Sherman, set the wayback machine to 1984. The location: the Flying Buffalo Game Store in Tempe, AZ.

[thewayne]

Frightening photographs lurk under this cut....
(and really only of interest if you're an Ex- (or current) Buffalo.










You can see how badly the prints have shifted color in 20 years. I'll try some corrections later, but I don't have the time right now.

Comments

[monkeygirldiva.livejournal.com]

who or what is a "buffalo"???

*snicker*

oh... and that is yet another inspired userpic. :)

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Back around this timeframe, several of my friends and I worked for a game company called Flying Buffalo. They did play-by-mail computer-moderated games, where you would have a printout of all your units or whatever, everything you could see or spy, you'd fill in a turn sheet and mail it in, we'd collect all of them and enter them into a computer, all the turns would process simultaneously, and produce new printouts.

We also published Tunnels & Trolls, a role-playing game along the lines of Dungeons & Dragons, but much simpler to play. You only needed one rulebook to play T&T as opposed to who knows how many dozen for D&D. They also pioneered the concept of the Solo Dungeon where you could run your character through an adventure by yourself, just you, your character sheet, the solo book, and a handful of dice.

So basically, eventually most of us left Buffalo. At a science fiction convention a few years later, we had a big party and the resident artist made a badge that said Ex-Buffalos. And the rest, as they say, is history. I still have my badge somewhere, perhaps I'll scan it some day.

[magic-rat.livejournal.com]

What, no picture of me?

Aiee, everyone looks so young! Have you emailed copies of these photos to Patty and Dave?

[donkey-hokey.livejournal.com]

You don't need to be a Buffalo to get a nostalgic headtrip rush from old pictures of gaming groups. :)

[nausicaa1.livejournal.com]

wow, what excellent photos! looks like you guys are playing "Diplomacy" in the next-to-last pic. It's weird to see the original Pepsi logo. Ah, memories, even though I was 10 years old in 1984....

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

It's possible that I have more pix, I don't remember how many I shot. For that matter, I don't remember shooting these! I do know exactly what the equipment was: my black body Pentax MX with a Sigma 16mm fisheye lens. A fisheye would be the only thing that would produce that much coverage and that much linear distortion.

[deborak]

You gonna name names on these?

[deborak]

I was pretty sure that was Bill sitting next to Prep, and he confirms it. He remembers this as being some kind of big crossover campaign that Jason and Tim were running

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I just forwarded the URL to Dave & Patty....

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

In the first photo, the guy opposite Bill is Dave Pettit, the owner of The Game Depot. Tim McCausland is standing in the Trolls shirt.

Second pic, the big guy is Clif Baird, now deceased.

I remember the guy in the red sweater, but no idea what his name is. And I'm pretty much blank on all the rest.

And I don't know what Bill is halucinating about these days, but that's a board game in play, not an RPG. :-)

[magic-rat.livejournal.com]

I think it's a general boardgaming night. Bill, Tim, Dave, Preppy, et al are playing what I think is Third Reich (it's not Diplomacy since this map has more of North Africa as well as some tracks on the side that IIRC were used for BRPs). And the game in the other picture is Rail Baron (the one that Cliff is playing).

[magic-rat.livejournal.com]

Hey, take it easy on Bill. Not all of us can be as old as he is. :-P

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

I don't know what the game was, but I'm pretty sure it wasn't Dippy. The open box says Spies, but I don't recall what that game was like as I'm pretty sure I've never played it. I'm not a big fan of "big" games, I definitely prefer beer & pretzel gaming, though I'm occasionally good for big games. I guess I'm a gaming lightweight. :-)

'84? I was 21 or 22. It was my second job out of highschool, I was originally hired to type in several boxfulls of people wanting to be on Buffalo's commercial mailing list. It was a pretty cool environment to work in, aside from frequent plumbing problems and the occasional electrical fire.

The frightening thing was the computers that we had. We had a Raytheon mini-computer that had 32K (as in KILOBYTES) memory that was magnetic core, if the computer crashed you'd turn it off and stick a 3' long 2x2 in a certain piece of the frame, then whack said board with a hammer a few times to re-randomize the memory. Then reload the operating system, load the game that you were going to run, and off you went! We had a couple of Northstar CP/M computers, and later a TRS-80 Model III.

from Rick - "Mr Buffalo"

[(Anonymous)]

The guy in the red sweater is Rick Barr. He works at the Office Max two blocks from my house! And hitting the computer with the 2x2 was not to rerandomize the memory. It was because we thought the memory board wasn't seated properly. Later we figured out that the problem was that it was overheating, and when we opened the front to whack it with the 2x2, that allowed it to cool off enough to start working again. Don't forget that all our "mass storage" was black paper tape with holes punched in it! Those were the days, eh?
Rick Loomis

Re: from Rick - "Mr Buffalo"

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Ah! I didn't know that was the reason that Theo got banged upon! Live and learn, eh? I remember that paper tape quite well, I enjoyed working with it. And I remember the sheer hell of a game data tape getting wrinkled or a crease.

FBI pix

[(Anonymous)]

Great pix, Wayne. Post all you can find, please. Great to see objective confirmation that those days happened. But where's my pinball machine--the one that Crompton owns now. All those pix and you didn't get a single shot of it?
--Ken St. Andre

[(Anonymous)]

Can't be me... I see no mustache on that upper lip and I don't think I've ever had a beard and no mustache!

Gnarl aka Preppie

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Deny all you want, Dave. That is definitely Preppy sitting next to Bill. :-)

Richard (not Loomis)

[(Anonymous)]

Don't forget that the most important piece of equipment was that old clothes pin! It was strong enough to keep the paper punch tape on, but loose enough that the spindle still turned...

Was it really that yellow in the 80s?

[(Anonymous)]

I was really hoping to see a picture of young KStA there so I could prove to myself that the Trollgod was once a strapping young laddie, but oh well, I guess I'll keep on believing he is an immortal old wise man on the top of the mountain. :) -Ben / http://xanga.com/bassaf

Re: Was it really that yellow in the 80s?

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

Ken has never been young, he was born in his 50's. :-)

Actually, Ken was not a regular at Buffalo in that incarnation (there's been 3 or 4 incarnations of Flying Buffalo, the one pictured was the incarnation prior to its current existance at Rick Loomis' house.

Re: Was it really that yellow in the 80s?

[thewayne.livejournal.com]

(best way to see Ken is to hang out at his library) :-)

He also frequents the Phoenix SF/F & gaming conventions.