A Retrogaming Odyssey

Years and years ago, back when we were a "Radio Shack family" when it came to computers and, convinced that pretty much all computers more or less just used black, white, blue, and red (the latter two just "artifact colours" to boot, the way a tweed suit might "shimmer" on an old TV) for their graphics, I was more than content in an unconscious sort of way with that, one of the Color Computer games we had on our anonymous collection of floppy diskettes was called "Androne."

Your computer has been invaded by Data Bugs. Call on Androne, a user-controlled robot to hunt through your memory banks and "de-bug" them.
(from Radio Shack computer catalog RSC-12)

It was, I suppose, a mid-1980s-vintage take on the "first-person shooter," which involved steering step-by-step through a maze (with Pac-Man like markers on the passage floors you hadn't already been down), shooting down flying eye things on the way to zapping Maltese cross-like targets. I might not have played that game any more than any of the other games we had, but what might have made it catch in my mind was that one day, the diskette it was on just wouldn't load any more. That might, perhaps, have been the sort of small loss that sticks just because it is so trivial.
( Hurtling up to the present... )