I recently went to the Castle Museum in York. This is one of my favourite museums and there is a lot to see here. Originally built as a prison in the early 18th century, the building now contains numerous displays including period rooms from the 17th century onwards to the present day. It is somewhat disconcerting to move forwards through time only to find
your own life preserved in a museum.
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| The Castle Museum's star attraction is this perfectly preserved relic of the Cold War |
In one case you will find a selection of technology from the 1980s. That's a 'yes' to Big Trak and a 'yes' to the Acorn Electron. The Acorn Electron was a microcomputer built for the home games market in the UK and was essentially a stripped down version of the brilliant
BBC Microcomputer. I wasted many hours of my childhood playing games on my friend's father's Acorn Electron from
Elite to
Danger UXB, and
Abyss to
Cosmic Combat.
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| Grab a friend and take control of a spacecraft in this battle game - Cosmic Combat by Alexander Selby for the Acorn Electron. In this game, the aim is to shoot a stream of bullets into your opponent's fuselage without crashing into any of the obstacles whilst skillfully piloting your 8-bit sprite under the action of Newtonian physics. They don't make games like this anymore. |
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| Round the corner is this vision of 90's Britain. This pretty much looks identical to my mother's kitchen when I was just a little geek long ago in the mists of time. All that is missing from this picture is Big Trak roaming around on the linoleum. |
Well, that's me for now. I'm off to fire up the
BBC Micro emulator and get some of those Acorn games running. Thanks must go to the Castle Museum in York staff for a brilliant visit. If you get a chance to go to the heart of God's own country, then do please pay a visit to this museum.
Before I go, one Geek Experience Point is awarded to Alexander Selby for Cosmic Combat.
If you liked this post then you might like to
tell me all about it on the public noticeboard, or maybe you want to stick around for
something different.
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| Near the Castle Museum is Clifford's Tower in York, built by William the Conqueror (who was a big Acorn fan, unlike Clifford who preferred the Spectrum 48K). |
