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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.

INSIST ON QUICKSHOT! THE GENUINE PIECE!!!

I own a few QuickShot joysticks, but I don’t believe I’ve used any of these particular models. Third-party console controllers weren’t all that popular in the age of the NES (relative to the 2600 days, at least), likely because the NES’s own pads (and the NES Advantage and Max) were so good to begin with. Same with the Genesis and Super NES. That fact alone probably killed a few third party video game peripheral companies that were hanging on from the Atari 2600 era, although the QuickShot brand lived on until the late 1990s.

Discussion Topic of the Week: Did/do you commonly use third-party controllers for your classic video game systems? Which one is your favorite?

Just a few days ago, renowned video game historians Marty Goldberg (formerly of ClassicGaming.com) and Curt Vendel (Atari collector extraordinaire) published their epic Atari history book, Atari Inc.: Business is Fun.

And by epic, I mean 800-pages epic. Its launch coincides with the 40th anniversary of the legendary video game company, which happens to be this year. (In fact, the 40th anniversary of Pong’s public debut happens to be today.)

I haven’t gotten my hands on a copy of this massive work yet, but I thought I’d let you guys know about it because it promises to be an interesting read.

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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!

A vintage printout of my first BBS log.

Twenty years ago yesterday, I set up a BBS for the first time. The Cave BBS. Admittedly, it was nothing more than a bare-bones system run through Procomm Plus’ Minihost module Minihost, but it was a start. Within a few weeks (with a brief detour running VBBS for a few days), I had a full-fledged WWIV BBS setup running on a Tandy 1800 HD laptop with a 2400 BPS modem.

[Brief aside — I can’t find a copy of that ProComm Plus MiniHost for MS-DOS software anywhere — does anyone have it? I have the terminal emulator part, but not the MiniHost.] [ Update 11/27/2012 – Thanks to Jim Carpenter (see comments) for helping me find it! ]

[ Continue reading [ Retro Scan of the Week ] The Cave BBS Turns 20 » ]

FINALLY, I mean, COME ON.

You too could be the proud owner of this Radio Shack TRS-80 DC-2212 1200 baud modem for the low, low price of $399.95 (about $859.81 in 2012 dollars).

…If you traveled back in time with the proper currency, that is. But I wouldn’t recommend it.

I recently bought a cable modem that is the equivalent of a 150,000,000 baud modem. It cost $70 in 2012 dollars. Not bad for progress.

Discussion Topic of the Week: What speed was you first modem?