“PROCOMM PLUS: Totally Connected”

I used Procomm Plus for DOS during my early years of BBSing, although I called it “PC Plus” because of its shortened executable file name, “PCPLUS.EXE”. I never did migrate to Procomm Plus for Windows, although I remember salivating over it in a software store back when anything and everything modem-related exciting me.

“Terminal” for Windows 3.1 left a bad taste in my mouth, so I didn’t use a GUI-based terminal emulator steadily until the Windows 98 era. After using PC Plus for a few years, I switched to Telix (essentially a PC Plus clone), and one my friends swore by Telemate, which touted some advanced features for a DOS terminal program.

Ah; those were the days.

I’d be interested to hear about your terminal software experiences on all platforms. Hit me up in the comments below.

(P.S. If you’re interested in BBSing again, telnet to my BBS at cavebbs.homeip.net.)

Discussion Topic of the Week: What’s your favorite terminal emulation software of all time?

“Press <CR> for more”

For my sixth grade social studies class, I wrote a report on Mikhail Gorbachev, former President of the Soviet Union. And he really was “former” then — the USSR had fallen apart just two years prior to my report in 1991. For that report — which I ran across recently — I used every resource available to me, including a novel one at the time: Grolier’s Encyclopedia on CompuServe Information Service. My family subscribed to CompuServe — that massive, pre-ubiquitous-Internet dial-up service that cost amazingly large fees an hour — and I loved it.

What you see above is part of the Gorbachev encyclopedia entry in the form of a dot-matrix printout from the DOS version of CompuServe Information Manager (a front-end client for CompuServe) that I printed myself. Various lines are crossed out and underlined, noting areas of interest that I was to paraphrase for the report. This wasn’t plagiarism — I even cited the online encyclopedia in my report’s bibliography. That fact is actually kinda impressive to me in retrospect.

CompuServe’s online encyclopedia was amazing at the time (1992-1993 era). It was so easy to just search for a term, look it up, and print it out. It sure beat our family’s musty 1968 World Book Encyclopedia set that I used for every report prior to this one (yes, the information in my reports was often woefully out of date). For Christmas 1993, my dad bought us Microsoft Encarta on CD-ROM, and that served as the meat of my school reports for the next few years after that. But that’s another story entirely.

Discussion Topic of the Week: When did you first use an electronic encyclopedia — CD-ROM or otherwise? What did you use it for?

Apparently Paul Revere owned a secret power plant in 1775.

Discussion Topic of the Week: How fast was your first modem? What year did you get it?

The original touch-screen game system.

Pop quiz: which video game console first featured a touch screen? (Hint: It’s not the Nintendo DS.) How about this one: Which handheld console first supported Internet connectivity?

Believe it or not, Tiger Electronics — a toy company famed for its cheap electronic games — came in first on both counts with the Game.com in 1997. (Sega Saturn was the first home console to support Internet in 1996).

I was a Game.com early adopter, having bought one close to its release. The wonder of its primitive touch screen alone seemed to make up for its deficiencies at the time, so I was pleased at first. The unit shipped with a built-in version of Klondike Solitaire and a Lights Out game cartridge, both of which showed off the system’s touch capabilities well. But my infatuation with the Game.com turned out to be brief.

[ Continue reading [ Retro Scan of the Week ] Tiger Game.com » ]

Jason Scott is a singular fellow. He’s the man behind the BBS Documentary, the upcoming Get Lamp documentary (on text adventure games), and creator of textfiles.com. He also spearheaded a recent attempt to archive all of Geocities before Yahoo took it down recently.

This fellow historian, friend of VC&G, and archivist extraordinaire recently lost his long-time job as a system administrator. Like many who have found themselves unemployed recently, the situation inspired a little soul-searching from Scott, who realized his stressful years as a system administrator had worn down his health.

Something important dawned on him: he already spent so much of his spare time and money on his main passion — preserving and documenting computer history — why not try to do that full time?

That’s where the Jason Scott Sabbatical fund at Kickstarter.com comes in. Scott is seeking donations from people around to globe to fund a 3-4 month sabbatical wherein he can focus on his history and archiving work full time. So far, hundreds of people have chipped in (including myself), but he still needs more donations to push him over top of the hill.

I can honestly say there’s no one else out there like Jason Scott, and we will likely never see another single individual so fiercely (and I mean fiercely) dedicated to preserving the overlooked backwaters and forgotten alleys of our digital history. Scott’s goal is a worthy one, and he does monumentally important work that future historians will thank him for.

This sabbatical concept via Kickstarter is a somewhat radical idea, I know. Some of you will have doubts about it — for example, if he will spend the money properly. But I don’t fear that outcome: that’s for Jason Scott to sort out, and for his own conscience to live with.

If you contribute a modest amount, you have little to lose. If he blows the cash, so what? But if you contribute and Scott does what he promises to do, I predict that history will have a lot to gain — not only in terms of added, productive years on Jason Scott’s life, but in countless terabytes of priceless historical data that will serve as the foundation of our ancestors’ understanding of the past.

As a historian, I need Jason Scott to continue his work. As a human with a responsibility to the legacy of your species, you need Jason Scott to do his work. Please consider helping him out.

In early June, I conducted a lengthy telephone interview with Scott Miller, founder of Apogee Software (now known as 3D Realms). Today, the interview is up on Gamasutra. This is sort of a companion interview to my earlier talk with Tim Sweeney of Epic Games (another shareware heavyweight), although both stand alone quite well.

Apogee is best known for publishing dozens of episodic shareware games, including Kingdom of Kroz, Duke Nukem, the Commander Keen Series, Wolfenstein 3D, and Rise of the Triad. The company later changed its name to 3D Realms and scored a monster hit with Duke Nukem 3D.

Through Apogee, Miller revitalized and dominated the shareware game industry, invented episodic gaming, pioneered the use of the freely distributable game demo, and provided the spark that inspired id Software’s founding.

During the interview, Scott and I went through his early days in programming, the founding of Apogee, the transition from simple shareware to 3D games, his interactions with id Software, his thoughts on shareware game competition in the early 1990s (including Epic MegaGames and Tim Sweeney), and much more. If you’re a fan of BBS or shareware history, you won’t want to miss it.

Giving Shareware the Attention It Deserves

The concept of shareware has for too long been seen as the red-headed stepchild of the computer game industry. It has oft been relegated to the metaphorical back pages and footnotes of the history books — if it shows up at all — and frequently looked down upon by “serious” publishers who never deigned to give away any version of their work for free (until Apogee came along, anyway). I’d like to change that, and I’m hoping that my recent interviews with Miller and Sweeney will lay the foundation for a deeper understanding of shareware’s importance for future generations.

Although it might be a philosophy whose place in the sun has come and gone, shareware has not been an idea without merit or influence. As you’re about to read, the story of Scott Miller, his partner George Broussard, and their company firmly prove otherwise.

MegaWars: “The Ultimate Computer Conflict”

I betcha Neil Armstrong didn’t do this while he was on the moon.

…or did he?

P.S. You can read more about MegaWars, an early online multiplayer computer game, here.

Discussion topic of the week: If you were a half naked combat-astronaut on an artificial planetoid, what would you do for fun?

Resistance is futile. (click for full advertisement)

Long-time readers of VC&G may recall me talking about my adventures on CompuServe from time to time. Needless to say, they never looked like this. But I did have a few nightmares featuring enormous floating hive-mind spaceships hooked up to my computer when I was 12.

On second thought, maybe this thing is the machine God uses to create snow — if snow indeed exists.

Discussion topic of the week: Star Trek or Star Wars? Better yet: Han Solo vs. William T. Riker in a knife fight — who would win?

If you use this image on your site, please support “Retro Scan of the Week” by giving us obvious credit for the original scan and entry. Thanks.

The Man with the Golden Gun

I spent more hours on CompuServe in the early 1990s than I probably should have — considering it cost something like $4.80 (US) an hour. But of all the commercial online services at the time, CompuServe’s combination of history (it had been running since 1969), depth, and variety blew the others out of the water. I scanned this particular ad from CompuServe Magazine, which — believe it or not — was one of my favorite magazines back then. Ah, the good ‘ole days.

I’m guessing that CompuServe actually found a member named “James Bond” and got him to pose for this advertisement. He may look harmless, but that gun is filled with instant death acid; it’s one of Q’s new toys.

Discussion topic of the week: Did you ever use a commercial online service such as CompuServe, Prodigy, AOL, Delphi, or Q-Link? Share your memories and your favorites below.

If you use this image on your site, please support “Retro Scan of the Week” by giving us obvious credit for the original scan and entry. Thanks.

An excellent source of FDA Certified non-GMO 100% organic, free-range people.

Tired of trouncing lifeless, boring computer chips in your games? Then you’ve come to the right place. Here at GEnie, our entire subscriber base is clinically insane and writes exclusively in crayon. Signing up is easy. Here’s how:

1. Set your modem for half duplex (local echo) at 300, 1200, or 2400 baud.

2. Dial toll free — 1-800-638-8369. Upon connection, enter HHH.

3. At the U # = prompt, enter XTX99316, VideoG92 then press RETURN.

4. Have a major credit card or your checking account number ready.

Make sure you get step #3 exactly right, or you might end up one kidney short after accidentally subscribing to Nigerian Cyber Exchange.

Discussion topic of the week: When was the first time you played a computer game over a modem or computer network? Describe your experience.

If you use this image on your site, please support “Retro Scan of the Week” by giving us obvious credit for the original scan and entry. Thanks.