IV. For the Love of Gaming

For those who forget their place,
there are only 3 genders... which one are you?

   

 Now here we are, at the reason for my love of gaming, the Tech involved in making the pure artform that we know as video games. I have long since loved computers long before ever seeing a video game because I was a child of the early Texas Instruments personal computers. Which means I was predisposed to electronics in a big way because I had a inherent knack for tinkering (Although that was what we called it back then, of course), but not only for the act of tinkering; but also because I liked the intricate lines on the circuit boards. It reminded me of a very complex maze, & I loved maze books... some of you know what I'm talking about. I loved the complex, detailed, & beautiful world of electronics but where I was from; that put you in a certain category of people, & they were the popular crowd.

    I learned how to enjoy my love in secret during a time when it could make you a target. There are many geeks & nerds out there who know what I am talking about, but I was a bit different than most of them even. I was not a bad kid, just very misunderstood, & with that said... I did a lot of stuff I probably shouldn't of. Either way it's done, gone, & and my personal business that has no bearing on this blog except to set a tone. That tone is that I was a geek that was able to survive my childhood & actually learn some cool things (usually the hard way lol). I always had a very good imagination, loved reading (I read anything), loved drawing (still do actually), & had a huge obsession with playing with old speakers and Walkman's; I know almost everyone has seen a Sony Walkman before (if not, Google it). 

    So my 1st project ever was an old house speaker removed from the wooden case with the wires soldered to the internal terminals on the Walkman's main mobo (MOtherBOard, for those who wonder a lot). It took some playing with the placement of the wires to make it work, but it did & my interest was piqued at that moment. Now this was after I had moved away from my hometown, & relocated with my Aunt & my cousin's to Va.; and this is where my interest would get the biggest push since my 1st actual experience with a real PC (the Apple IIe in 6th grade before relocation, I actually was named the official PC handler because of my early interest in them). It was in the 7th grade where I would take more structured computer classes than in the 6th grade, & I would find myself in Tech Ed classes. I quickly became engrossed in anything new tech & was absolutely hungry to learn all I could. Meanwhile I was already deeper into video games by this time as I had my very own Nintendo game system in my bedroom (when I wasn't in trouble for one reason or nothing). I was hooked for the 1st time many yrs before when I played an Intellivision, a Caleco Vision, & an Atari game system at a young age (at the height of their popularity) even though they were not my 1st games to be played; they were the ones that opened the world of games to me. My Nintendo was my most prized possession at that time, & I took very good care of it (including fixing it when it broke down on me). I loved a lot of things but my console allowed me to escape an existence that I was always happy with, & my console helped me run away without getting in trouble. I was able to become anything I wanted and soon became my best escape when going outside was taking away (until it got taken that is lol). 

    From that simple console I would progress through many yrs, until it finally kick the bucket (insert "Taps" music here...). However, I had since managed to get my hands a Compaq home PC thru one of those rent to own places that had Windows 95 or 98, or something like that. Pardon me for skipping thru time here, but the details are not necessary for the sake of keeping on topic (I have a tendency to ramble... a lot. Anyway, it was with this PC that I started learning more about the major parts of the newer PC's on the market (they had changed a lot since my 1st experience), and I was learning how to repair some minor issues with software, which was a blast (and this was the old DOS stuff you needed to do to play anything discs or anything). I tried to go back to school because while I had gotten a lot of electronics training in the Navy, I was ready ready to continue that learning. So I looked into colleges, both local and away (this was way before online learning was a thing) and it was just not in the cards for me to pursue that course of learning. This would quickly become a vicious cycle for my life for a good many yrs, but all the while I was continuing to learn more & more on my own.

    During this time, I would go on to become a father to a promising young man who I am very proud of, & 2 young woman that share that pride equally (I would go on to have another girl but that is much later). It was during their younger years that my son and I would be hanging out playing some Madden football in early 2000-ish, year unimportant really... what we were talking about was, & I remember it well too. We were talking about how cool it would if Playstation made a mobile gaming device like the Nintendo Gameboy. I mean we actually sat there and like designed this during a video game and laughing at what it could be called... We said something silly like Mobilestation, Mstation, & and some other crazy names. It was the best time I had playing video games, an I will always remember that because low & behold a few yrs later the PSP hit the market; and I remember saying to my son during a moment that I am sure someone is already working on that one, but I can't wait to see what it would look like. It was nothing like we designed it all those years before... it was okay I guess (lmao).

    From that My son had said I should make games or something like that because I had some good ideas, and loved computers. I laughed it off then as being a great idea, but I wasn't sure if I had what it takes to do that given my circumstances at that time. I would, from that day on, start doing something I didn't even notice I was doing for a real long time; I started looking at everything around me a little differently. It was subtle & real easy to miss if you focused on anything, I had started dreaming... wondering what would it be like if I could actually do it. Would could I accomplish if I managed to learn how to design & program a successful game? I did have a lot of suggestions for how games could always be better, & looking at how they could be expanded for more playability. Still, I couldn't make it happen because simply dreaming wasn't going to pay the bills, & neither was going to school for 4 yrs; that would cut at least 1 job out which would sink us deeper into debt.

    So I put the dreams away and kept them locked away in my head for only me to dream and see. I was always adding to them and taking things away... I mean this plan to design video games became a life plan for me. So some few years later I find myself in NC, and finally the moment arises that I can actually go to school and work on a degree in Video game simulation & programming. That didn't last long as life crashed in on my dream, again... no biggie, just put it in the back  of my mind until I can settle up money issues and get over the hump so I can go back. I finally went back and was actually crushing it on all subjects except 1; Math, the bane of my existence. I will be honest, I can do normal math, but complex math always kicked me in the teeth with a really big steel toe boot. I struggle with Algebra in high school, & this was going to be no different. I hate complex math, but I do understand its function in real world applications; however, in my defense, I was going to be programming using an IDE (Integrated Development Environment) so actually needing to know the formulas is not necessary since the tool has them all already coded for efficiency and ease of reference (called code fragments). So you see, I was not ever going to need to actually know them but the logic is that if you don't learn them to start... how will you know which ones to use and when? See, I am very logical & understand how the relationship between all things persists in making the world go around. That logic didn't save me from rocking out of school due to failing too many classes (mostly math classes), and ultimately I wouldn't get to my goal that way. So, it was time for a new plan to get me to where I want to be in life which I was also learning was actually evolving into a much larger, grander, yet simpler plan (that vision I spoke of).

    I was by this time, well into the making of the Sun Tzu Ghosts clan on Xbox & other platforms as well as social media. I realized that I had not only become free of all the things that tied me to a "job" mentality, & was free to start really exploring more personal ambitions and dreams. Now, I was streaming more than I ever had been before; to the point where I was actually getting followers!! So now I was looking at how my life has become much more rich with meaning because I had grown up and realized that everything I needed for inspiration was already right in front of me. Now to make the "office/game dungeon" to match my new direction I was going to head with my eyes wide open. I had my support system in my wife, I had a room in our home that I could use to become our office, & I had all the things I needed to build my 1 custom PC; The Frankenreaper.

I know, I know the name sounds corny to you but it actually had meaning for me; so don't go giving me any crap about it, lol. The parts I used to build Frank, as I call him, came from about 6 maybe 7 different PC's that I had accumulated over the yrs. I literally went through each PC part, and researched them to see if & how I could use it within my 1st build. And then, finally, one morning while I was sitting in my office on my day off I hit the jackpot & Frank was born. My 1st attempt tool some work , but I had successfully built a working legacy PC using an old Intel Pentium D system running Windows 7 (at the time, it was already on the hard drive so I wiped it and started it from scratch).

    That is where I will leave this post, and pick this back up next week with some particulars of that 1st build with pics. 

    Until then, be human to each other... and as always

Live free & play hard, Hoorah 2 ashes!!

Reaper, out.

Truer words have never been spoken...
or memed.