Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (485-488)

All of the photos in this set were taken in the 1960s, probably in the Lansing, Michigan area.

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (485-488)

Byte: The Small Systems Journal (November 1980)

You had to be pretty hardcore to be computing in 1980. However, Byte was there to help you along. It covered all kinds of systems and much of the content was highly technical. The November 1980 issue includes:

Byte: The Small Systems Journal (November 1980)

Mean Streets (Commodore 64)

Mean Streets was the first of a series of games featuring Tex Murphy as the protagonist. Mean Streets, which was released in 1989 by Access, was the only one in the series available on the Commodore 64. This was one of those games I always wanted but never got to play. What’s not appealing about a post-apocalyptic cyberpunk mystery? In addition to being available on the Commodore 64, it was also of course available on DOS based PCs where it was first developed. It was also ported to the Amiga and Atari ST but only in Europe for some reason.

The game is essentially a graphic adventure but there are other elements, including even a 3D flight sim. You, as Tex Murphy are investigating the mysterious death of a college professor who was seen falling from a bridge and had previously been working on a secret project. The police think it was suicide but his daughter is convinced it was murder.

The PC version was one of the first to support 256 color VGA graphics on the PC and also introduced a technique for creating digitized voices and other advanced sound using just the PC speaker without a sound card. The Commodore 64 version paled in comparison in these regards (though it seems they could have done better with the sound if they had wanted to). However, the consensus seems to be that the playability is nearly as good as the PC version and that’s what is most important. I’m not sure how the Amiga and Atari ST ports fared.

Sequels included Martian Memorandum released in 1991, Under a Killing Moon released in 1994, The Pandora Directive released in 2009 and Tesla Effect in 2014. The original was also remade in 1998 as Tex Murphy: Overseer. None of these made it to the Commodore 64 though.

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (481-484)

The first two photos were processed in August 1979 and show people water skiing on a lake or river probably somewhere in Michigan.

Vintage Photos - Lot 6 (481-484): All of the photos in this set were take in in the late 1970s or early 1980s.