Retro Geek

If anyone is interested in old crap; I've put together a SheepShaver directory with the application, a ROM and a 700 Mb HD file with Mac OS 9.04 and some applications. Get it here.

I inadvertently left my MacBook Air at home today, as I do two or three times per semester, and so I did my classroom Powerpoint presentations on the Pismo that I keep in the office for such occasions. For a 12-year-old machine, it still handles the task reasonably well--indeed, its VGA out means that it arguably interacts with the classrooms' ancient projectors than does the MacBook Air. From a 2012 perspective, Jaguar looks dated and more than a little odd. Still very little work was needed to move my presentation from Office 11 to Office 2001, and it all went smoothly (no fancy animations or videos involved). Again, not bad for a 12-year-old computer.

25 Years of HyperCard

Great article. I'd forgotten about Myst being Hypercard based...

They had to do a lot of C XCMD's and XFNC's to make it work. They were resetting the 256-color palette for every scene. Hypercard was no more than the foundation they built an enormous edifice on.

(My first paid Mac programming job involved a LOT of HyperCard and SuperCard scripting.)

Yeah, I read that article a few days ago. And I wondered how many (or, more to the point, how few) things would need to be added to Keynote to make it a modern analogue of HyperCard. For all the bullet-point evil it encompasses, I've used Keynote to mock up pretty well a bunch of interactive apps.

ddt

At one point, Apple was going to merge HyperCard into QuickTime, of all things. That was back when QuickTime was the only Apple product PC users ever heard of.

Man, hypercard could have been the future… It was the Web before the Web was the Web, as Atkinson points out.

Another one for JW - Traveller 5 Kickstarter.

Wow, I was going to blow that off, as I have no time for actual social RPG gaming these days, but I got hit with such a blast of nostalgia reading that pitch that I think I will donate, just to get a copy to read and reminisce. Of course, I still have my original set from 1977, somewhat the worse for wear.

"This is Free Trader Beowulf calling anyone..."

I'm amazed at how many $500+ donors there are for that!

Oh, God, I got sucked into Kickstarter. Now in addition to Johnny K's device, I'm tied into a bunch of games. I can't afford to go back to that site this year.

I suppose it's a good thing this one is already closed then.

I love kickstarter, except for all the people I know in the arts who send "personalized" emails begging me to support their idiot project. i can't stand that.

Quote
James DeBenedetti
I suppose it's a good thing this one is already closed then.

Blood and souls for my Lord Arioch!

Hmmm... Had a nostalgia blast for the good old Atari Lynx today. Used to play Rygar on that endlessly...

How the monochromatic Nintendo Gameboy beat the Lynx still baffles me (well, double the price may have contributed).

$75 eMate - almost tempting
http://www.ebay.com/itm/180919701993?hlp=false

I like this new Pet Shop Boys song/video.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7dBVXiydR8

When I was a kid, I got a Commodore 64 for Christmas. One of the games I got with it was Gorf.

At the time, I had never played Gorf in an arcade so I didn't realize that the C64 version was the most authentic home version available. All I knew is that I really, really enjoyed the game and once I learned that it was originally an arcade game, I wanted one.

This past weekend I finally got a Gorf cabinet. Unfotunately, it's a project. A previous owner had gutted it and done a really poor conversion to Arkanoid. They scraped the silk-screened artwork off of the monitor bezel and the unique lower-marquee and replaced the upper marquee with an Arkanoid marquee. They scraped all of the artwork off of the aluminum control panel and drilled holes for two buttons and replaced the Gorf trigger joystick with a spinner. Luckily they left the side art alone although, if you look closely, you can see that someone scrawled the words, "Ray sucks big tits," into it.

I have managed to get replacements for both marquees, the glass monitor bezel and the joystick. I've decided not to bother with a full restoration, though. I'm going to convert it to MAME so I can enjoy Gorf as well as other games. Because of this, I will probably keep the spinner but move it off to the side. This, combined with the trigger joystick will actually make it work well for games like Tron.

May it bring you years of happiness.