So that’s what a translucent tongue looks like.
Nintendo’s second round of colored Game Boy units, this time pocket-sized. And over a year before the iMac, mind you.
Discussion Topic of the Week: What is your favorite Game Boy game?
Back in January, I wrote an article about the world’s earliest known figurative computer art for The Atlantic. It it is also likely the world’s first digital computer artwork as well.
(Check out this timeline of computer art history to get an idea where this piece fits in.)
The only known physical record of this circa 1956-58 pin-up diagnostic, which ran on SAGE computer systems, comes from a Polaroid photograph snapped by U.S. airman Lawrence A. Tipton in early 1959. Tipton retains the original print, although it will likely go to a museum soon (more on that when it happens).
The digital image of the photo used in my Atlantic article was provided by Tipton to a SAGE historian over a decade ago. It was previously the highest-quality version of the photo I had access to, and that posed a few problems. Someone (likely Tipton himself) had hastily retouched the image, removing various scratches, and it was not presented in a high enough resolution to examine in detail.
To remedy that, Tipton was kind enough to make a high resolution scan of the original print and mail it to me on CD-ROM back in February. With his permission, I am providing the high-resolution scan of the pin-up console photo unretouched and unmodified below so that (a) others may learn from it and (b) to ensure that our only record of this important achievement in art is not lost.
[ Continue reading High-Res Scan of the World’s First Digital Computer Art » ]
The Star Micronics Delta-10 Dot Matrix Printer: Mouse with Machine Gun
My family owned this exact printer. In fact, I think it’s still sitting in my parents’ attic as we speak. If I’m not mistaken, we used it with our Apple IIe system — the one my dad built from a bare circuit board and a set of cloned ROM chips (much like the one in this 2006 VC&G post).
It’s probably the first printer I ever saw in action, likely before I could even walk. I can recall crawling under our computer desk (the printer was on the floor beneath it for some reason) and watching it print out whimsical banners and calendars from a program like Broderbund’s The Print Shop.
But what I remember most about it, of course, was the sound it made: like a screeching robot mouse spraying lead into tractor-feed paper with a tiny machine gun. Like any dot matrix printer, once you hear one in action, the sound will never leave you.
Those were the days.
Of course, I was still using a dot matrix printer until the early 1990s, so I am pretty much scarred for life. Mice everywhere.
Discussion Topic of the Week: What was the first printer you ever owned?
Back in the mid-late 1990s, an Internet-based BBS platform called Hotline sprung up and quickly spread throughout the Macintosh community. It was basically a client/server BBS software suite that allowed for multi-user chat, file transfers, and message boards.
By the early 2000s, though, Hotline had mostly died out. Today, only a handful of servers remain. But guess what? You can still connect to them — on Windows or a Mac. A new article I wrote for Macworld, “Hotline Revisted,” tells you how.
Have fun. Remember to be kind to the Hotline veterans when you visit.
UPON ONE OF THOSE TIMES, ULAF CREATE TRY-POD MOUNT FOR THE GAME BOY COLORFUL UNIT, THE CAMERAS, WHICH THE MINDS OF NINTENDOGS CREATES SOMETIMES NEAR 1998 (WHAT A MINDS). WITH GREATEST OF THE SKILL, ULAF CARVE FOAM BETWEEN CANS OF THE SPAM (THE FAVORITE AMERICAN FOODS) HOLLOW, INTO HOLE FOR THE HOLDING OF THE GAME BOY CONSUL OF MY MIND.
WORKED WONDER FOR THE PHOTOGRAPHAGRAPHERS OF MY MIND:
ULAF PRINT ALL THOSE PHOTOGRAPHAGRAPHERS AND HUNG THEM UPON THE REFRIDGERATE OF ULAF.
BY THE WAYS, DID NOT THE GAME BOY GROWS INTO THE GAME MEN? WHERE DID THAT LITTLE BOY OF GAMING TIME GO? MATURATION AND PUBESCENCE, THAT IS WHERE. AND ABOVE ALL OF THE NOISES IT BECOME DEATH, DESTROYER OF WORLDS AND ATE MY MIND. AHHHHHH.
PERHAP ULAF EATS THE WRONG MUSHROOM.
JUST A QUICK NOTE FROM MY MIND. GO BACK TO LIFE NOW. UNTIL NEXT TIME THIS IS ULAF SAYING BE THE MASTER.
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Ulaf Silchov is an expert in video games and computers. He also writes for “Svadlost Weekly” and “The Overachieving Underling Circular.”
It’s that time of year again…
I’m not a big fan of sports, and I’m not a big fan of sports games (Blades of Steel for the NES is probably my favorite — off the top of my head). But having grown up in the heart of ACC basketball country surrounded by great and once-great teams (UNC, Duke, NCSU, Wake Forest, etc.), I have a soft spot for the ACC and NCAA college basketball tournaments. I tend to watch a couple games a year.
So I can’t tell you much about NCAA Basketball Final Four ’97, because I’ve never played it. The closest I’ve come was NBA Live ’97 for the SNES, and that was pretty fun for a basketball game.
Discussion Topic of the Week: What’s your favorite basketball video game of all time?
Over at Kotaku, Tina Amini recently wrote a piece titled “Ouya Tries To Dispel Fears That The Console’s Nintendo Emulators Will Promote Piracy.” It’s not a good piece.
First of all, the author isn’t clear whose fears Ouya is trying to dispel. By my reading, it is only the author herself who “fears” what may happen if Ouya allows Nintendo emulators on its console, and only because she wants to drum up controversy for a blog post. Fear mongering bullshit.
Tina, don’t use fear over emulation or piracy as your traffic-boosting media pawn. It doesn’t help anybody.
Emulation isn’t the enemy. Piracy isn’t even the enemy. They’re bogeymen that help preserve a system where media companies overcharge and re-charge for their works over and over and over again. (I’m talking all media here, not just video games.)
The never-ending war against piracy isn’t a war against pirates. It’s a war against consumers. The content industry has dressed it up to look like a battle of good vs. evil when it’s really just a battle to keep your wallet pried open while dollars pour out.
That war has real casualties for everyone that are far worse than piracy: things like consumers’ fair-use rights over products they have rightfully purchased or licensed, free speech, security research, and our historical legacy.
Piracy, if left completely unchecked, would definitely hurt publishers. But it’s not unchecked. It’s illegal.
Let people do what they want with open platforms. Let the law be the law, and let the people decide if it’s in their best interest to respect it or break it.
You could always put people in straitjacket if you didn’t want them to break any laws, but it wouldn’t allow them to be free, would it?
DRM is a digital straitjacket, and a “walled garden” is a fancy name for a comfortable prison. If a company like Ouya is brave enough to let their console be used for whatever purpose, that should be commended, not discouraged.
P.S. Fix the DMCA
While researching my slideshow on smartwatch history for TechHive last month, I came across an interesting 1989 letter to Computerworld magazine. It was a response to an earlier article in the publication about the inevitability of a wearable watch-sized microcomputer.
I find the letter prescient because its author imagines the consequences of walking around with a full-blown networked computer on your wrist. And he was right about his predictions in every regard except one: instead of computers on our wrists, we’re walking around with computers in our pockets. In other words, smartphones.
But that’s the nature of predicting the future. You can often get the general trends correct without knowing the details. Nobody in 1989 had any idea that the cell phone, instead of the watch, would first become the vehicle through which we’d wear tiny networked computers on our persons almost every hour of the day.
[ Continue reading Predicting the Smartphone in 1989 — as the Smartwatch » ]
A scene from one of Benj’s recent nightmares.
Hey mime! Yeah, you! Stop stealing my $599 Mimic Spartan Apple II+ compatibility box for the Commodore 64. I need it to open up a whole new world of hardware and software.
Just for a second, imagine if I could add these features to my Commodore 64: Apple II+ hardware and software capabilities, 64K RAM expansion, four software selectable Commodore 64 cartridge slots, non-dedicated 8-bit parallel port, and standard audio cassette deck capabilities for my C-64. Yep, all of that!
The suggested retail value of comparable products offering only these capabilities is over $2,200.00*. But the Spartan gives me much, much more, mime! Oh yes. By building on my investment in my Commodore 64 — an excellent introductory computer — I create a whole new system with both C-64 an Apple II+ capabilities.
There is a whole other world out there! And if you’d just give it back, a huge selection of Apple II+ hardware and software would be mine to explore. Call toll free for the Spartan dealer nearest you.
* Burp.
Discussion Topic of the Week: Open Discussion: Whoever posts a question first gets to decide what we’ll talk about this week.
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See Also: MacCharlie’s FrankenMac (2013)
I last updated you on my Macworld work back in January. Since then, I’ve been busy writing more historically-minded pieces for the site as well as its sister site, TechHive. Below you’ll find a list of the ones I haven’t mentioned yet on this blog in convenient digest form.
Phew. I’ve been busy! Of those eight pieces, the Apple Lisa one can’t be missed. Plenty of interesting little-known history there. The Mac Color Classic and Abandoned Apples pieces are some of my favorites as well.
I’m not sure, but I get the feeling from the lack of comments on my Apple-related posts that not many Apple or Mac fans visit VC&G. Not quite sure why that is, but if you’re out there, let me know.
