A while back, I paid a visit to The Cave and Arcade Archive, a pair of wonderful interactive retro tech museums run by YouTubers Neil Thomas, Alex Crowley and a gaggle of volunteers and assistants.

Between the two museums, you can get your hands on a variety of old computers, consoles and arcade games, pretty much all of which are in full working order, and have a tinker with them, as well as browsing an extensive library of old magazines, admiring the ambience of a lovingly recreated retro game “shop” (where you can even scan the barcodes on the boxes and play the games on a MiSTer) and investigating some lovely rarities.

One thing struck me as I was wandering around: although The Cave specifically positions itself as a museum of classic computers and consoles, the focus is very much on games. And there’s a very good reason for that. Let’s ponder exactly why.

When I was growing up, we used to subscribe to an Atari-centric magazine known as Page 6 (later New Atari User, after it merged with a publication that was otherwise wrapping up). One of the points that the Editor, Les Ellingham, repeatedly liked to make in the magazine is that computers are far more than just games machines.

Particularly in the 8-bit microcomputer era, it was almost expected that anyone who owned a computer would use it for things other than just games: one could use it for personal productivity such as word processing and accounts; one could learn to program using the built-in BASIC programming language; one could develop their artistic skills using creative packages. Or, indeed, one could do any combination of the above, which is the approach most microcomputer users ended up taking.

And yet a good 40 years after these machines were current, the one thing that has survived and endured more than any other aspect is the part that was often played down in favour of more “serious” uses: the ability to play games on them. Every machine in The Cave is set up to play games, usually via some sort of mass-storage solution, providing easy access to complete (or at least massive) libraries of software for people to try their hand at and explore — or perhaps rediscover if they used to use these machines back in the day.

Why is this? Well, it’s pretty simple, really: games are the clearest, easiest way to demonstrate the capabilities of these systems. Games are the pieces of software most likely to demonstrate each platform’s unique graphics and sound capabilities; games are often where the most creative, inventive programmers managed to push these systems well beyond what anyone thought they might be capable of; games are the most straightforward and accessible means of interacting with these machines.

I’m sure someone, somewhere, would probably find it interesting to compare the approaches to spreadsheet and database software from over the years, but that sort of thing doesn’t make for a particularly compelling museum display. There’s perhaps an argument to be made for creative software such as art, animation and music packages being a good demonstration of a machine’s capabilities, but those often have a bit of a learning curve before one is truly able to get the best out of them.

A game, though. You boot that up and, in most cases, things are relatively self-explanatory — particularly when we’re talking about early microcomputers, whose games tended to be fairly straightforward. You can sit down and have fun with a game straight away, and in an environment like The Cave, which has a variety of machines on which to play, you can even compare how different devices perform, sometimes even using the same game as a point of direct comparison.

This also highlights something from the classic age of microcomputers that we’ve all but lost today: the way in which different platforms were genuinely unique in terms of their capabilities. In the 8-bit era in particular, Spectrum, Commodore 64, Atari 8-bit and Amstrad games were all immediately recognisable via one means or another; playground arguments naturally raged about which one was “best”, but the only real fact of the matter is that they were all unique. This continued with home consoles, too; the Mega Drive and SNES are immediately distinguishable from one another, and few would mix up the N64’s distinctive fuzz with the PS1’s bendy textures.

Compare and contrast with today, in which there’s not a lot to distinguish a Windows PC, Mac, Linux box, PlayStation 5, Xbox whateveritscalled or Nintendo Switch beyond raw power and operating system conventions. In fact, the only real distinguishing factor these days is in the software that is available for each platform — a convention that is slowly eroding due to both Sony and Microsoft starting to release their first-party titles on other systems. Eventually — particularly if we ever end up going “all-digital”, as has been threatened for about the last 15 years or so — there will be little to no reason to buy “a console” beyond a handful of games you can’t get anywhere else. And that will be a bit sad to see.

This is one of the reasons that retro computing and gaming in particular holds such powerful sway over people of a certain age. Because each system had such a distinctive look and feel to it, both in terms of what appeared on the screen and the physical way in which you interacted with it, it’s easy to go “back to your childhood” and re-experience things that were once important to you.

And, chances are, those things that stuck in your memory the most from days of computing past will not be the time you did the household accounts on a completely text-based spreadsheet, or the essay you wrote on a word processor incapable of exactly replicating what it would look like when you printed it out, but rather the games you played to wind down of an evening.

The Millipedes you blasted in frustration at the men of the household (hi Mum). The adventures you went on in lieu of living anywhere the slightest bit exciting. The flights you took over rough approximations of scenery you’d seen in real life… or had always wanted to see. And the wonderful interactive fantasies that you’d never be able to experience in reality.

Those are the things that remain special and relevant, even years or decades after you last experienced them. And that is why video games will always be important, not just to the history of technology, but to culture in general. Treasure those experiences… and make a point of revisiting them now and then.

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Find out more about The Cave and Arcade Archive, and book a visit, here.

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