A long, long time ago, likely before crawkill was even born, in the year MCMLXXXVI to be exact, there was a game that was released called Might & Magic Book One: The Secret of the Inner Sanctum, for Apple ][ and other formats.
This game was presented in a very large (by today's standards) game box, measuring some 9 inches wide by about 11 inches long, had a large spiral-bound manual with sleeves to hold the 5.25" installation diskettes, and contained other miscellaneous goodies as well. This was in an era long before the internet, long before the notion of digital downloads, obviously, but it was not uncommon to see games presented in this way back then.
A few months ago, some 28 years later, I somehow came across the manual for this game, which had laid buried in some storage box I had completely forgotten about. Holding in my hand this relic of computer gaming, this veritable artifact of my youth, felt surreal. It was nearly a religious experience. Leafing through its pages once again, admiring its hand-drawn artwork as if I were a kid again, reveling in its classic old-school feel, I almost got the same pleasure that I had the day that I bought the game, all those years ago, and I was glad. It made me genuinely happy.
I cannot actually play this game anymore, since I no longer own an Apple ][. There really would be no desire to do so because as we all know reminiscing about the old classics is sometimes much better than forcing them to resurrect themselves in their decrepit old 4-color graphics again -- they're often just better off locked away in our secure and treasured flesh-based memory banks.
But the joy that I experienced in holding that manual again, the momentary bliss I felt being transported back nearly three decades to a simpler time, to a more wondrous time, was rapturous. Somehow I don't think I'll ever be able to get that same feeling with some Steam app in another thirty years, assuming I live that long...
![[IMG]](http://lparchive.org/Might-and-Magic/Update%201/1-MM1-0000.jpg)
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