[elbelcho]

I have very similar feelings. My dad worked at a steel mill and was friends with a 'computer guy' at the mill who gave him a copy of SQ2 for me to play at home. I played that game relentlessly but was pretty young so I was confused by a lot of it.

Anytime I was really stuck, I would ask dad to ask the 'computer guy' how to get past a certain point and I seem to remember he would kindly provide hints, but not outright solutions.

It's probably been 35 years since, but I even remember with some detail a dream I had related to that game. It really had a big impact on me.

[rikthevik]

I'm not sure how my dad (Mechanical Engineer) would have figured this out, but I think he ran the DOS equivalent of `strings(1)` to dump the list of strings in old Sierra games (I want to say KQIV), to find hints about what might be possible. I wonder if he remembers. It was probably much cheaper than whatever Sierra hint hotline I wanted to call at the time.