"Father of Video Games" Nolan Bushnell on Learning through Gaming

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"Father of Video Games" Nolan Bushnell on Learning through Gaming

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"People who play video games have much better computational skills, much better logic skills, much better search and cognitive skills than kids who don't," says Nolan Bushnell, author of Finding the Next Steve Jobs, founder of Brainrush, and the entrepreneur often described as the "father of video games."

ReasonTV's Tracy Oppenheimer caught up with Bushnell at the 2013 Milken Institute Global Conference in Beverly Hills, CA to discuss how video games can revolutionize education as well as Bushnell's role in exploring this new frontier.

"One of the problems with school today is it's boring to the kids who are used to these rapid action, very diverse kinds of thinking that you get in any of the video games," says Bushnell. "What we really want to do, above all, is maintain passion and enthusiasm, because with passion and enthusiasm people can be life-long learners. They can be engaged in life. They can be happy."

About 4:30 minutes.

Produced by Tracy Oppenheimer, camera by Alex Manning.

Scroll down for downloadable versions and subscribe to ReasonTV's YouTube Channel to receive notifications when new material goes live.

Comments

[Tim]

The Atari 2600. What a great, primitive thing it was.

[Pro Libertate]

Was? Is. My kids still occasionally play ports of the old 2600 games.

[Paul.]

God how I'd love to play some of my old C=64 games.

[Pro Libertate]

Time for some Colossal Cave Adventure and ASCII Star Trek.

[Paul.]

One of my favorite C64 games was Agent USA.

[Episiarch]

M.U.L.E.

[Lord Humungus]

+1 Crystite

[Paul.]

Oh shit... Epi wins.

I totally forgot about M.U.L.E.

God I wasted so many damned nights on M.U.L.E.

[TDL]

It looks like it still exists:
http://www.planetmule.com/

[Lord Humungus]

Raid over Bungling Bay
T.A.C.
Jumpman

I loved my Commodore.

[Lord Humungus]

I was king on the Atari 2600 Asteroids. Of course I feigned a few illnesses to get that good.

[Pro Libertate]

I remember when I first got ROMs of the old video games--the gameroom Asteroids, etc. It was amazing to have all of those sitting on my PC, for free. I played many hours of Tempest, maybe as recently as ten years ago.

[Paul.]

I was a Tempest Pimp at the arcade.

[Pro Libertate]

That and Galaga. We had a Galaga machine in a cabin we rented in Gatlinburg a few years ago, and the kids were amazed at how good I was at it. They're markedly inferior at games, modern or old, which I think is a signal of the end-times.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

I was at Zanzabar in Louisvile, KY in April and completely obliterated the high score on the Galaga machine. My wife was pretty impressed. I got laid that night.

[Paul.]

My wife was pretty impressed. I got laid that night.

Did your wife find out?

[Lord Humungus]

Sinistar was one of my favs.

[SugarFree]

"I hunger, coward!"

[Pro Libertate]

I. . .AM. . .SINISTAR.

[Archduke Pantsfan]

That controller would not budge!

[Hyperion]

Might as well go back even further into prehistory of gaming.

I remember the first console I ever saw, the pong machine. All it did was bounce a pixelated ping pong ball around the screen, which you hit back and forth with some pixelated paddles. Then they came out with the breakout thing where you hit the ball against a barrier to try to break through it, a few pixels at a time. Just white pixels on a black background.

Anyone remember that?

[Pro Libertate]

We had one of those. I also remember playing at a very young age a gameroom version of that. Yes, Dad would pay a quarter, which was like $50 today, for us to play Pong.

[itsnotmeitsyou]

Remember? I still have mine. Along with my Intellivision.

Anyone remember that?

[Hyperion]

Along with my Intellivision

Yep, I remember those.

[Bobarian]

Intellivision -

The Dungeons & Dragons was a horrible waste of my time. The graphics were good for that time, and horrible by today's standards, but I remember stalking the dragon in the cave and just jumping out of my skin when the roar would let you know it was coming.

Great game!

The tip of my thumb was numb for weeks.

[Pro Libertate]

I liked their sports games.

[Ted S.]

Their port of baseball to the Atari was seriously flawed: there was no way to pick off a batter if the team on offense was paying attention, so as soon as a guy got on base, we'd start sending him to second.

You could also change the speed of the pitch while it was on its way to the plate.

[Pro Libertate]

Well, those kinds of charming flaws were part of the fun.

[Drake]

Yep - that was our first game system.

[Logical 1]

Definitely remember breakout - and night driver which was two white lines with a broken white line down the middle and a white blob in the middle as the car. I was hypnotized!

[Atreides]

It was especially great when boosting the 2600's power with the Starpath Supercharger.

[Paul.]

Noland's sitting there with the comely Tracy Oppenheimer, and she opens with:

"[Y]ou started with Atari over four decades ago..."

Noland's thinking, "Thanks... thanks for the reminder."

[Pro Libertate]

Four long, tiring decades.

[sarcasmic]

Is it just me, or has that guy done a lot of acid?

[Hyperion]

Bah! The only thing that anyone has ever learned through video games, is how to be violent! Ban all games, now! For the children!

Hey, remember how after Sandy Hook, all the proglotard youth were going to banish violent video games from the industry and make all future games about cute cuddly imaginary critters, where nothing interesting ever happens?

How did that work out?

[Auric Demonocles]

The only learning one does through video games is learning to be a ruthless cold blooded killer.

[Hyperion]

Hah, I beat you to it!

[Archduke Pantsfan]

RACING CAR SKILLS

[Auric Demonocles]

Which you use to run people down, or get away from your crime scene.

[Lord Humungus]

and if you stay clear of the police for a few minutes, they forget all about you. It must be the excellent donuts.

[EDG reppin' LBC]

The fat kid from Good Burger logged over 2,000 hours on a video game flight simulator. He went on to successfully land the jetliner in Snakes on a Plane.

[Archduke Pantsfan]

C64 games:
Archon
paradroid
Impossible Mission
California games
Frantic Freddie

and some game I can't remember the name of, but it was a puzzle game where you had to find keys and activate lifts. And I don't mean Castle Wolfenstein

[Lord Humungus]

oh yeah, Archon and Archon II were favs.

[Ska]

Stay a while. Stay....FOREVER!!

/horrible digital voice

I'd like to add:
Beachhead
Jumpman/Jumpman Jr.
Space Taxi

[Tim]

Had a friend with a C64. He had an Apache helicopter simulator game, all wire frame. He'd set up a big attack and I'd show him how impressed I was by shutting off his engines. F12 or something.

[Hyperion]

I don't get all this romanticizing about old games. They suck. But due to the fact that people seem to romanticize outdated game platforms, they have now went and brought back to life the old school RPG games with that awful fucking isometric angle overhead view. WTF? Stop wasting valuable resources on this nostalgic bullshit, it's time for VR!

[Lord Humungus]

Part of the romanticizing is the age which many played these games at. Sure the 8-bit (or 16) graphics sucked, but my youthful imagination filled many of the missing details. Considering the limited memory and disk storage, I'm surprised how good some of the games were.

[Episiarch]

100% agreed. I fucking hate trying to play old games. Because they suck. Yeah, some of them had inherently good gameplay, but they still look like shit. Why would you want shitty graphics?

[Pro Libertate]

I wish I had one of those arrows from Adventure right now so I could stab you from one of four different directions.

[Tim]

Dig Dug would pump him full of air.

[Episiarch]

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

[Pro Libertate]

XYZZY.

[Episiarch]

A hollow voice says 'Fool.'

[Pro Libertate]

There is a threatening little dwarf in the room with you!

[SugarFree]

[kicks joe in face]

[Pro Libertate]

You killed a little dwarf.

[Episiarch]

You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.

[SugarFree]

You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.

[attacks Epi's mother]

[Pro Libertate]

You are at one end of a vast hall stretching forward out of sight to the west. There are openings to either side. Nearby, a wide stone staircase leads downward. The hall is filled with wisps of white mist swaying to and fro almost as if alive. A cold wind blows up the staircase. There is a passage at the top of a dome behind you. Rough stone steps lead up the dome.

[SugarFree]

[use STEVE SMITH repellent spray]

[Archduke Pantsfan]

YOU CAN PLAY HERE

[Auric Demonocles]

I don't. But I care more about gameplay than graphics. Sometimes that means that old games are still great.

[Pro Libertate]

Someone should make modern versions of each game. Like Combat, but now with graphics and three dimensions.

[Auric Demonocles]

Also add a time traveling (if necessary) sci-fi character to it.

[SugarFree]

You do a Tron-like frame story for it. The player becomes trapped in a 2600 universe and all the old games are first person and modern graphics. You have to get enough points to get to the next level.

Pitfall is going to be hella tough.

[DesigNate]

NICE!

[Hugh Akston]

I'm with Epi. Boring gay stuff like story and gameplay just get in the way of moar pixels. It's just like with movies, which is why everyone knows Transformers 3 Dark of the Explosions is the greatest movies evar and shit like Indiana Jones and Back to the Future are totally gay.

[Episiarch]

For once, Hugh makes sense. He's the Uwe Boll of gamers.

[Auric Demonocles]

You know what? We should just make a game that's just a long cutscene, since you can make the cutscenes look way better than actual gameplay. The user's controls will be pause and play. The secret to winning the game is to hit play and watch the cutscene for 2 hours.

[Hyperion]

In Soviet Russia, game plays you!

[SugarFree]

Isn't that basically Dragon's Lair?

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Oh, you mean Mass Effect

[Pro Libertate]

Hey, now. I like Mass Effect.

[Hyperion]

I refuse to play it. You can't rename your character. Either you have to be nameless, or you have to be able to rename your character. WTF sort of RPG makes you play as Capn Sheepherder? It's a damn abomination, it is.

[Pro Libertate]

Really? That's your complaint? You get the first name, which could be, I suppose, I Am Not.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

I tried to play ME2, but just got irritated with the conversational choices. Went right back and booted Half Life 2. Jumped directly into Ravenholm. Now that is some awesome gameplay.

[Hyperion]

and booted Half Life 2

I've been eyeing that game for a while now...

[Episiarch]

I tried to play ME2. After 45 minutes of talking after starting the game, I just gave up. I play to kill and loot, not talk. Talking is for ProL and chicks.

[Hyperion]

Yes, and with so many other games to choose from, I don't have to ever be no gay fucking capn sheepherder.

[Pro Libertate]

He's only gay if you bring the gay in your heart.

[Drake]

I tried it - BORING!

[Hugh Akston]

I want the My Dinner With Andre arcade game.

[Episiarch]

It's a subgame in Leisure Suit Larry 3.

[Auric Demonocles]

I like scifi, so I propose we make it about blue aliens and spend hundreds of millions on the CGI.

[SugarFree]

[trenchant insight]

[Pro Libertate]

Waiting for Godot.

[Ted S.]

You don't need good graphics for a game like Q-bert.

[Ska]

So... Baldur's Gate II sucks because you don't like the camera angle? The same camera angle of Dragon Age; XCOM Enemy Unknown? Every strategy game ever produced?

[Hyperion]

So... Baldur's Gate II sucks because you don't like the camera angle?

Yes.

[Auric Demonocles]

Every strategy game ever produced?

Despite it's shitty graphics, Command and Conquer: Red Alert 2 is still my favorite video game ever. And for you graphics nuts, it's got live action videos for the cut scenes, including James Earl Jones.

[Brett L]

Dune II was beter.

[Atreides]

Now you're speaking my language.

[Hyperion]

I'm not a total graphics whore, but it does add to the realism of the game, much like first person or 3rd person over the shoulder view does. It makes you feel more like you are in the game.

But, one of my favorite games of all time is the first in the Gothic series. When I bought that, I also had just bought Dragon Age and Oblivion, both of which have much better graphics than Gothic, a game that was released in 2000, which made it nearly 10 years old when I started playing it. I still preferred it over both the other 2 games, even with the dated graphics.

[Auric Demonocles]

All things being equal, I'd prefer better graphics. But I loved the gameplay in RA2, as well as the great balance in online multiplayer.

[Clich? Bandit]

IT IS A FUCKING TANK BUILDING COMPETITION!!!!

AHHHHHH

I hated Red Alert 2 cause there was no nuance, balance, game experience...it took everything good from C&C and got rid of it. The first person to build massive amounts of tanks wins. dumb

[Auric Demonocles]

If you can't beat a tank rush, you just aren't very good at the game.

[BakedPenguin]

Graphics don't mean much for some games. I recently downloaded DosBox and an old strategy war game that I loved - V4V's Velikiye Luki. Came out in 1993, and I don't think anyone has done better since. If you were one of the geeks who liked turn-based strategy board games with hexes, you'd probably love it.

[JW]

I'm still waiting for Homeland 3.

[JW]

Bah. Homeworld 3.

[Brandon]

There still has not been a modern game that surpasses EarthBound in quality. Or XCOM.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

The original XCOM was awesome. Nothing has ever exceeded watching an alien headsucker hop into view during the inter-turn action. "OH FUCK! Not Jim Stravinsky, he's my best character!"

[Brandon]

The soldiers were a sublime mix of valuable and expendable.

[Lord Humungus]

the Plasma Bomb is a dangerous weapon, but I loved punching holes into the UFOs... pop a few more random bombs in there, just to decrease any resistance before sending the troops in.

[Paul.]

XCOM was the most addictive, intense turn-based strategy ever made.

I play the new XCom and I have to say, aside from a few niggling gameplay mechanics and details, they did an exemplary job. It introduced a whole new generation to Xcom, so hopefully we'll see a new series brought back to life, long term.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Turn the corner, alien right in your face, you are out of movement points.

[Brett L]

Goddammit! And why did I not recruit any people with psy talent in 35 tries?!

[Lord Humungus]

stand and die.

[Ska]

Unfortunately, playing to prevent that turns every fight into an hour long exploration of even the small UFO landing sites....

[Paul.]

I'm assuming Nerfherder is referring to New Xcoms (truly) annoying feature where when you run a given distance, if your character 'sees' an alien halfway through his dash, be continues to bleed all of his movement points. Whereas the old XCOM would stop the character automatically if an unseen alien became seen during the players dash.

This was important in that it allowed the player to make new decisions based on new information.

I hear what you're saying about the hour long explorations. But it wouldn't make a difference if it only stopped in the conditions I say above.

In fact, XCOM becomes longer without the feature, because you're very careful to NOT use all your MP because you know you'll bleed all your MP if you run too far, too fast and halfway through the dash, you spot a chryssalid.

[Ska]

Dashing from the get go gives you +1 movement, so you generally want to move up to one action point worth of spaces, switch to another squad member, and repeat (and never go full dash just to run one extra tile). This way if you run into anything you can still fire, move to cover, go into overwatch, or use run & gun with whoever has moved once that turn. And never expand the fog of war with one of your last moves.

[Michael]

...that awful fucking isometric angle overhead view.

Truly spoken like someone that has never experienced the rapture that is known as Zaxxon.

[SugarFree]

Yar's Revenge and Missile Command (which was really depressing if you think about it.)

[Hyperion]

Yars Revenge, omg. I remember when that was the hot game for the 2600. My cousin would come over on weekends and we would get drunk and stoned, and play that damn thing all night. I woke up one morning with a huge hangover and he was still blasting away at that thing. I still can remember that awful noise that thing made. I threatened to end his life right then and there if he didn't turn that shit off.

[SugarFree]

We did something like that when Tetris came out on the NES. I realized I had tears streaming down my face because I keeping myself from blinking.

[Pro Libertate]

I have this vision of you with your eyes pried open and guys in lab coats with eyedroppers.

[SugarFree]

NOT MY LOVELY, LOVELY LUDWIG VAN!

[Pro Libertate]

Yes. How odd that you can hear the Ninth Symphony in my head.

[SugarFree]

"No time for the old in-out, love. I've just come to read the meter."

[Auric Demonocles]

When I first got contacts the only problems I ever had with them was not blinking enough during video game binges.

[BakedPenguin]

They updated Yar's Revenge, to mixed reviews.

[A Serious Man]

I find the age gap here amusing. Most of you guys are reminiscing about Atari and Commodore while to me an ancient game console is the Nintendo 64.

[Episiarch]

Shut up, whippersnapper. I used to play chess and Missile Command on my TRS-80. Then years later I used to get stoned and take acid and play Space Harrier on the Sega Genesis. Or go down to the 7-11 and play Street Fighter against my friends. While stoned, of course.

[Hyperion]

Hush now, we need the snappers around, to pay for our healthcare.

[Tim]

I had a Texas Instruments calculator, you could input 80085 and it spelled BOOBS.

[Bobarian]

I have a 29 yo HP 15C sitting within arms reach on my desk. The batteries recently went tits-up (for the third time in 3 decades). Otherwise I use it every day.

Reverse Polish Notation means I can't use lesser calculators anymore.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

I was the proud owner of a TI-99/4A, then TI quit making the bastards.

[Episiarch]

We would play Street Fighter in the 7-11 on East University Parkway and (I think) Barclay. I don't think it's there any more.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

We would load the original Simcity in the computer labs and waste away the afternoon.

[Episiarch]

I had my own Mac so I would play Sim City in my (single) room into the wee hours of the morning, massively stoned.

Say, when you were there, was there still the student bar in The Charles? The one where they had the projection TV in the back room, and pitchers were $2?

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Do you mean the Grad Club in the basement of McCoy?

[Episiarch]

That sounds right. The one that got closed down in '91, right, when they renovated its building? It had the stereo that you just put your own music in. It was staffed by students.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Yep. I hated the new versions of Wolman and McCoy. It was just another way to fleece the students out of money and the buildings sucked balls.

[Episiarch]

I moved off campus into The Carlyle after freshman year and ignored the new housing. The way nature intended. But the loss of the Grad Club hurt.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

The Carlyle? You must be the 1% I'm hearing about. I lived in a rowhouse next to what became Tambers and then the 9-story roach hotel aka The Jefferson.

It was especially pleasant having the ambulance lights from Union Memorial Hospital circling my room every night. But I did get to see that guy jump off the top of the hospital parking garage.

[Episiarch]

I will admit I had money. However, my 1200 square foot apartment looked kind of ridiculous with so little furniture. But: central air.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

But: central air.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

But: central air.

(shakes tiny fist in jealous rage)

[Auric Demonocles]

No pleasure, no rapture, no exquisite sin greater... than central air.

[Ted S.]

I had a TI-99/4A too. I remember writing a BASIC program to flip 10 virtual coins. And then I learned about pseudorandomness. 😐

[KPres]

NBA Jam/Mario Kart/Goldeneye + pot = fun

[Auric Demonocles]

I very vaguely remember playing Duck Hunt and Dr. Mario's tetris knock off. But the first time that I could actually play a game with story or decisions to be made was N64.

[A Serious Man]

My earliest video game memory was getting the original Mario Kart 64 as a joint Easter basket gift with my brother in 1996.

I think my favorite game, in terms of sophistication, was either Banjo-Kazooie or its M-rated cousin Conker's Bad Fur Day. Those were awesome and genuinely challenging.

[Apatheist ?_??]

My early gaming memories are of playing Duke Nukem 1 and 2, Commander Keen and other DOS/early windows games. I also started playing Wolfenstein 3D with my granddad when I was around 6 (I only recently learned that his was without my grandmom and parents knowledge and permission). Moved on from there to Doom and Quake and then played a shitton of Counterstrike in middle school and early highschool.

On the strategy side Heroes II and III and the Civ series. RPGs, Baldurs Gate and Icewind Dale, and Elders Scrolls II and III.

Never owned a console but played Goldeneye at friends houses.

[BakedPenguin]

Too bad there's so little competition in education today. Advances like this will take decades to get fully rolled out instead of years.

[Hyperion]

Competition is racist! We don't need any education, the government knows about everything that we need and will provide it, when or if we need it.

[Brandon]

I read a lot of books in Skyrim. Does that count as education?

[Hyperion]

The books in Divinity 2 actually gives you clues about the quests you are doing in the game.

I never actually read the books in Skyrim, just opened them to see if they gave me experience points or anything like that.

But all of the books in RPGs are basically the same. There was this great war and some orcs, and then there was a blight on the land. That's pretty much it.

[sarcasmic]

Did anyone else play Archon?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A.....d_the_Dark

That was a cool game.

[Scruffy Nerfherder]

Absolutely. It was a favorite.

[darius404]

I was always a big fan of Polybius, myself, but I can never seem to find anyone else who's played it.

[SugarFree]

That wasn't a video game. It was the fantasy world you retreated into while a neighbor molested you.

[Episiarch]

In a shocking coincidence, that neighbor was Warty.

[darius404]

In a further shocking coincidence, when SugarFree says "you" he is actually referring to himself.

[SugarFree]

As for stand-ups, nothing else ever held my devotion like Smash TV.

I LOVE IT!

[Pro Libertate]

I'd buy that for a dollar.

It was like Robotron plus, I dunno, The Running Man. I used to be able to play it for quite a while, too.

[sarcasmic]

First games I played were on my father's VIC-20, complete with an external tape drive. High fucking tech at the time.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commodore_VIC-20

[Archduke Pantsfan]

NEW YORK BLITZ

[Lord Humungus]

fire up Commodore 64
insert cassette
Load "*"
hit play on drive
go make a sandwich
watch television
get tape error
clean heads
repeat until game loadad

[Paul.]

My 1541 disk drive had a hole cut in the side with a tiny little blower I stuck on it to cool it. Remember how the thing would heat up and the heads would get out of alignment, causing failures?

[Lord Humungus]

urgh... my 1541 squeaked and squeaked. It used to wake me up a 3AM when someone would log into my BBS.

[Almanian!]

Jesus Christ - please don't post an article on the history of circumcised home brewers...

PS Galaga and Pole Position - college. High score. And Pong and Simon were the SHIT if you were stoned enough. Other than that...no gaming for Almanian.

[Matrix]

Action 52... the single greatest video game ever!

[sarcasmic]

How could I forget Star Wars?

Can't find a good link for it. Wiki has parenthesis in it, and everything else I could find is blocked by the stupid filter at work as being "game related."

I must have beat the high score on a dozen machines. Never could get past either the eighth or ninth wave. Can't remember which. That was a while ago. There aren't many left. I guess those displays are extra old technology and difficult to replace.

[Lord Humungus]

those vector graphics were (at the time) pretty kick ass.

[Pro Libertate]

Yes, my friends and I all liked the vector games.

[Joe Durnavich]

I always seem to be a couple of decades out of sync with the rest of humanity--for instance for the life of me I can't figure out who this Kim Kardashian woman is or what the deal is with her--so I like to play older games, including Atari 2600 games.

I'm also playing Motor Toon Grand Prix on a Playstation, which is awesome because I get to dominate over cartoon characters. Although, I don't get the deal with the car in front of me dropping bombs on the road for me to run into. It's like I'm trailing the Tsarnaev brothers or something.

I'm also playing The Raiden Project on a PSone. That one puts in in an aircraft headed into a territory where the folks there really, really don't want me around and aren't shy about expressing their displeasure with me. I'm hoping I'll grow on them in time though.

[Anders]

Great interview. I like games but lets get real here. WTF does Call of Duty teach you? Squad based tactics? LOL. The manual of arms of your weapons systems? LOL. How to run a threat matrix? LOL. Logic? Uh, no.

It's fun stuff and there's nothing wrong with it but get a grip. If you want to understand logic you're gonna have to do that awful thing called reading a book or listening to an audio book. If you want to learn communication skills your going to have to read and interact with real humans in person.

Computers are awesome tools to support learning skills but if you're serious you're gonna have to admit you need that low tech stuff too. Its not cool but its proven to work.

And if your kid is spending 14 hours a day playing XBox, they're missing out on a lot of opportunities to do stuff they won't be able to do later when they have to work and have family etc.

And if I sound like an old fuck, sue me.

[Anders]

Furthermore, most teachers are demonstrably not very skilled at their jobs and they have little incentive to be. Private schools tend to have better teachers because they can and do hire and pay based on performance.

As a public school teacher in many states you can be awful but you are truly unfireable.

There are all kinds of ways to make learning fun and interesting but as cogent as that argument was, you can do better. Home schoolers know this. How about today's science lesson involving a trip to the zoo? That's cool, real, and educational.

With the exception of our elite schools we have a huge fricken problem with the quality of education. We can't get the basics right - video games are not the priority.

[Acosmist]

Private schools have better outcomes because they select their students. That explains the entire thing.

[cavalier973]

The best Atari 2600 game, IMO, was Pitfall II: The Lost Caverns.

My favorite computer game from the 80's was "The Oregon Trail". I'll still play it occasionally on some emulator site (I forget which), and still have as much fun, because it is a challenging game.

Also, CRPG Addict.

[Joe Durnavich]

The Oregon Trail - is that the game with the dysentery?

[cavalier973]

The very one.

[cavalier973]

"I made it to the plane of fire before drowning in lava because I took off my ring of levitation to eat a corpse...To be fair, that was an extremely stupid mistake on my part. I had plenty of food in my pack, but I wanted to eat a fire giant to gain some more intrinsic strength that I didn't even really need."