“Read/Write 720K Disks Too”

Nothing illustrates the frenetic pace of technological change like past/present price comparisons. As seen in this group ad by JDR Microdevices, a 1.44MB 3.5″ floppy disk drive sold for US $99.95 in 1990 ($164.69 in 2009 dollars). But that’s just for the generic model — for a name brand Misubishi, you had to pay $129.95 ($214.12 in 2009).

That’s quite a price for a now-obsolete commodity device that sells for $7.99 today (or $4.85 in 1990 dollars, interestingly enough). Of course, in 1990, a high density drive like this was cutting-edge.

As an aside, notice that the 3.5″ floppy drive pictured occupies a 5.25″ half-height form factor. That shows you how old this is — at the time, most owners slid 3.5″ upgrade drives into computer cases that only shipped with 5.25″ half-height bays (this bay size commonly holds desktop DVD-R drives today). To do so, many 3.5″ floppy drives needed a special face plate and brackets to fill the gaps between the smaller drive and the larger bay around it.

Discussion topic of the week: What’s the most you’ve ever paid for a computer peripheral or upgrade component?

Finally. A respectable computer. Took long enough.

The Compucolor II was one of the world’s first personal computers with color display capabilities. It’s now quite rare. Does anybody out there have one that they don’t want?

Discussion topic of the week: Have you ever regularly used a computer without a color display? If so, tell us about it.

Click above for the full advertisement.

Just your typical late-1970s scene — a poofy-haired car salesman at home in a tie with a huge sandwich, a glass of milk, a large set of keys, a generic S-100 bus computer with a TV terminal, and a book called “Trout” behind him.

He likes to fish.

Of course, the whole purpose of this scene is to push the use of “genuine” Shugart mini-floppies in the home. Shugart, if you didn’t know, invented the mini-floppy. And mini-floppies, if you didn’t know, are commonly known as 5 1/4″ diskettes today. They replaced the giant 8″ clown disks people used before that (read your comments about 8″ floppies here). Sadly, these smaller disks held less data at the time, but that was a small price to pay for not knocking over your friends while swapping storage media.

Discussion topic of the week: Do you still use 5 1/4″ floppies to store new or recent data? If so, what are you using them for?

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?

Forty years ago today, man set foot on the moon for the first time. To celebrate the anniversary, I decided to take a look at the history of that old computer game stalwart, Lunar Lander.

Much to my surprise, I soon discovered that Lunar Lander itself turns 40 this year as well: a few months after Armstrong’s first stroll on the moon, a high school student named Jim Storer wrote the first version — all text — on a DEC PDP-8 computer. Yep, in 1969.

Up today on Technologizer is the world’s first in-depth history of Lunar Lander, one of the earliest computer games ever written. The article tells the story of the first text version, the first graphical version for the DEC GT40, and Atari’s 1979 arcade game of the same title (now turning 30, interestingly enough) through information from the men who created them. It then examines notable versions of Lunar Lander through the years, bringing us up to the present.

I’d especially like to thank Jim Storer, Jack Burness, Howard Delman, and David Ahl for their help in writing my article. I couldn’t have done it without them.

So without further ado, here’s the history of Lunar Lander. I hope you enjoy it.

“Do You Believe in Magic?”

Discussion topic of the week: Commodore 64 fans — what’s your vote for the best C64 disk drive ever made?

“It’s as easy as a floppy.”

The Sony Digital Mavica FD-7 seemed so exciting back when it was new, and I wanted one. Its attractiveness stemmed from the cheap and familiar media it used for image storage: standard 3.5″ floppy disks. Most digital cameras of the day required expensive, obscure flash cards for storage and proprietary software to extract photos from the camera (through a painfully slow serial cable). With the FD-7, one needed only to insert the image disk into one’s computer floppy drive and copy the pictures off. But the technological price of this convenience was high: the camera’s maximum image resolution was 640×480 — anything bigger, and you’d only be able to fit a couple photos on a single 1.4 megabyte disk.

Funny enough, I recall ghost enthusiasts on the Internet circa 1998 picking the FD-7 as their camera of choice for its uncanny ability to capture vast flurries of out-of-focus dust (aka “ghost orbs”). That endorsement alone speaks volumes about the camera’s lackluster optical qualities. Also, this new breed of digital ghost hunters didn’t have to feel guilty about taking endless rolls of 35mm dust photos, which can get quite expensive to develop.

Discussion topic of the week: Tell us about the first digital camera you ever used. What brand was it, and what image resolution could it capture?

Up now on Harry McCracken’s Technologizer is my latest VC&G-related freelance work: “15 Classic PC Design Mistakes,” a non-exhaustive analysis of various hardware and software design goofs in vintage computers. In it, I discuss the Apple III, Coleco Adam, TI-99/4A, Macintosh, and more. Feel free to take a look.

Through science, we’ve discovered ways of levitating our floppy diskettes.

Discussion topic of the week: Have you ever spilled a drink or any other liquid on your computer? How did you clean it up?

You’ve probably heard of Epic Games by now — you know, the company behind Gears of War and the Unreal Engine. We read a lot about those blockbuster products these days, but Epic’s story stretches back much farther than that. For example, did you know that the very same Epic was once one of the world’s foremost shareware game publishers?

In January of this year, I had the immense honor of exploring Epic’s rich history in a sit-down interview with Tim Sweeney, founder and CEO of Epic. Over lunch at a local restaurant, we discussed his early programming years, the genesis of ZZT (Epic’s first game), Jill of the Jungle, Apogee Software, the shareware wars, his thoughts on id Software’s early work, the future of game graphics, and much more.

After some time on the back burner, this long, in-depth interview has finally seen the light of day over at Gamasutra. Shareware fans and general history computer buffs shouldn’t miss it. Heck, I did the interview and I’m reading it again. I hope you enjoy it.