Rememberment, Chapter XXIV: The Link to the Future

I was still very much into computer games and whenever I visited my friends (or cousins) we spent most of the time playing on their computer. And by computer I mean the Commodore 64, because that's what everyone had.

So why did they all have the C-64? There were two simple reasons. The first was that it had the best selection of games for it, the second being that it was rare for anyone to actually purchase them. Piracy was absolutely rampant. I kept begging my parents for a computer of my own, even though I wasn't very hopeful. But I made sure to always stress that if such a miracle were to happen, the computer specifically needed to be a C-64. 

It was a day like any other, and my dad was picking me up from school. He was grinning at me when I approached the car. When I opened the passenger door, I saw a big box. "There you go, son" Dad said happily. "It's finally yours". I looked at the box; it was definitely a home computer, but certainly not the C-64. It was a Toshiba MSX HX-10.

"The Link to the Future" was Toshiba's marketing slogan for the machine.

"Wow, Dad. Thanks". I was both excited and disappointed. I finally got a computer of my own, but an MSX? I knew of the machine, but I didn't know anyone else who owned one. As we were driving home, I asked Dad about it, trying hard not to sound ungrateful. "This one was a lot cheaper than the Commodore you asked for" he explained.

"Yeah, Dad. There's a reason for that", I thought, but was smart enough not to say it aloud.

Nevertheless, it wasn't a bad computer by any means, and I spent as much time with it as my parents would allow. Over time, Dad learned the hard way that he would have saved money by simply buying me the C-64; software piracy was much less of an option for the MSX, and its game cartridges in particular were very expensive. I got a new one of those maybe once or twice a year.

But I did a lot more with my MSX than just play games. I started writing my own little programs and even some simple games. Years later, when I attended business school and took computer classes, I realized that the GW-BASIC found on the school PCs had almost the same syntax as the MSX-BASIC that I was familiar with. Our computing teacher was impressed with my programming skills, and urged me to focus on computing studies.

Perhaps it was my father's failed attempt at saving money that eventually led to my current job in IT.