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Among the few GIF files I saved in the early 1990s (outside of those uploaded to by BBS), this warm, inviting Christmas scene remains one of my favorites.

In the image, we see a living room with a roaring fireplace bedecked with four Christmas stockings, a richly ornamented Christmas tree presiding over a large pile of presents, and a holly wreath over the mantle. Two candles flickering above the fireplace add an extra detail that completes the picture of a perfect holiday scene.

As the years have passed, I have forgotten where I acquired this GIF file, labeled XMASTR.GIF. I revisit this image every now and then, and I always wonder about its origins. Now is as good a time as any to look into them.

[ Continue reading [ Retro GIF of the Week ] Christmas Fireplace » ]

The thought occurred to me the other day that one could easy make a Christmas iMac G3. You’d simply need one Strawberry iMac and one Lime iMac. Take them apart, then swap out the colored panels to make a mixed red and green system.

Alternately, you can use the later Sage and Ruby iMacs, which feature much richer, more Christmas-like colors. But Sage and Ruby iMacs are not as common as Strawberry and Lime ones, so that might be a problem.

I haven’t actually done this myself, but I made a graphical mock-up of a Strawberry/Lime mixture that you can see above. If anybody actually makes one of these Christmas iMacs, please let me know!

It’s that time of year again: the Yuletide. In celebration, I thought I’d dredge through the VC&G archives for Christmas material and collect it all in one place. (I also did this last year, but I have updated the list of links with new material for 2012.)

Below you will find a list of everything Yule-flavored from this site and my offsite freelance work. There are a couple slideshow gems in there that you don’t want to miss, so check those out if you haven’t already.

I have a soft spot for Christmas, having been raised with the tradition, so this list is for me as much as it is for everyone else. After going through these things again, it’s amazing to see how much Christmas stuff I’ve posted over the years. I hope you enjoy it.

[ Continue reading The VC&G Christmas Collection (2012 Edition) » ]

Piracy is as easy as hitting the Enter key on your numeric keypad.

27 years ago, the industry group Association of Data Processing Service Organizations (ADAPSO) created this public service ad warning of the evils of software piracy. I’ve transcribed its text below — just so you don’t miss it.

It’s easy to make a copy.
It’s quick.
It’s illegal.
It’s wrong.

It’s hard to believe.

People who wouldn’t think of shoplifting a software product on their lunch hour don’t think twice about going back to the office and making several illegal copies of the same software.

Making unauthorized copies of software is a violation of U.S. Copyright Law. Yet, the problem has reached epidemic proportions because many people are unaware, or simply choose to ignore the law. The software industry is urging decision-makers and software users to take steps to stop software piracy in their organizations. In the meantime, the industry has been forced to prosecute willful copyright violators.

There are legal, moral and economic imperatives forbidding theft of copyrighted software.

There is a free pamphlet on the subject. Call or write for a copy. A copy. A copy. A copy for everyone you know.
Please ask for Priscilla.

ADAPSO
1300 North Seventeenth Street
Arlington, Virginia 22209
(703) 522-5055

“A copy. A copy. A copy. A copy.”

It really says that. I think it’s supposed to be a joke, albeit a very bad one.

ADAPSO changed its name to Information Technology Association Of America (ITAA) in 1991, although its supposedly current website is now owned by the International Trial Attorneys Association, so who knows if it even exists today.

Discussion Topic of the Week: What was the first piece of software you ever copied (or received a copy of) illegally?

—

See Also: Why History Needs Software Piracy (2012)
See Also: [ Retro Scan of the Week] Software Piracy (2009)
See Also: [ Retro Scan of the Week ] “What’s Wrong With Copying Software?” (2008)
See Also: Old-School PC Copy Protection Schemes (2006)
See Also: EGM Advertisement: Sell Famiclones, Go to Prison (2006)

Click to see other views of this image: [ Original Size ] [ 2X Zoom ] [ 3X Zoom ]

This eye is more than meets the eye. You probably can’t see it at this size, but click on the “3X Zoom” link above and you might notice a face and what might be a shoulder (or a six-fingered hand) reflected in the pupil of the eyeball. Neat detail.

Unlike many GIFs that circulated back in the day, this one is signed — twice, in fact. In the upper left, we see a small box containing stylized letters spelling “The Mage.” In the lower right, we see “A.H.”

I’ve seen other GIFs with the same resolution and color depth signed “A.H.”, so I assume that is the artist. “The Mage” might have been the name of a BBS that happened to tag the image, or perhaps is was simply an alias of A.H.

When combined with its 320 x 200 dimensions, its odd 5-bit / 32-color color depth reveals that this image was created on an Amiga. That means it is likely that it did not originate as a GIF file, and that it could be older than the 1992 file date. But until I find an older source of the image, I won’t know for sure.

As we speak, certain vigilante Wikipedia users are hard at work erasing whatever scraps of little-known BBS door game history that resides in Wikipedia’s databases. The first casualty in this war was the entry for Space Empire Elite, which was deleted early this morning.

(For those of you unfamiliar with BBS door games, here’s a brief definition: BBS door games are computer games, usually text-only, that were traditionally played over modems and accessed through dial-up BBSes. They are called “door games” because users pass through a figurative “doorway” from the BBS software into another program (the game program) to play them. One of the most notable examples is TradeWars 2002.)

The problem, it seems, is that the games aren’t “notable” enough and lack the sources for a Wikipedia article.

[ Continue reading Wikipedia is Deleting BBS Game History » ]

A nice place to put a Mac Plus, I think. (December 2012)

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The Empire Strikes Back is one of my favorite films of all time, so I have always cherished this particular image that someone uploaded to my BBS in the early 1990s. It depicts two AT-ATs walking through the snow in a scene recalling the Battle of Hoth from the 1980 film.

Its 16-color 640×400 format suggests a few possibilities as to its origin platform. IBM’s little-used MCGA standard (introduced in 1987) could do 640×400 at 16 colors, and so could a few “extended EGA” graphics cards on the IBM PC platform.

But so could the Amiga — in fact, 640×400 at 16 colors was its original high-end graphics mode. Since many early GIF files originated in the graphically rich culture of the Amiga (a machine well-known for its graphics capabilities), and since this file is dated 1988, and since MCGA adapters were scarce, I’d say this image most likely originated on the Amiga platform.

[ Update: 11/04/2012 – Since I originally wrote this, I’ve realized that this AT-AT image uses a 12-bit (4096) color palette (from that palette the artist could use 16 colors on screen at a time), which was unique to the Amiga platform. So this image definitely originated on an Amiga. ]

By the way, this image is actually signed by the artist. You can see a small “BMW” in the lower right corner (and we’re not talking about the German car company here). If anyone knows who BMW is, please leave a comment. That would be fascinating to find out.

Click to see other views of this image: [ Original Size ] [ 2X Zoom ]

Long ago, scanners were rare and expensive. Consumer digital cameras were mostly non-existent — and those that did exist were impractical to use or expensive.

At the same time, many users possessed computers with (relatively speaking) high-resolution bitmapped displays that craved content. In time, those machines gained color capability and could display dazzlingly beautiful works of digital art.

[ Continue reading [ Retro GIF of the Week ] Meryl Streep Stares at You » ]

As long time readers of VC&G know, I usually post short entries about my non-blog writing activities on this blog so you can enjoy them.

Recently, I’ve been so engrossed in writing Macworld articles that I have neglected to mention them. Consider that remedied with this handy digest of pieces I’ve written over the past two months for said Mac-related publication. Conveniently, they all have history angles to them (or else I wouldn’t list them here):

• 09-18-2012 – Steve Jobs’ Seven Key Decisions
• 10-12-2012 – The Five Weirdest Macs of All Time
• 10-19-2012 – Six of the Rarest Macs
• 10-26-2012 – The Land Before Macs: A Field Guide
• 11-02-2012 – The Apple Family Tree: Apple Platforms …
• 11-16-2012 – The Unexplored History of Translucent Apple Design
• 11-23-2012 – The Unusual World of Mac Prototypes

There’s more on the way, so stay tuned to see whether I neglect to mention those here as well. The excitement is palpable!