Tag Archives: edutainment

Videos

Atari A to Z: Typo Attack

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Want to practice your typing skills? There were a bunch of different ways to do that back in the Atari 8-bit era, with one of the most fun being Typo Attack.

Typo Attack is one of several success stories that stemmed from the Atari Program Exchange, where independent, amateur developers could submit their work to Atari, who would publish and distribute it and pay the creators royalties. In several cases, the creators of APX titles went on to become full-time Atari employees — or, at the very least, their games became “official” releases.

Typo Attack is an example of the latter. Enjoy the video below, and don’t forget to subscribe on YouTube for more!

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Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari ST A to Z: Donald Duck’s Playground

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Growing up, I always had a certain resistance to explicitly educational games; I would much rather have been blasting aliens than doing maths problems.

However, if you were to cunningly disguise those educational components as a Sierra adventure game I would, of course, be well and truly on board. The folly of youth.

Enter Donald Duck’s Playground, then, second of the Disney/Sierra crossovers to be put together by Al “Leisure Suit Larry” Lowe, and proof if proof were needed that Sierra’s AGI engine wasn’t quite suitable for every type of game…

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Atari A to Z, Videos

Atari A to Z: Interval

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Ever since the early days of computing, programmers have been finding ways to develop educational software for a variety of purposes.

One such programmer was Douglas Crockford, who was a particular fan of experimenting with the Atari 8-bit’s sound capabilities. One such experiment led to the creation of Interval, a piece of software designed to help you train your aural skills — whether you’re a musician, a teacher or simply someone with an interest in musical theory.

This is actually a really solid program that can still be of use to music teachers in the 21st Century — though quite how many still have an Atari 8-bit in their teaching space I have no idea…

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One-Shots, Videos

Pete Plays Dragon World: The Real Treasure is Love

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And now the epic conclusion of the Dragon World saga!

Back when we played this in the classroom, you were doing really well if you made it to Part 2, which wouldn’t allow you to even start playing without a password. (“ogweb”, if you’re too lazy to deal with Part 1’s nonsense)

Part 2 takes you on a surprisingly unforgiving treasure hunt through the aptly-named Town of Treasures… so let’s see if we can find something to make all dragonkind happy!

Continue reading Pete Plays Dragon World: The Real Treasure is Love →

One-Shots, Videos

Pete Plays Dragon World: A Friday Night Well-Spent

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If you’re British and of a certain age, you probably have… well, if not fond memories of the BBC Micro, then certainly memories of it.

A fixture in classrooms across the whole nation, the BBC Micro played host to a variety of software packages, many of which were specifically designed to be used in the classroom.

One specialist of such software was 4Mation, best known for a funny little quasi-educational adventure called Granny’s Garden. But I have much more vivid memories of one of their lesser-known works…

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