Perfect Year To Be Born Into Geekdom
Raph Koster explains that the perfect year to born into Geekdom is 1971. In his words: “It meant I got to see Star Wars in the theater, 13 times, at age 8 and 9, exactly when it would overwhelm my sense of wonder. I got an 8-bit computer at exactly the age when boys get obsessive about details, and I spent days PEEKing and POKEing and typing in listings from magazines and learning how computers actually worked. It meant at least half the new games I played were actually new ideas. And yet I got to play real pinball machines. In real arcades. New Wave science fiction was the used paperbacks laying around, and I got to read cyberpunk and steampunk as they were invented, and see SF when fandom was not yet a media circus. And, I got to play D&D from as close to the beginning as most anyone.” Did he just admit to playing D & D? I like Raph already! I may be able to admit that to my co-workers in Ann Arbor web design, now. I feel emboldened! And, yes, I was born in 1971.