In the lobby of the Firaxis office, there is an old leather chair and an outdated PC with a CRT monitor in classic white color from the 1980s and 1990s. It’s not just an antique, but an important part of gaming history.
More than 30 years ago, Sid Meyer, sitting in this very chair in front of this very computer, created the first Civilization game, which was released in 1991. It’s an ompaq Deskpro 386, which Firaxis Training and Development Manager Pete Murray says cost $10,000 when it was purchased. That’s roughly more than $23,000 in today’s money. Given the success of the classic strategy series, it was a good investment.
Firaxis does not have a complete list of specifications, but some are known. The computer would have had 640 KB of RAM (which we know, thanks to Bill Gates, should be enough for everyone) — this was the architectural limitation of IBM-compatible PCs at the time. Murray says that this machine has 16 MB of memory — obviously because of the optional expansion. It is not clear how big the PC’s hard disk is.
The computer also has a Sound Blaster audio card (which gave a second name to this type of computer component). This was the kind of equipment that could be purchased for a similar amount of money at the time. With the help of some parts from Ebay and «creative recovery» the IT department at Firaxis was able to boot up the PC last year.
«The hard drive is nearing the end of its life, but if you start it up, there’s a Civilization 1 build that precedes the release, and you can play it on that machine,» Murray says.
As for the leather chair, it was probably the idea of Sid Meyer’s partner, Bill Steely. The first Civilization was designed and published not by Firaxis, which did not yet exist, but by MicroProse, which Meyer co-founded with Steeley in 1982.
Source: PC Gamer
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