The Decline Of The Family Computer

During a discussion in the Retronaut podcast episode on Duke Nukem 3D, the podcast hosts and invitees thought back to the first time they came in contact with the Duke. Most of them first played the shareware edition—something that Apogee and 3D Realms made very good use of—on the family computer. Intrigued by those two words, I started thinking: what’s a family computer? It’s certainly not Nintendo’s Famicom even though that indeed correctly abbreviates the words. No, the computer wasn’t a console you’d hook onto your television set: it was a separate piece of furniture placed somewhere centrally in the house for all family members to access. More importantly, it was the only computer in the house. That thought bears repeating: the only computational machine with a central processing unit, dedicated memory, expansion slots, and a (very) heavy monitor in the house. How many computers do you have lying around in yours now? We have 2 personal laptops, 1 old but still functioning one, 2…