Tower of Babel Forum

Artinum · Zapper Beiträge: 184

Zitat: Fawlty

I could not find a fitting translation for nonce...

Basically, "the nonce" means "now". Its literal translation and origin both escape me.

As for old games, permit me to go back a computer to my Atari 65XE. I had some wonderful games on there, the best of which was probably Rescue on Fractalus. Fly across the yellow skies and jagged peaks of enemy planet Fractalus, with its corrosive atmosphere and hosts of gun emplacements and suicide saucers. Rescue stranded pilots that have been shot down. Bring them back to the mothership. In the later levels, you get day and night - every nine minutes. Flying by instruments is difficult. As levels go up, something nasty sometimes happens to those stranded pilots. You'd better be sure who you're letting on board...

That was back in the days when I had bedtime at a set time of night, so I can't have been that old, and the first time I saw an alien rear up in front of my spacecraft I nearly fell off my chair. It was SCARY. Nothing these days scares me like that any more.

I also remember a bizarre game akin to chess called Archon. Two sides, supposedly balanced but with entirely different pieces, had to either wipe out the other side or control all five of the 'powerpoints'. Each side had either a wizard or sorceress, and they could cast spells. Some creatures could fly, some walked - some teleported. When you entered the same square as an enemy piece they'd battle to the death.

I have other things to do - so back to my nonce again...!

Artinum.