“This product is not intended for the unlawful copying of copywrited material.”

Rewritable CD-RW discs seemed like a good idea when CD-Rs (which could only be written once) still cost $10 a piece. But as the price of CD-Rs fell to pennies per disc over the course of about five years, the CD-RW format’s popularity quickly faded.

Discussion Topic of the Week: When did you burn your first CD-R or CD-RW? How did you feel when you did it? What did you write to the disc?

“System Requirements: 48k Atari, 1 disk drive, modem”

You’re looking at an ad for what may have been the world’s first multiplayer graphical online gaming service, Games Computers Play (1985). It may also have been the world’s first graphical multi-user environment, as it predated the Lucasfilm Habitat beta test for the C64 (1986) by six months or more.

I don’t know else much about this Atari 8-bit-only service beside what can be gleaned from the advertisement above, a 1985 article in Antic magazine, and this thread over at AtariAge.

One of the posters in the forum thread linked above mentioned that he/she found the creators of the service, whom I’d love to talk to myself. I’m trying to get in touch with that poster, but if anyone knows anything about this service (including info about who created it) or has stories to share, please email me here.

[Update – I did get in touch with one of the creators of this service. More info to follow. ]

Discussion Topic of the Week: What was the first game you played with another human (or humans) over a modem?

PC World recently published “A Brief History of Computer Displays,” one of my most recent slideshow works and the latest in my “Evolution” series. The piece traces computer display devices from blinking lights, to paper tape, to terminals, and beyond.

Special thanks to Steve Wozniak and Lee Felsenstein for help with a certain segment of computer display history — the era when computers shifted from serial terminals IO to directly outputting a video signal. Our conversations were exciting stuff that I’ll explore further in future articles.

I hope you enjoy it. When you’re done reading, come back over and tell us what your first computer display/monitor was like.

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Previous entries in Benj’s “Evolution of…” series:
The Evolution of Video Game Media
The Evolution of Removable Storage
The Evolution of The Cell Phone

Shades of Tasha Yar

If you were shopping for a home PC in 1984, you were bound to face this decision: should I get an Apple IIc or the flashy new IBM PCjr?

From late 1983 to early 1984, the press hyped the PCjr to absurd proportions, which set IBM’s consumer machine up for a mighty fall not too long after its introduction (IBM withdrew it from the market within a year of its release). The Apple IIc, on the other hand, was one of Apple’s more successful products of the era. Apple won the battle, but IBM won the war with the PC line overall.

(…or did they?)

Discussion Topic of the Week: It’s 1984, and you can only buy one computer: an IBM PCjr or an Apple IIc. Which one will you choose and why?

If you like my regular VC&G series of Halloween costume ideas, then you might enjoy this piece I just whipped up for PCMag, titled “12 Last-Minute Tech Halloween Costume Ideas.” Readers seeking practical costume ideas may be disappointed, but readers expecting boatloads of Benj-style Halloween humor will hit the jackpot. Or at least I hope so.

Happy Halloween!

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Here’s a list of the VC&G Halloween Costume Ideas articles:

2010 Video Game Edition
2009 Video Game Edition
2008 Video Game Edition
2007 Video Game Edition
2006 Video Game Edition
2006 Computer Edition

Recently, Macworld asked me to write something about the rare and mysterious Macintosh TV (1993) to tie in with the launch of the 2nd generation Apple TV. So I did, and you can read the result over at Macworld.com today. Here’s the teaser text from the site:

Apple’s recent overhaul of the Apple TV has pundits scrambling to analyze and dissect the company’s renewed push into the living room. Judging from all the excitement, you might think “Apple + TV” was something unique to the 21st century. Not true. Benj Edwards revisits Apple’s first foray into TV-computer integration, circa 1993.

Hope you enjoy it.

Does anyone out there own (or formerly own) a Macintosh TV? If so, I’d love to hear about your experiences with it in the comments below.

All telephones should look like this. (click above for full scan)

It’s the Rolm Cedar — a combination PC/Telephone with 512K memory, a 9″ monitor, dual 5.25″ floppy drives, and MS-DOS 2.11. I’m not sure if this unit ever went into production, but I want one! (It also came with a keyboard, not pictured.)

Click the image above see the full text from this product’s January 1985 “What’s New” introduction in Byte Magazine.

Discussion Topic of the Week: What’s the weirdest computer you’ve ever used?

I’ve been working too hard and my brain feels like a block of sand (whatever that means), but I need to share this link with you before I collapse.

Just today, PCMag published my latest piece for them, a slideshow of 12 “forgotten” online games that you can still play. It’s mostly composed of intriguing telnet classics, although a few ancient, overlooked MMOs show up on the list as well.

I hope you enjoy it. If you do, please spread word of it far and wide. Leave no door unknocked; no word of slideshow evangelism unsaid. Tattoos — lots of tattoos. If you succeed, there will be more to come.

“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?

10 years ago today, Apple released the Mac OS X Public Beta. It was the general public’s first chance to experience the new OS and the commercial debut of the software (a previous release, confusingly named “OS X Server,” was based on a pre-OS X prototype called Rhapsody).

The Public Beta sold for $29.95, and Apple offered that amount off the purchase of OS X 10.0 for those who bought the Beta.

I’ve always been a fan of OS X, and this anniversary got me wondering how development on this very innovative OS started. After some digging, I wrote a brief history on the origins of OS X for Macworld. I was fortunate to have the help of Avie Tevanian, former VP of Software Engineering at Apple (1997-2006), as a reference to help me get some points straight.

While I was at it, I also wrote a shorter piece about some of the differences between the Public Beta and Snow Leopard (the most recent version of OS X).

What are your thoughts on OS X? Do you use it? Did you use it? Let us know in the comments.