" instinctively I have a quick gander over his tower. The front-panel had a sandy-bridge era i7 sticker adheared and the video card was two-slot with DVI and HDMI. it was a new-enough PC running windows 7. This info at hand, I ask the obvious question: "was your older machine Windows XP?"
"yes it was"
"you might have a comparability problem, is it an older game?"
"yeah, it's pretty old... But it's my favorite game!"
"alright, do you have the game with you?"
"yes, yes I do!"
The gentleman proceeded to pull out a pristinely preserved copy of Wolfenstein 3D. Floppies and all. Antique 1992 packaging, and everything. This was one hell of a find. Not only that, but this old guy calls it his favorite game! HELL YES. I don't know why, but the idea of this guy pleasantly killing nazis for over two decades inspired me. He even had his friend rip all the floppies onto a CD for him to use on modern systems, ten years ago. It was awesome! Unfortunately I couldn't do anything without charging him, but to make up for that. I explained to him that he can use DOSBox and other free programs to get this game running in windows 7, or he can purchase the STEAM version, which already runs through DOSBox. normally, it's against the rules for me to explain a way the customer can fix the PC themselves, but he can grab a version off of steam for less than $5, and my minimum charge is $30. I wanted to get this guy back on the Nazi killing road. He then thanked me and then said "I'll try those things! My grandkids can't wait to get on and play it again!"

HELL YES. Kids today are still playing Wolf3D. doesent matter how old or how young you are, nor how new or old the games are, good games are timeless, and gamers are boundless.

Quite a nice little story, if you ask me.
 
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That's an awesome story! Great way to introduce the current generation the games that were pretty much precursors to the games coming out today, and the games that gave birth to other kinds of games. Older games shouldn't become a lost art forgotten in history, it should be passed along and shared. It's great to see him still play it to this day and let his grandchildren play it as well.
 
It's like the time I met an Alley Cat enthusiast. Old school represent! :D I've actually made it a challenge of mine to locate old school copies of PC games, namely the big box kinds like Baldurs Gate and Daggerfall. Of course, it's not always easy to encourage kids to go old school, and they'll probably never feel the same adulation we felt when those games were relevant.
 
bad ass man and I love hearing about older people that game. My dad used to game, hell, he is the one that got me into games. Used to play pac man, digger, tetris and I caught him playing leisure suite larry a bucnh of times ahah.


Hope he gets to kill many nazis for years to come.
 
Whoa, not only is that a feel-good story for me but it really takes me back. I'm not very old now, about to turn 30 but I had a computer in my house since I was 4 and remember booting it off a 5.25 floppy.

I played games like Wolfenstein, the original MS Flight Sim, Whell of Fortune, Jeopardy and Family Feud.
I remember I had such an OLD computer back then that I couldn't run it in proper color because the video card was 8 colors and I needed 16 if I remember right, or had 16 and needed 32, anyway it played in a sort of rainbow mode.
 
Cool story. Though I definitely do not miss the days of editing EMM386.sys or HIMEM for boot disks.
 
JeebusSK said:
Whoa, not only is that a feel-good story for me but it really takes me back. I'm not very old now, about to turn 30 but I had a computer in my house since I was 4 and remember booting it off a 5.25 floppy.

I played games like Wolfenstein, the original MS Flight Sim, Whell of Fortune, Jeopardy and Family Feud.
I remember I had such an OLD computer back then that I couldn't run it in proper color because the video card was 8 colors and I needed 16 if I remember right, or had 16 and needed 32, anyway it played in a sort of rainbow mode.
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ahha. I am about to turn 29 and my dad had an IBM with the 5.25 ahah.
 
Doom and TIE fighter were my favorite games of the DOS-to-95 generation. Duke 3D earns a star, but it was more Windows 95-2000 era. I still remember loading off of twelve floppies because I couldn't afford to get a CD drive.

Good old days.
 
hell yes wolfenstein. my son plays it on our wii.

and FFS when are we getting a new TIE FIGHTER?!
 
holy hell that story made my day already. I remember firing up a shareware version of wolf and duke dukem. started a nerdy passion I can only hope ill pass down to my future illegitimate children


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KazeoHin said:
he can grab a version off of steam for less than $5, and my minimum charge is $30.
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I'm gonna be frank about this, for $30 you should have just done it for him and saved him any moments of hassle or frustration.
 
for 30 dollars you should have set him up a steam account and teach him how to use steam and buy wolf3d on steam under his account.

also tell him about return to castle wolf that was made and didnt do that well.

oh ya and the wolfenstein enemy territory game
 
kuyaglen said:
Cool story. Though I definitely do not miss the days of editing EMM386.sys or HIMEM for boot disks.
Click to expand...

What do you mean man, that was the BEST part. You would figure out the best setup of everything (config.sys, autoexec.bat, and the above items) to maximize your available RAM while still maintaining mouse and sound support. And just when you thought it was impossible to get one KB more out of your configuration you would come up against a game that needed 10KB more, and somehow you would find it.

I have a great IT career (oxymoron?) now that was entirely started based on what I learned while tweaking those files. My first IT job was seasonal call center support for H&R block. They had us take a test of our PC knowledge and I got all 40 questions right, because getting games to work left me with way more knowledge of PCs than you would ever need at that time to support them.
 
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